Blackboard Methods of Communication

Email

Advantages

• Replaces the need to collect and maintain lists of student email addresses. Messages are sent to students' official university email addresses.
• Email is sent through Blackboard by selecting a student (by name) from a list.
• Email may be sent to individual students, groups of students, or the entire class.
• Optionally, students can send email to one another or the entire class.

Disadvantages

• Good for "broadcast" messages, but ineffective for multi-way communication.
• A copy of the correspondence is not kept in your Saved Messages; however, the option is available to send a copy of the message to yourself.

Threaded Discussion (Discussion Board)

Advantages

• Provides good multi-way communication.
• Provides a very public means communication.
• Students can respond to other students; sometimes eliminates the need for the instructor to answer the same question several times.
• Can facilitate very meaningful discussion among students.

Disadvantages

• Discussions are very public; students sometimes need to be reminded of this (i.e. grading questions should not be asked here.)
• Discussions can become very large and hard to follow without guidelines.
• "Flaming" can sometimes occur; students should be reminded of guidelines and Netiquette.

Virtual Classroom (Chat and Whiteboard)

Advantages

• Communication occurs in real time; provides an immediate exchange of information.
• The Whiteboard provides a means to post slides, view Web sites and draw figures.
• Effective for faculty office hours for online classes.

Disadvantages

• Conversation times need to be arranged; not as flexible as asynchronous communication methods.
• Can become unwieldy and hard to follow when used for large groups. Implementing strict guidelines can alleviate this problem.

Group Pages

Advantages

• Provides a private discussion board, virtual classroom and file exchange area for groups.
• Facilitates collaboration amongst small groups of students.

Disadvantages

• Same problems as described above for each of the tools.