Interact with Students

Announcements are best used for sharing important updates with students throughout the course. Instructors commonly use announcements to communicate the following: 

• Due dates for assignments and projects
• Changes to your syllabus
• Corrections/clarifications of materials
• Exam schedules

Announcements can be created and managed from the Announcements area of the course. When an announcement is posted, instructors can choose to send it as an email so students receive the message even if they are not actively logging into the course.

The messages tool allows instructors and students to communicate directly within Blackboard Ultra. Messages can be sent to individuals, groups, or the entire class without relying on external email addresses. Use Messages to quickly notify students about important deadlines and schedule changes.

The email tool lets you send emails to individuals or groups directly from your course. You never even have to leave Blackboard Ultra! 

The roster provides a quick way for you to view everyone enrolled in your course and connect student names with their faces. From the roster, instructors can also send messages to students or other course participants.

Users can add profile photos to their course; these pictures will display throughout the course, including in the gradebook, groups, discussions, conversations, and messages. If no photo is added, a default image is displayed. Selecting a name in the roster opens additional profile details, based on each user’s privacy settings.

Add recorded audio or video feedback alongside written comments when grading. Recordings can be added directly from the grading editor by selecting Insert/Edit Recording.

Discussions support meaningful interaction by giving students time to think before responding. This often leads to more thoughtful posts and allows instructors to see how students are engaging with course concepts, including where misunderstandings may occur. Discussions also extend learning beyond scheduled class time, helping keep students engaged throughout the week.

Additionally, online discussions play an important role in building community. They give students space to exchange ideas, learn from one another, and recreate the kinds of conversations that happen in a traditional classroom.

For smaller classes or group work, instructors can create group discussions that are only visible to members of a specific group.

Some ways that discussions 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

Conversations allow students to ask questions and discuss specific content in your course. Students can ask for help, share sources, or respond to questions from you or their classmates—all in one place.

These conversations stay connected to the related material and do not appear on the Discussions page, helping keep questions organized and easy to find.

Conversations can be enabled for:

• Documents
• Assignments
• Group assignments
• Tests
• Group tests
• Offline submissions
• Links to teaching tools

Journals provide a private space for students to communicate directly with their instructor and reflect on their learning. Students can use journals to share ideas, questions, concerns, or analysis related to course content.

You can design a variety of journal assignments, from open-ended reflections to more structured, guided entries. Journals can be used to help students think about their learning process, explore how their understanding changes over time, and describe challenges they encountered and how they addressed them. Prompts or topic lists can be added to guide student responses when a more focused reflection is needed.

Additional journal features include:

• Students may submit unlimited entries
• Students and instructors can decide the number of items that appear per page
• Instructors can track the number of graded journal entries

Encourage student collaboration with Groups! You can organize students into groups, allowing them to interact with one another and demonstrate their knowledge. Working with peers can help students better understand course material, think more critically, and apply concepts in new ways.

How group work benefits students

Research shows that collaborative learning can:

• Improve long-term retention of information.
• Expose students to new viewpoints and approaches.
• Create sustained, positive associations with course materials.
• Increase confidence and motivation.
• Strengthen peer connections and the overall learning experience.
• Build communication and collaboration skills.

Source: "44 Benefits of Collaborative Learning." gdrc.org n.d. Web. 3 Jan. 2020.

Enhance collaboration and engagement in your courses with the new Microsoft 365 (MS 365) integration in Blackboard Ultra. The MS 365 LTI app connects you and your students to familiar Microsoft tools, including:

• Microsoft Teams Meetings – Easily schedule, join, and manage Teams meetings directly from your course.
• OneNote Class Notebook – Create a shared digital notebook to organize class materials and engage students in interactive learning.

You control which MS apps are available to your students!

For guidance on setting up the Microsoft Education integration, review the Microsoft Education Integration in Blackboard Ultra article.  

Please note: Faculty should continue to apply accessibility best practices when using Microsoft 365 tools in Blackboard Ultra to ensure an inclusive learning experience.

Class for Web is an always-on, real-time meeting tool available in all Blackboard Ultra courses. It allows you to share audio and video, add files, share applications, and collaborate using a virtual whiteboard. Class for Web opens directly in your browser, so you don't have to install any software to join or manage a session.

Visit the Class for Web support site for more information.