Using Blackboard: Communication
Establishing a community of online learners helps to make an online course seem more personal for the students. Blackboard offers features to promote the communication that's needed to build a community. Two features are the Discussion Board and the Collaboration Chat areas. Most online courses and many traditional classroom courses use the Discussion Board.
Discussion Board
A discussion board enables the students and the instructor to discuss issues and exchange ideas while not all being on-line at the same time — this is called asynchronous communication.
You can think of a discussion board as an electronic bulletin board where an idea or question can be posed and others can read this when they log in and then respond to it. Explore the Discussion Board Tutorial.
Chat
Blackboard offers chat functionality in its Collaboration area. There are two types of chats applications: a Lightweight Chat and Virtual "Lecture Hall" Classroom. Chats provide the opportunity for everyone to participate at the same time -- this is called synchronous communication. Your instructor may use these tools for group discussions, virtual office hours, or conversations with a guest speaker. Your instructor will tell you if he or she is using Chat in your course. Explore the Chat Tutorial.