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Instructional Services

Communicating with Students in Blackboard

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Building effective Interaction with your students is an important part for any quality courses. Blackboard communication tools provide flexibility for instructor and students to communicate each other. This workshop covers the following topics:

  1. Setting up a gradable discussion forum
  2. Setting up student group activities
  3. Virtual collaboration
  4. The differences between “Sending Email” and “Message” in Blackboard
  5. Creating and viewing student homepage in Blackboard

About Discussion Forum

  1. Two types of discussion forums: In a blackboard course, instructors can set up two types of discussion forums.
    1. General Discussion can be accessed by everyone in the course
    2. Group Discussion can only be accessed by the student members in the group (the groups are assigned by the course instructor)

Setting up a Gradable Discussion Forum

  1. Control Panel -> Course Tools -> Discussion Board -> Click the course link to continue
  2. Click Add discussion forum button to add a discussion forum
  3. Under Forum Settings, check the “Grade Forum” radio button and add the possible points
  4. A column now has been added to Gradebook automatically

Setting Up Student Group Activities

In a large online classroom, group activities can provide an efficient way of student to student interaction

  1. Creating student groups
    1. Control Panel -> User Management -> Manage Group
    2. ClickAdd group button to name group. You may add the student names in the group description and check the Group Options.
  2. Adding group members
    1. Control Panel -> Manage Groups
    2. Choose the group -> clickModify button -> Click “ Add Users to Group”
    3. Click search, all the users in this course will appear here
      Search screen
    4. Select the names of those you want to add in this group
  3. Setting up group discussion activities
    1. After the groups have been created, the course instructor will need to set up a discussion area for each group.
    2. On the course homepage, click Communication to access Group pages
      Communication link image
    3. To enable the group discussion activities, the course instructors must create a forum for each group. Click “Group Discussion Board” to create a forum
      Group discussion board screen
    4. Other group functions: Collaboration, File Exchange and Send Email
  4. Virtual Collaboration
    1. Virtual Collaboration is a synchronous tool in blackboard. It allows the
      instructors and students to participate classroom activities at the same time. The collaboration
      sessions can be recorded and archived. There are two types of collaboration:
      1. Virtual Classroom: has more functions as following:
        1. Map (course structure map)
        2. White board: drawing tool and displaying a page or picture from the course
        3. Group Browser: share a website
        4. Ask Question
        5. Question inbox
      2. Chat: acts like an instant message tool
  5. The difference between “Sending Email” and “Message” in Blackboard
    1. Sending Email: The emails will go to students’ normal email addresses outside Blackboard
    2. Message: Instructor communicate with students using the mail feature inside Blackbaord
  6. Creating and viewing student homepage in Blackboard
    1. How students can create student homepage
      1. In a Blackboard course, click Course Tool -> clickHomepage icon to access to Homepage creation page.
    2. Where to view student homepages
      1. As a student, click the “Communication” link on the course homepage -> clickRoster icon and click searchSearch screen
         to view your own student homepage or the student homepage of some in your class. 

 

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