Communication Tools
Digital Drop Box
Discussion Board
Chat Room and Virtual Classroom
Email
File Exchange
Blackboard has a wealth of communication and collaboration tools that can be used within a Blackboard course site. Depending on whether the course site acts as a compliment to a traditional classroom setting or whether it's a hybrid or web-based course will determine what tools are most appropriate. Blackboard offers both asynchronous and synchronous tools and it's recommended that you familiarize yourself with the various methods of communication before requesting students use them.
Digital Drop Box
The Digital Drop Box no longer exists in Bb9. If you're looking for a place for student's to submit items, consider the Assignment Tool (or SafeAssignment for documents that need to be filtered through a plagiarism filtering tool), located in any content area under the "Evaluate" button.
Discussion Board
Particularly in a web-based course, the Discussion Board is an integral part of the class. It is a tool that fosters relationships, increases outside classroom discussion and encourages community. It can be used as a general open discussion tool or as an assignment tool by attaching parameters or gradable expectations around a forum. The Discussion Board is an asynchronous tool, meaning that discussion between all users does not take place in real time. Students can add to a discussion without others being present at the same time.
To create a new forum:
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From the Control Panel click on ‘Discussion Board' under Course Tools.
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Click on the course ID link.
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Click on the ‘Add Forum' icon button
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Give the forum a name and a description if required. If you are using the forum as an assignment tool this is where you can type in the question and grade parameters, i.e. Discuss what effect losing his father at a young age had on Luke and his desire to become a Jedi Knight. Reply to at least two of your peers. Your answers should include film references and you should cite at least one literary reference. You will be awarded 10 points for your answers, participation and for meeting the grading criteria.
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Forum availability defaults to ‘Yes', click on the radial button if you don't want the forum to be immediately available to students.
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Select the Forum Settings you wish to surround the forum. N.B. If you are grading the forum be sure to select ‘Grade forum: Points possible:' and enter the number of points in the box. This will automatically create an item entry in your Gradebook that allows you to easily grade a student's responses and participation based on whatever criteria you set. I highly recommend NOT selecting Grade threads - you'll end up with a lot of Gradebook items.
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Click ‘Submit'.
To add a new thread, (think of a thread as a new subject within a forum)
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Click on the forum title.
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Click on the Add thread icon.
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You must give your thread a subject. Type your message.
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Click Submit.
To reply to a thread or post click on the thread title.
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Click on the thread title.
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Click on the Reply button, located both in the top left and in the text body of the post.
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You must give your reply post a subject. Type your message.
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Click Submit.
Chat Room and Virtual Classroom
The Chat Room feature is a basic synchronistic chat tool that allows real time discussion between students in a particular course site to occur. The Virtual Classroom is an extended version of the Chat Room that also features a Course Map, Whiteboard, an Ask Question tool and the ability to have Breakout Sessions. You can record sessions in both the Chat Room and the Virtual Classroom for replay and review at a later time.
To set up a Collaboration session
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From the Control Panel click on ‘Collaboration' under the Course Tools section.
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Click on the "Create Collaboration Session" icon.
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Give your session a name.
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Select the date and time you want the session to be available.
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From the drop-down menu select whether you want the session tool to be a Chat Room session or the Virtual Classroom.
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Click "Submit".
To join a collaboration session click on the "Join" button to the right of the pertinent session. As the instructor you are responsible for recording the session if you want it saved. To record a session click on the circle button in the top right hand corner of the session window
Give your recording a name and click ‘OK'. Everything that goes on during the session will be recorded and available as a transcript once the session has ended. To stop a recording click on the circle button once.
Email
Course participants can easily send email from within a course site. Please note however that Blackboard is merely the vehicle, the email is sent to a recipient's sf.edu or cougars.sf.edu inbox and neither sent nor received mail is stored in Blackboard. If students are not receiving email or you are receiving a "cannot be delivered" message, remind students that they need to clean out their mailboxes. If a student's inbox is full, the email will simply be bounced back to the sender. The nice feature about using Blackboard to send email is that you can easily select just your enrolled students or individual students or groups you've set up within the particular class, rather than having to create a group in Outlook or your mail application.
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To send an email click on "Send Email" under Course Tools within the Control Panel
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Make the appropriate selection as to who you wish to send a message - All Users, All groups, Single/Select Users, etc.
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For Single/Select Users or Groups, from the "Items to Select" select those recipients you wish to mail and then click on the arrow (greater-than symbol) to move the names into the "Selected" box (you can do this one at a time or you can select multiples users at one by clicking on one name, holding down the ctrl-key, then selecting additional names, and then clicking the arrow to send the names over all at once).
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Give your message a subject and then type your body of the message.
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You have the option to Attach a file.
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Click ‘Submit' to send the message.
While Bb will not store sent email for you, as the sender, you will receive a copy of the email to your sf.edu account for every email you send. You may want to create a folder in Outlook so that you can organize and sort these email for later reference.
File Exchange
File Exchange is a feature available as a Group tool. If you set up groups in your Blackboard course site, students can easily exchange files within their group using the File Exchange under Group Page from within the Communication link. The File Exchange allows students to upload materials to their Group site and share these resources among assigned group members. A student clicks on the ‘Add File' icon, names their file and then browses on their computer for the file to add. The file is then posted on Blackboard and can be accessed by either the other students in that group or by the instructor.
