Using Slack in the Classroom: A Case Study

Professors teaching jam-packed survey classes face many challenges. To be sure, Introduction to Information Systems is no exception to this rule. At a high level, the sheer number of topics can overwhelm students—typically sophomores. From the professor's point of view, teaching a dense, lecture-based course makes it difficult to regularly engage students. As I'll show in this post, for this very reason, a tool such as Slack is indispensable.

How Users Work

Early in the course, I lecture the students on how computers, cloud computing, and the Internet work. There's just no getting around these foundational topics and the need for classic lectures. Professors then cover how users work on their computers. If that sounds like a robust subject that's tough to cram into a 50-minute class, then trust your instincts. (I had lobbied the course coordinator to reduce the amount of content, but my arguments fell on deaf ears.)