Blackboard Chat
While Blackboard may
frustrate many college teachers across disciplines because of its limited
customizability, Blackboard is also a fact of life for many of us who are
required to use it by our institutions.
Blackboard is currently the most popular and widely-used LMS in colleges
in the U.S. (Falvo and Johnson 44).
At Northern Virginia Community College where I teach, Blackboard is also
the platform required for hybrid courses and courses in the Extended Learning
Institute (ELI) for online distance learning. So whether we like it or not, Blackboard is an inescapable
fact of life.
Some of the drawbacks to LMS’s
like Blackboard include emphasizing “the passing along of information rather
than promoting learning” and promoting “a model in which teachers generate the
content they decide is appropriate, gather resources, group information into
weekly portions or modules, and give the information to students” (Norton and
Hathaway 476). Despite its
drawbacks, some research has also demonstrated that Blackboard can benefit
student learning through higher exam scores and overall GPAs of students who
use it extensively (DeNeui and Dodge 256-258). In other studies, students have reported preferring to
submit assignments and check course grades online (Buzzetto-More 131).
Since I must use Blackboard for my online writing courses, I
decided to try out one of its features that I haven’t used before: the Chat
feature. In an otherwise
asynchronous learning environment in my online composition courses, the Chat is
often promoted as a way to hold virtual office hours where students can ask
real-time questions and receive immediate replies instead of relying on the
usual email queries alone. While
most of my students seem content with asking questions asynchronously via
email, a few students have expressed frustration that it may take up to 24
hours to get a response to their questions (and sometimes even longer on
weekends).
With Chat, students can log in and open a Chat session
during a synchronous set time to pose questions and get immediate responses
from the instructor. Other
possible uses of Chat include holding synchronous class discussions or even
one-on-one chat conferences with students about their writing. For this review, I will focus mainly on
using Chat for virtual office hours and online conferencing.
After doing some research and experimenting with this tool,
I think it is a useful way for online writing instructors to hold synchronous
virtual office hours when they are required to use Blackboard anyway, but some
technical issues may need to be sorted out in order to use it more
effectively. Also, not all
students will be able to participate equally, and other alternatives, including
Google Docs, may be more appropriate for certain uses.
Overall, the Blackboard Chat feature is relatively easy to
find and learn to use. Step by
step instructions for how to use Chat can be found in the Blackboard Help
manual in the Tools section of any Blackboard course site. Chat sessions can be created by
instructors or joined by students by going through “Tools” to
“Collaboration.” It is set up in a
way that is similar to other IM or Chat applications and includes basic,
standard features of synchronous Chats, including the ability to record
sessions, send private messages, virtually raise hands, etc.
Blackboard Chat displays the benefits of chats but also the
drawbacks. Some of the benefits of
similar chat applications that have been documented by scholars include
offering students more comfort in interactions when compared to a large lecture
class, interactive engagement with the course content, and accommodation for a
variety of learning styles (Larkin and Belson 23). Other benefits of Blackboard Chat include allowing for
real-time interaction despite geographical distance, creating a conversational
flow similar to face-to-face discussion in a traditional classroom, and
recording the conversation for later review (“Blackboard”). Some of the challenges and drawbacks of
Chat are that controlling conversational flow can be difficult, sometimes leading
to disorganization, keeping up with the pace of typing can be hard for some
users, and participating can be more difficult for ESL students, poor typists,
and learning-disabled students (“Blackboard”). While the synchronous nature of the chat can be a benefit
when it comes to promoting interaction and discussion, when some users type too
slowly, the conversation may have already moved on, leaving them feeling
frustrated and left out of the conversation, which can undermine a sense of
community and belonging (Tucker 345).
As far as chats go,
Blackboard Chat is nothing special, but the biggest problem with Chat may be
its common technical difficulties and limitations. It also is not very customizable. While it offers the basic features of most other IM or chat
programs, it doesn’t offer anything new beyond the basic expectations of the
format. Mac users may have a hard
time with Chat because it suggests using Internet Explorer for maximum
compatibility, and it is not compatible with Mac’s Safari browser, nor does it
fully support Firefox. As a Mac
user, I was only able to use Chat with Google Chrome. In my own experience, one student who wanted to participate
in a Chat session was unable to because she only had Safari on a Mac. Also, Java must be enabled for its use,
and some students in an asynchronous Blackboard-based course may have problems
with this as well. For all of
these reasons, I would not require its use, nor would I attempt to hold a
full-class discussion in Chat.
Missouri State’s Blackboard experts perhaps put it best when they
announced on their page explaining Blackboard Chat: “ATTENTION! We
do not advise using Blackboard Chat as it seems to have some technical issues.
Use Wimba Pronto instead” (“Using”).
