blackboard communication tools - city university of new...
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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