Bb 9 - Blogs and Journals: FAQ's

Last week I posted links to some videos about how to use blogs and journals and that post raised a few questions that are answered here.

Blogs and Journals provide students and instructors with a social learning tool for expressing their thoughts and reflecting on their learning, either privately (with the instructor) or publicly (with others in the course). These tools empower all course users to create and share ideas, while instructors maintain the ability to edit or remove any inappropriate material.

What is the difference between Journals, Blogs, and Discussion Board forums?

• A journal is like a private diary that the student shares with the instructor.
• A blog is like an open diary that everyone in the class can read and comment on.
• A discussion board forum is like an open meeting where anyone can participate equally.

An example of when to use an individual blog instead of a discussion board would be when you want students to post an essay and have other students comment on it.  Using a blog for this assignment would keep the essay intact with all the comments attached to it.  In a discussion board forum this type of assignment often spawns other threads and it can be confusing where the original essay is located and difficult to find all the comments it generated.

Where Do Blogs and Journals Appear?

Instructors can find them in the Control Panel under Course Tools.  Instructors can provide access to students through links in content areas, blog or journal links on the course menu, or a Tools Area link on the course menu.

Can I make Blogs and Journals Public?

No. The privacy of students' course work needs to be respected. Opening these tools to the outside world may violate privacy laws.

Bb 9 - Blogs and Journals

New tools available in Blackboard 9 are Blogs and Journals.  Here are some videos that show you how to add them to your class and post to them.  You can provide links to these videos within your course for your students to view to explain to them how to use these tools.  These videos aren't perfect for student use because some instructor view stuff shows on the pages, but I think it's better than having to create instructions yourself.  See my recommendations below for alternative ways of providing links to these tools within your course.

• Creating a Blog
  (I recommend creating a link to a specific blog using Collaborate > Create Blog Link from within your content area instead of the process shown in this video)
• Creating and Editing Blog Entries (for students)
• Commenting on a Blog Entry (for students)

• Creating a Journal
  (I recommend creating a link to a specific journal using Collaborate > Create Journals from within your content area instead of the process shown in this video)
• Creating Journal Entries (for students)

Safeguard your Passwords

Last week there was a report of a 9-year-old student that hacked into Blackboard.  How did this 9-year-old do it?  Very simply, he obtained a teacher's password.

If a 9-year-old can do this, so can your students.  Please make sure you're using a password that students cannot figure out, such as a birthdate.  To change your password in Blackboard, on the welcome page, click on Personal Information, then Change Password.

Bb 9 - New Group Sets and Group Assignments

A new feature in Blackboard 9 allows you to create groups in sets.  For example, you want to split your class into 5 groups to do a project.  The old way of doing this would be to create 5 groups, with all those clicks for each group.  Now you can just create one Group Set and all 5 groups are created at once.  See this video to learn more: http://ondemand.blackboard.com/r9/movies/Bb9_Groups_Create_Group_Sets.htm

Blackboard didn't stop there!  They also created Group Assignments.  This tool allows one student in the group to turn in the assignment and you grade it once, and every member of the group receives that grade.  This grade can be overridden for individuals as needed.  Here's another short video that shows how:
http://ondemand.blackboard.com/r9/movies/Bb9_Assignments_Deploying_Group_Assignments.htm

Bb 9 Workshops Start this Week

I will begin offering Introduction to Blackboard 9 workshops starting this week.

These workshops will be limited to 15 participants.  Please sign up to reserve your place at http://www.cuyamaca.edu/tlc/workshops/bb9-signup.asp.

Date	Day	Time	Room
4/9	Friday	1 - 3 pm	E-206
4/14	Wednesday	9 - 11 am	E-206
4/16	Friday	9 - 11 am	E-206
4/20	Tuesday	9 - 11 am	E-210
4/22	Thursday	1 - 3 pm	E-206
4/23	Friday	9 - 11 am	E-206
4/30	Friday	9 - 11 am	E-206
5/1	Saturday *	10 - Noon	E-206

* The Saturday workshop is tentative at this time.