Borough of Manhattan Community College

Blackboard Communication Tools

Donna M. DickinsonE-Learning Center

Workshop Overview

• Email from Communication Area and directly from the Grade Center

• Using Blackboard discussion boards

• Reformat discussion board threads for reading, printing and searching

• Assign students to groups

• Create group and class writing assignments with wikis

Workshop Overview

• Use blogs for personal journals or group projects

• Communicate asynchronously with the Virtual Classroom and Lightweight Chat

• Check attendance through the Performance Dashboard

• Use the Early Warning System to communicate student progress

Communication Tools

• Asynchronous Communication– Class interaction and learning take place

in different time frames

– Blackboard Tools: Email, Discussion Boards, Blogs and Wikis

• Synchronous Communication– Class interaction and learning take place

in real time

– Blackboard Tools: Virtual Classroom and Lightweight Chat

Blackboard Email

• Students access email from Communication area

• Permits class participants to email each other

• Uses CUNY email addresses only

Blackboard Email

• Update tool is available on Blackboard homepage where courses are listed

• Instructor accesses email from the Control Panel

• Instructor has ability to send emails to individual students directly from the Grade Center

Email from Grade Center

• Action Bar is a new feature in Blackboard 8

• Emails can be sent directly from Grade Center

Discussion Board Applications

• Provides forum for a free exchange of ideas

• Facilitates student/teacher interactivity

• Activates student learning

• Encourages students to work together

• Promotes equitable communication patterns

Creating Discussions: Creating Forums

When creating forums, choose settings to reflect

your pedagogical goals for the discussion.

• For example, your goal might be to create:

– effective social forums

– forums where members control the discussion

– forums where you have control

Sample Forum Ideas

• Introductions– A place where participants can get to know each other.

• Questions about the Course– A place where students can ask questions and get answers

from other students and the instructor

• Technology Tips– A place where participants can assist each other in using

Blackboard and with technology in general.

• Cyber Café– A place to discuss topics of general interest.

Sample Forum Ideas

Sample Forum Ideas

Discussion Boards

• The main Discussion Board page contains:

– one or more forums

– forums, which contain

threads

– threads, which contain

posts

World Politics Forum

Energy & War

GlobalWarming

Post a

Post b

Post c

Post 1

Post 2

Post 3

Reply posts

Main post

Thread

Discussion Boards

• A main forum is automatically created for each course

• You can then create additional forums and threads

• When you create a forum, you decide what the settings should be, e.g. graded or ungraded

Forum Settings

New Discussion Board Tools

• Enhanced workflow

• Faster navigation

• Better collection views

• Forum level subscription

• Reply with quote

• Tagging

• Mark messages read or unread

Reading Unread Posts

Clicking on the number of unread posts will show you

ONLY those posts you have not viewed before.

However, in this view, the post will not be marked as read UNLESS you click the “Mark as Read” button”

Thread View default Use these buttons to control the

thread panel

Move the thread panel

below the post.

Hide /show the panel

Minimize/maximize

the panel

Move from thread to thread

Move from post to post

Collecting Posts

• Collecting posts can facilitate sorting and printing.

• To collect posts, first check off which threads to collect, or choose Select All and Go.

• Then click the Collect button.

Managing Collected Posts

To view the posts by a particular author, use the

Author filter

To view only unread posts, use the Status filter

To mark posts as read, either click on the “Mark as Read” button on each post, or select some or all threads, and choose Mark Read

Once the posts are collected, most people sort them by threads, in ascending (date/time) order.

Copy Discussion Boards

• You can copy a forum to another part of the same course, or to a different course.

Locking a forum

• Lock a forum by selecting all the threads, and then changing the status to Locked.

• You may also want to change the forum so that students are not allowed to add new threads.

Search

• Click on the search button.

• Put in your search text.

• Choose to search inside current thread, current forum, or all forums in the course.

• Limit by date

Rating Posts 1-5 stars

• When you create/modify a forum, you can enable post rating.

• Readers can then give a post 1-5 stars

Subscribing to Posts

• When you create/modify a forum, you can enable post subscriptions.

• Readers can then choose to subscribe, which sends an email whenever a new post is added to that thread/forum.

Post tagging (labeling)

• When you create/modify a forum, you can enable tagging.

• Collected posts can then be tagged with labels that can be later used for filtering and searching.

Online Discussion Tips

• Give each forum a clear title.

• Post an announcement that discussion has begun.

• Make online discussion an integral part of your course.

• Introduce and train students to use the discussion board.

Online Discussion Tips

• Provide different types of discussion areas.

• Offer clear guidelines on participation and on the rules to be followed.

• Model the type of discussion you hope to see.

• Solicit topics for discussion.

• Have someone offer a summary.

