Chat (a.k.a. Collaboration in Blackboard)

Different than Discussion Boards, the Chat room is for same-time or "live" communication among students and their instructors. You can create multiple Chat rooms, or reuse the same one over and over again. One may also archive Chat sessions in Blackboard.

There are two different Chat styles in Blackboard: Chat and Virtual Classroom. Chat is purely text chat with no management abilities on the faculty side. This tool is ideal for virtual office hours, where a student or two might "drop in" for a casual set of questions and answers.

Virtual Classroom adds the functions of a White Board, a question queue, students "raising their hands", pushing of web sites and content from the Blackboard course. This is more for the true virtual lecture, where you can manage who asks questions, and which questions you answer, etc. The following are some steps to using the Chat function in Blackboard.

Though you can create as many Chat rooms as you wish, these steps presume that you are using the default Chat room available. This set of steps also presumes you've informed your students you are conducting a Chat at a specific time, and they will be coming in soon after yourself.

To enter the Chat room

1. Control Panel > Collaboration (from Course Tools pane)
2. Next to the Office Hours / Chat title, click on JOIN.
3. If your computer requires the JAVA plug-in necessary when running a chat room, you will be alerted to this fact.
4. If you do need to install, follow the directions on the alter page. This process may take a few minutes.
5. If you already have this installed, a Chat window will appear.

To have a Chat

• By default, once your students arrive they have the ability to write private messages to one another, and to chat with the whole group.
• You can change this prior to their arrival by clicking on Controls atop the window to choose settings.
• As students arrive, you will see a note in the main (white) chat area, noting their arrival.

1. Type a message in the Compose field and click Send or hit Enter on your keyboard.
2. Respond to postings by students by doing the same.
3. Use the Archive controls to the upper right of the window to (in order of the buttons):
   • Record the chat
   • Pause the recording
   • Stop the recording
   • Add a bookmark into the chat archive
4. Use the Private Message button under the list of present students to compose and send an individual note to a student.
5. When your finished with your Chat, you may close the window.
6. If you want to clear the chat interface before closing, click on Clear or End atop the window.