After experimenting with this
tool in my class and doing some research, I think the best uses for Blackboard
Chat in an asynchronous course are virtual office hours or one-on-one student
conferences by appointment. Some
online instructors may be required by their institutions to hold virtual office
hours using chat, and if so, this wouldn’t be such a bad thing. But office hours by appointment with
individual students or a small number of students seems more practical because
then the Chat could be scheduled for a time that would best accommodate
interested students. After heavily
promoting an optional weekday-evening Chat session through Blackboard
announcements and emails to students, including step-by-step instructions on
how to use it, I was disappointed that no students ended up participating, and
I was left to monitor my multiple Chat windows for an hour. Maybe more students would have
participated if it had been set up at a time to accommodate only interested
students.
Because the rest of my
course is asynchronous, some students will like the real-time Chat option and
be comfortable with its format, while others would prefer not to have to think
and type on the spot. With
popularity of texting and IM communication tools, many younger students in my
courses may like to participate in a Chat session with me. Most of the students of mine who had
expressed the most interest in my Chat session were younger. I also have many older, less chat-savvy
students who may feel less comfortable with this option. I think many students will still prefer
to send questions via email, which they can do at any time of day or night, and
most of them have seemed to be satisfied with the promptness of my
responses.
While Blackboard Chat has some practical uses for online
writing instructors, other online tools, including Google applications like
Google Docs, would be more appropriate in many situations. In addition to virtual office hours and
individual chat conferences in which students can ask me questions, I had
thought of the possibility of using Blackboard Chat to have a one-on-one
conference to discuss a student essay—similarly to in a F2F class. It would be possible for both teacher
and student to open a student’s essay on each end and chat to discuss the
essay, but thinking through this scenario highlighted for me the fact that
Google Docs would be far superior for this use. My institution, like many other colleges, provides students
with Google email, and they thus have access to Google Docs. An instructor could share a student’s
draft with them via Google Docs, and then instructor and student could chat
about the document in the Google Docs chat while simultaneously underlining,
highlighting, or typing comments in various colors on the shared document
viewed by both participants. I can
even imagine a student attempting to revise passages at the instructor’s
suggestion and getting immediate feedback this way. Blackboard does not offer anything comparable at this time. Another Google application that I have
not tried yet may also be more useful than Blackboard Chat: Google Wave. Not only does Google Wave allow both
synchronous and asynchronous communication, but one recent study found that
students wrote longer, more complex, and reflective responses in Google Wave
compared to Chat (Jones 54). Wimba
Pronto is another Blackboard-owned application that may offer superior features
to Chat.
So while Blackboard Chat is nothing special compared with
other applications out there, it does have some practical uses for students and
instructors of online writing courses that already have to use Blackboard
anyway.
Works Cited
“Blackboard Chat.”
Tools: Teaching with Technology.
Loyola University, n.d.
Web. 4 June 2012.
<http://sites.google.com/site/luctwtguide/tools/
blackboard-chat>
Buzzetto-More, Nicole A. "Student Perceptions Of
Various E-Learning
Components." Interdisciplinary Journal Of Knowledge &
Learning Objects
4 (2008): 113-135. Academic Search Complete. Web. 4 June 2012.
DeNeui, Daniel L., and Tiffany L. Dodge. "Asynchronous
Learning Networks
And Student Outcomes: The Utility Of Online Learning Components In
Hybrid Courses." Journal Of Instructional Psychology 33.4 (2006): 256-259.
Academic Search Complete. Web. 4
June 2012.
Falvo, David A., and Ben F. Johnson. "The Use Of
Learning Management
Systems In The United States." Techtrends: Linking Research
& Practice To
Improve Learning 51.2 (2007): 40-45.
Academic Search Complete. Web. 4
June 2012.
Jones, Linda. “Interaction in Google Wave Sends Chat
Rooms Out with the
Tide.” Computer-Enhanced and
Mobile-Assisted Language Learning:
Emerging Issues and Trends. IGI
Global, 2012. 35-55. Web. 5 Jun. 2012.
Larkin, Teresa L., and Sarah Irvine Belson. "Blackboard
Technologies: A Vehicle
To Promote Student Motivation And
Learning In Physics." Journal Of STEM
Education: Innovations &
Research 6.1/2 (2005): 14-27. Academic
Search
Complete. Web. 4 June 2012.
Norton, Priscilla, and Dawn Hathaway. "Exploring Two
Teacher Education
Online Learning Designs: A Classroom Of One Or Many?." Journal
Of
Research On Technology In Education
40.4 (2008): 475-495. Academic
Search Complete. Web. 4 June 2012.
Tucker, Shelia Y. “The Concept
of Social Presence in Distance Education.”
American Institute of Higher
Education 6th International Conference
Proceedings.
Charleston, SC. 6-8 Apr. 2011. 345-356. Web. 5 Jun. 2012.
“Using Blackboard Chat.” Expert Documentation for Faculty.
Missouri State
University. 10 May 2011. Web. 4 June
2012 <https://experts.missouristate.edu/
display/bb9/
Using+Blackboard+Chat>.
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