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1. Can I Email all of my students using Bb@GW ? 2. Can I limit students so that they cannot send broadcast e-mail messages? 3. Can I form student work groups using Bb@GW ? 4. Can my students turn in assignments and projects via the Bb@GW System? 5. What is the Announcement feature and how do I use it? 6. What's the Difference between Chat and Discussions? 7. Do I need additional software in order to run a Chat room?
You may Email your students using Bb@GW. Go to the Control Panel for your course, click on Send Email within Course Tools. Choose the audience for your message, fill out the message form, attach files if needed, then click Submit. Your message is sent out immediately.
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You can turn off student messaging by going to the Control Panel, then Manage Course Menu within Course Options. Once there, you may turn off any function that is currently on your course menu, including Messages. This will only turn it off for your students. You can still send Email, including broadcast messages, through the Control Panel.
You can create Groups from the Control Panel, through Manage Groups, within User Management. Once an Official Course has been created for you, you can copy course content into the Official Course. This will retain the Group names you created in the Development Course. Once students are registered for your Official Course, go to the Manage Groups page. You may create further groups or edit an existing one, add users to the groups, and allow the group communications features such as Discussions and Chat. Can the students place themselves into groups? Students cannot add themselves to groups.
If you add an assignment to any content area of your course by using the Assignment function, the students may complete an assignment through their interface. This includes the ability to post files. You then ³pick up² their submissions on the Gradebook page. It is recommended that student files posted through the assignment function be saved to your local computer and removed from the system.
From the Control Panel through Announcements within Course Tools, you may send an announcement to your students. This announcement will then appear on the front page of your course. You may choose to make the Announcement visible from a begin date through an end date, or always be shown. You may also attach files to announcements.
Chat occurs at the same time for all users. The Chat features of Bb@GW allow you to not only text chat, but field and answer a managed question queue, share a live web site with students, as well, as browse common course content from Bb@GW. Discussions allow you to post a forum, allow students to reply to your topic, reply to one another, and start new threads within the forum. Users do not have to be online at the same time for the history of a discussion to be read.
Light Chat or the Virtual Classroom within the Chat function of Bb@GW requires a Java Plug-in to be installed on your local computer. The first time you try to run Chat, you will be prompted to install the plug-in if your system does not already have it installed.
