Fort Hays State University - CTELT - Teaching Excellence

Alternative Teaching Resources

Recently, we have encountered the difficulty in Blackboard Discussion Board system. Users are not able to post new threads or reply to others. While we work to solve this problem here are some alternative teaching resources for re-building the communication with students and maintaining participation.

Lightweight chat feature in Blackboard
Lightweight chat allows users to interact with each other via a text-based chat. Chat is part of the Virtual Classroom. It can also be accessed separately.

For instructor created the chat sessions:

Go to Control Panel > Collaboration > Create collaboration session
Set up different chat sessions for students so that 3 or 4 of them can conduct synchronous communication. With the archive feature in the chat room, instructor and students can review the session recordings.

For students and instructor participating in the chat:

Go to Communication > Collaboration > Join the specified collaboration session
One of group members NEED be in charge of recording the chat by clicking the [Begins recording] button at the right top corner. At the end of the chat, click [Stops recording] button to finish archiving. Click here to view the image.

Reviewing the chat archive: Go to Communication > Collaboration > Click the[Recordings] button next to the session title. Click here to view the image.

Public resources:

Google group, Yahoo group, MSN group. etc. have discussion board features. An Instructor can open a group that only students are invited to participate in the discussion.

Yahoo Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/
MSN Group: http://groups.msn.com/
* QuickTopic instant discussion space: http://www.quicktopic.com/ (recommended by Tj Reilley)

General procedures

Create a Google / Yahoo / MSN account (select one of them)
Create a group by clicking the “Create a group” button
Give your group name and fill out other information by following the straightforward instructions
Choose an Access level (Restricted – People must be invited to join the group. Only members can post messages, read the archives, view the members list, create pages and upload files. The group does not appear in public search results or the directory. )
Invite group members
Your group discussion is ready to go

Using a blog to create a learning community. Invite students as contributors so they can initiate posts and also reply others’ post. Free online blog website:

Blogger: http://www.blogger.com
Bloglines: http://www.bloglines.com/

General procedures:

Create an account: Signing up is free and easy. Only an email address and password are required. Once you register, a validation email is sent to you. Reply to that and your account will be validated.
Create a blog (Set up as members only)
Add students as the contributor and send an email inviting them to the blog
As a contributor, student can initiate blog threads or leave comments on others’ threads.

If you have any good suggestion and strategies to share, please email Bo Yang at b_yang5@fhsu.edu. We will keep this information page updated with your suggestions.

note: * is the new updated item.

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Center for Teaching Excellence and Learning Technologies • 060 Forsyth Library
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