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. Some people consider the Discussion Board to be the heart of an online course, in any case, it's a perfect place to communicate with your classmates and your instructor. 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.
You can use Blackboard to send e-mail messages from your official Harper E-mail Account to your instructor and fellow students. Check for replies to your messages in your official Harper E-mail Account. Explore the Blackboard Email Tutorial.
Messages
Blackboard offers a message-sending feature called Messages. The Messages feature allows you, your Instructor, and your fellow students to send and receive messages without using e-mail. Your instructor will tell you if he or she is using Messages in your course. Explore the Messages Tutorial.