Manage Groups Feature

• Build study or project groups easily within Blackboard

• Students access groups from Communication area

• Groups may have their own:– Discussion board

– Virtual classroom

– File exchange

– Email function

Manage Groups Feature

• Group work (Collaborative learning):

– Significantly improves learning and

retention of material

– Promotes critical thinking

– Increases motivation

– Leads to higher levels of creativity and

productivity

– Develops an increased awareness of

diverse viewpoints

Sample Group Activities

• Have small groups discuss issues relevant

to lecture topics throughout the semester.

• Have student groups research, develop, and

write case studies.

• Have students create a project or work on

an assessment task in a small group.

• Show students part of an experiment and

have them as a group make a prediction as

to the results.

Online Groups Tips

• Do not make the groups too large –maximum should around 8.

• Link group work to course goals.

• Define expectations for interaction and contributions of individuals.

• Design truly cooperative teams.

• Include opportunity for members to evaluate group.

Learning Objects

• Learning Objects building block for Blackboard includes blogs and wikis

• You can create a grade center entry for both tools

• There a course-wide wikis and blogs and content area wikis and blogs

• Wikis are called TeamsLX and Blogs are called JournalLX

Wikis

• Software that allows web pages to be created and edited by anyone

• Used for collaborative tasks

• When updates are made, the history is tracked so you can who wrote what and when

Ideas for Using Wikis

• Free writing

• Debate course topics

• Shares resources such as bibliographies, glossaries and websites

• Collaboration by students on essays and other documents

• Use for group projects

• Example: Work Study Wiki

Configuring Wikis

• Before adding a wiki, you have to configure the wiki tool

1. From the Control Panel, select Configure Wiki Tool under Course Tools

2. Make your desired choices for the wiki

3. Click OK

• Once it is configured, it is available as a course wide wiki under Tools on the main course menu

Configure Course Wiki

Creating a Content Area Wiki

1. Go to the Control Panel

2. Choose content area in which you wish to add the wiki

3. Over on right side of screen, choose wiki from drop-down menu

4. Click Go

Content Area Wiki

Content Area Wiki

5. Enter wiki name, description, select its availability and other options

6. Select the members and member settings. You can add groups or individual users

7. Make non-member settings

8. Set Grade Center options

9. Click OK

Viewing and Editing a Wiki

Viewing and Editing a Wiki

Blogs

• Website used to post entries either long or short

• Sometimes viewed as journals or diaries

• Frequently updated

• Readers can comment on entries

Ideas for Using Blogs

• Post individual journal entries

• Share writings

• Post essays

• Pose debate or ethical questions

• Share photographs or other artwork

• Example: Salzburg Seminar blog

Configuring Blogs

• Before adding a blog, you have to configure the blog tool

1. From the Control Panel, select Configure Blog Tool under Course Tools

2. Make your desired choices for the blog

3. Click OK

• Once it is configured, it is available as a course wide blog under Tools on the main course menu

Configure Course Blog

Creating a Content Area Blog

1. Go to the Control Panel

2. Choose content area in which you wish to add the blog

3. Over on right side of screen, choose blog from drop-down menu

4. Click Go

Content Area Blog

Content Area Blog

5. Enter blog name, description and select its availability

6. Select the blog type: Group or Private

7. Select the members and member settings. You can add groups or individual users

8. Make non-member settings

9. Set Grade Center options

10.Click OK

Viewing and Editing a Blog

Viewing and Editing a Blog

Viewing and Editing a Blog

Grading Wikis and Blogs

• To grade a student’s work in either a wiki or blog:

1. Go to the Control Panel

2. Select the Grade Center under Assessment

3. Enter the student grade in the appropriate column

Blackboard Synchronous

Tools

• Office Hours (Lightweight Chat)

• Lecture Hall (Virtual Classroom)

• Uses

– Real-time lessons

– Real-time, online discussions

– Live question and answer forums

– Archives of previous sessions available

for review

Types of Sessions

• Virtual Classroom: real-time discussion, Web

access, Course access, Whiteboard and question

and answers.

• Chat: real-time discussion that can be accessed

alone. Is also part of the Virtual Classroom.

Performance Dashboard

• Accessed from the Assessment area of the Control Panel

Performance Dashboard

• Displays all users in the course

– Last course access and days since last access

– Review status

– Adaptive release

– Discussion board posts

– Early warning system

– View grades

Early Warning System

• Accessed from the Assessment area of the Control Panel

Early Warning System

• Can be set up to determine which students haven’t met some criteria

• Different rules can be created regarding student performance (grade or due date) or course access

• Each rule will generate a list of students meeting the criteria

Early Warning System

• Once rule is created, instructor must manually trigger the rule by clicking Refresh

• Students can be easily notified by email

• Alerts sent to students are kept in a log that is searchable

Assignments Feature

• Used in place of the old Digital Drop Box

• Permits students to submit their work electronically

• Instructor returns work, gives grades and provides feedback through the Grade Center

SafeAssign

• Similar to Turnitin except it’s built into Blackboard

• Compares submitted assignments against database to check for plagiarism