Collaboration Tools

Discussion Boards

Blackboard’s discussion board feature allows participants to carry on discussions online, at any time of the day or night, with no need for the participants to be logged into the site at the same time. The discussion is recorded on the course site for all to review and respond at their convenience. The discussions may be graded as well. You may have multiple discussion board forums in your course – for example, you might choose to have a different forum for each topic. If you are using the Blackboard Groups feature, you may find it useful to have a discussion board for each group. A course discussion board can contain multiple forums; each forum may contain multiple threads; and each thread may contain multiple postings.

Some ways that discussion boards are used include:

• Instructors post questions on a course discussion board, which students respond to before a class session
• Instructors have students post their work to a discussion board so other students can see it
• Students post reading responses to a discussion board

You can also view the Use Discussions video for information on using Discussion Boards.

Class for Web

Class for Web (formerly Blackboard Collaborate Ultra) is an always-on, real-time, online meeting tool available in all Blackboard courses. It lets you share your audio and video, add files, share applications, and use a virtual whiteboard to interact. Class for Web opens right in your browser, so you don't have to install any software to join or manage a session.

You can also view the User Interface Tour video for more information.