Course Map

Introduction

The benefits of online learning?

Is online learning for you?

Managing your time

Online communication

Netiquette

Emoticons

Web browsers

Search engines

Citing sources

Downloads

Keyboard shortcuts

Computer security

Blackboard

Discussion Board

Help

Surveys

Requirements

Glossary

The Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center

 

How to Be a
Good Online Learner

How do I use the Discussion Board in Blackboard?

The bulk of your work will be done on the Discussion Board in Blackboard.  You will need to know how to post your responses to the threads on the Discussion Board. 

The content facilitator for your course will track your progress through your discussion board postings.  This is how you complete the course requirements for getting your certificate.

Blackboard's Dicussion Boards

To access the Discussion Board, click on the button on the left of the screen labelled Discussion Board.

You will see the first forums for the course. The first two forums are the Free-for-All Forum and Great Links. These will appear in all courses. You will then see the first of the weekly forums following. Each week's forum is time released on the Friday before the start of the week. You will not be able to see those forums until their release date.

To read the postings on the Dicussion Board and to post your assignments, you will need to select the appropriate forum for that week by clicking on the name of the forum. You will now see the titles of the threads within that forum.

Once you have clicked on the thread title, you will be able to see all responses within the thread.

 

Threaded Discussion

Blackboard's Discussion Board takes the form of a threaded discussion. As defined by Stevenson, "the term threaded refers to the fact that the discussion contains threads of conversations that you follow from first message to last to get the logical flow of people's comments to each other."

The original message will be displayed at the far left of the screen.  Any responses to it will be indented, and any responses to those will be further indented. 

In this example of a threaded discussion, *,* (this is the facilitator's generic posting) posted the original message.  Jennifer, Arleen, Linda, and Elizabeth all responded directly to the original post. 

Jaye then responded to Jennifer's reply. You can also see that then Jane responded to Jaye and Jaye then responded back to Jane continuining the discussion.

When threaded discussions get a little long, it can be confusing at times to determine what is a response to the original message.  You will notice the minus (-) signs in the above example.  They show that the threads have been expanded out all the way.  You may click on the minus sign and it will collapse that branch of the thread.  Here is the same conversation as above except it is collapsed to show only the responses to the original post.

You'll notice that you see many more of the replies to the orginal post when you collapse conversations within the thread. Notice that the minus (-) signs now appear as plus (+) signs.  This tells you that you can expand that thread to see the rest of it.

Posting to the Discussion Board

There are two types of postings on the Discussion Board:  replies and new threads.

Replies

Most of your activity on the Discussion Board will be as replies to either the original post or to your classmates' postings.

To reply to a post in Blackboard, follow these steps:

  1. Click on the title of the thread which will open that post for you. 

  2. Read the post which appears in a box below the thread.

  3. Look to the right side of the poast and click on the reply button .

  4. This will give you the Response screen.  Type your response in the Message box.  If you need to attach any files to your post then you would do so below the Message box. To attach a file, click the "Attach a file" link. Then click the Browse button and locate the file on the appropriate drive or disk.  Then click Select.

  5. Once you have typed in your response, click the Submit button at the far right of the screen below the Message box.

 

New Thread

In the Free-for-All and Great Links forums, you may want to start a new discussion rather than continue responding to a particular thread. This is particularly appropriate if you are starting a new conversation.

To start a new thread, follow these steps:

  1. Click on the Add New Thread button at the top of the Discussion Board.

  2. Type the Subject name of your new thread.

  3. Type your message within the Message box.

  4. Click the Submit button at the far right of the screen below the Message box.

 

A Few Other Discussion Board Tips

Private Emailing

You may privately email someone about one of their postings.  To do this, click on their name rather than the subject of the post.  This will generate an email message that you may send directly to them rather than sharing with the group.

Remember that you will only get credit for those responses that you post on the Discussion Board. 

Difficulty

If you have any difficulty with posting to the Discussion Board, contact Hillary Major at courses@valrc.org or 1-800-237-0178.