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In our ELI history courses, we use Blackboard (learn.vccs.edu)
to (a) post and respond to messages in the online discussion forums and
(b) record and check grades in the online gradebook. The online
discussions are your opportunity to confer and collaborate with one
another to discuss and prepare for the course assignments and
materials. Please read Getting Started Online for an official introduction to Blackboard.
Online Discussion Forums
In your course, you must post and respond in the Blackboard
discussion forums a total of ten (10) times with each posting being worth
5 points for a total of 50 points. In
addition, you can earn
extra credit for additional postings/responses (up to a limit of 25
points, 5 points for each additional posting).
- Each post should be a
substantial intellectual contribution (instructor discretion) to the
course. The following are some examples of posts
that are not meaningful:
- Hi
- Glad to meet you
- Agree
- Interesting point
- Good
- Ugh
- Your
posting can be a comment on your assignment, a remark about the week's reading, a response to another
student's posting, a note about the material being studied
in the course but you cannot just post an assignment (either paragraph or paper).
- Your posts should not be all to one
forum, for example, the "short paragraph assignment,"
and you should respond as well as post.
- You cannot post anything as an attached document to a discussion.
- Please remember that you must submit your assignments directly to your instructor by email for grading. Blackboard is just for discussion.
- Finally, to receive credit for a posting, you must post to Blackboard
during the current week of your course (instructor discretion).
For example, you cannot suddenly decide in week 14 to post something
about week 2. When you
are in week 3 of the course, you should post about week 3 of the course, but you can also post to future weeks of the course. You cannot post for past weeks of the course.
For Blackboard, your login name is the first part of your
email address before the @email.vccs.edu. The password is your date of birth
(mmddyy), although you can change your password by going to
my.vccs.edu. If you have any problems, please contact the college help desk at
703.426.4141 (ithelpdesk@nvcc.edu).
To access a discussion forum, after you login to
Blackboard you will
see a screen with a list of your courses. Click on your course and then
click on the "Discussion Board" button on the left. You will see a
screen with all of the available discussion forums. Click on any of the links to access
a discussion.
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You can click on "Add New Thread" to post your contribution to
the discussion.
- You can also click on one of the posted messages to read it. Then you can
click on the "Reply" button to post your reply to that particular message.
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After clicking the "reply" button or the "Add a New Thread"
button, a message
screen will appear.
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Enter a subject for the message that you will
post.
-
In the message portion of the box, type
(or cut and paste) your message/paragraph.
-
Click the "Preview" button to check your
message. You can make changes or
click the "SUBMIT" button if you are satisfied.
-
Finally, clicking the "OK" link will take you back to the list of all course
discussion forums.
-
To exit from the online discussions, simply close the
browser window.
- Over time, the process of posting messages and then responding will produce a "threaded" discussion.
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Please remember that these postings are to
be considered formal assignments and subject to the normal writing style rules
of this course.
Online Gradebook
After your login to
Blackboard, you will see a screen with a list of your courses.
Click on a course. Then you should see a button for your
gradebook along
the left side of the screen. Click on that button, and you will
see your course grades. To exit from the gradebook, either
"logout" (top of the page) or simply close the browser window.
If you have problems, please contact
the ithelpdesk@nvcc.edu.
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