• Groups in Blackboard, like in a face-to-face classroom, divide students into teams. Each team may be given tools to enhance their group work, including: Discussion Board, Virtual Classroom, File Exchange, and Email. Instructors may use groups to oversee work done by students and the paths taken to complete their work or utilize private forums to communicate with students.

• Look right underneath the menu on the left, you should see a heading called My Groups and under that is the name of your group. If you click on the name of your groups, a dropdown menu will appear with all the available tools for this group.

Here is description of some of the tools available to groups. Please note that your professor has access to disable any of these tools.

Group Discussion Board

• The Group Discussion Board is an active forum for your group and regulated by your teacher. Inside the Group Discussion link you will find a Forum where you can create a Thread and discuss different topics according to your needs. This is a very useful tool as the teacher has the option to grade the material that you present or discuss in the threads.

Collaboration

• The Collaboration function allows you to discuss with your classmates and share information in real time with a sophisticated chat room called Virtual Classroom or use the simpler Chat function. With the Virtual Classroom function you are able to ask questions, draw, record conversations, and have private chats with other group members.

File Exchange

• The File Exchange allows you to transfer group files in a single specified zone so that other group mates can access each others information.

• The File Exchange is a large storage area for your group files that can be easily accessed from anyone’s computer. To upload a file please follow these steps:

written by Alex Gabriel