Canvas various ways to communicate with students electronically.
Announcements. A teacher can create an announcement in a course. Announcement are visible in the Canvas course, and new announcements will be highlighted on each student's Canvas Dashboard. In addition, that announcement will generate a notification to the student. By default the notification is an immediate email to the student's @mpc.edu email address. But students can change how they receive notifications, such as via text message rather than email, or even deciding to not receive notifications outside of Canvas. Here is how to add an Announcement in a Canvas course. Here is the full Canvas Announcements documentation.
Inbox (aka Conversations). Both teachers and students can send Canvas Inbox messages. The Inbox messages are visible in Canvas and new Inbox messages will be highlighted next to the Inbox icon in the far left global navigation throughout Canvas. In addition, the Inbox message will generate a notification to the student. By default the notification is an immediate email to the student's @mpc.edu email address. But students can change how they receive notifications, such as via text message rather than email, or even deciding to not receive notifications outside of Canvas. Here is how to use Inbox. Here is the full Canvas Inbox (aka Conversations) documentation.
Chat. Before you can use chat, you have to enable it in your course navigation. Here is the documentation for using the Canvas Chat feature. One note of caution: Chat is public to the course, meaning all students can see all chat messages even those they didn't create, including the full history of all chat messages from all students for the entire semester. Chat participants need to be cautious about putting content that shouldn't be visible to everyone. Also, if chat is enabled, students can use it to chat among themselves, even if the teacher isn't present. Some teachers disable chat (via Settings | Navigation | Chat | Disable, then Save) when the teacher is not monitoring it.
ConferZoom. Conferzoom is a webinar software that can work for synchronous meetings and office hours. Before you can use Conferzoom, you have to enable it in your course navigation. Here is documentation for teachers to set up ConferZoom in Canvas. The ConferZoom website has guides for participants.
There are non-Canvas ways to communicate as well, including email, telephone, Skype, Google Hangouts, etc....