Communication

Whenever you want to communicate with your teacher, you have several options. You can email him or her, call your teacher, or visit your teacher at the school (maybe email or call ahead of time to make sure that your teacher is available though). 

Email communication:
  • You will first email your teacher from your personal email account (Gmail, Hotmail, etc.) to indicate that you are ready to start the course.
  • Your teacher will then provide you with a new Gmail account (ocsbstudent.ca) on the following Monday. You will then only use this new school account. The only time to contact your teacher with your personal email account is to request login information or request a password reset.​
Email etiquette:
  • provide a good subject line
  • provide your name and the lesson/assignment that you are working on 
Our teaching staff will try to reply to your emails as promptly as possible. If you are having a problem on an assignment, move on to the next lesson/activity while you wait for a reply from your teacher.

Brightspace communication tools

Teachers use other communication tools in Brightspace to keep students updated throughout the course. These tools are explained below and are found on the main course home page so you can check it every time you access your course.

​News Widget:
  • Your teacher may post important information about your course or upcoming events (such as holidays, PD Days, etc)
  • On your course homepage, go to 'Show All News Items' in the bottom right corner of the News Widget to access additional items
  • Click the 'x' in the top right corner to dismiss the News item.  It will reappear only if the teacher makes changes to the News Item.
St. Nicholas Twitter News:
  • News that is relevant to the whole St. Nicholas community.
  • School news and events will be posted here regularly as well as general interest items.
Move on to helpful tools.