Best Practices for Enhancing Communications in Blackboard

Here are some of our suggested Best Practices for how to use communication features of Blackboard.

1. Create Discussion Boards with purpose. 
   Create Discussion Board forums for each subject or weekly unit to easily keep track of conversation as well as to simplify grading.
    
2. Use the Posts tool of MyBlackboard suite.
   Use the Posts area of the MyBlackboard suite in the global navigation menu to make interacting with your courses Discussion Boards, Blogs, and Journals a breeze.
    
3. Check your Discussion Board settings. 
   Know about the Discussion Board's "Participants must create a thread in order to view other threads in this forum" setting.
    
4. Use the Discussion Board for students to ask questions. 
   Create a forum for "Course Questions", and then subscribe to that forum so that you can stay on top of Student needs in the class.
    
5. Consider using Blackboard Collaborate.
   The Collaborate web conferencing software is a great option for synchronous online lectures which can also be record for student's access at another time. See Best Practices for the use of Blackboard Collaborate.
    

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