Discussion Tools:

The Discussion Board is one of the most valuable components in an online course. Online discussions ensure that all students are engaged and actively participating. They give students time to craft their best response rather than the first that comes to mind. The textbook, notes, or other resources can also be drawn upon to provide a better-reasoned and well-supported contribution.

Online discussions will be initiated by a topic, comment or question posted by the instructor. Typically, students are required to respond with posted comments to the instructor's post and to those of other students.

Information in this page is organized in the following two sections; use the links below to jump to a specific section for more information:

• Threaded, Blog, and Journal Topics
• Posting a Threaded Topic

Threaded, Blog, and Journal Topics:

In Blackboard, there are three kinds of discussion topics: threaded topic, blog topic, and journal topic. Threaded topic is the same as the topic in the previous version of WebCT Vista. A student can post, reply to the other posts, and forward a post. Blog post is a collaborative blog (weblog) space that allows participants to post a chronological series of entries on a particular topic. Participants can then add comments to any blog entry. Journal topic, on the other hand, give Students a place for their own writing. The journals can be kept private between the student and the instructor or shared with the class.

The users can tell the topic type by their icons.

 

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Posting a Threaded Topic:

The steps to post to the three topics are similar, so this tutorial will use the threaded topic as an example.

1. Select the Discussions under Course Tools.
   
2. Click the title of the threaded topic to enter. You can tell the type of the topic by its icon.
   
   
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3. Click Create Message to launch a new window.
   
   
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4. Create a post.
   1. Enter a subject.
   2. Enter the content of the message:
      1. To create the message in Plain Text format, enter it in the Message text box. The message will appear exactly as typed.
      2. To create the message in HTML format, use the HTML Creator or "hand code" the HTML:
         1. To use the HTML Creator, click Enable HTML Creator.
         2. To code in HTML:
            1. Select Use HTML.
            2. In the Message text box, enter the HTML code.
      3. To attach files to the message:
         1. Click Add Attachments. The Content Browser pop-up window appears.
         2. Locate and select the files.
      4. To preview the message, click Preview.
      5. Click Post.
         
         
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