Did you know that you can now create journals for individual students in Blackboard that are visible to all course users?
When you access the Journals area of your course (How do I do that?), and select the Create Journal button, you scroll down to 4. Journal Settings in the Create Journal window, and check the box where it says “Permit Course Users to View Journal.” When you select Submit to save your Journal settings, the Journal entries subsequently made by any student are visible to other students in the course, as are any comments that students submit for their individual Journal entries, and the comments that you submit for any of your students’ individual Journal entries. (Group Journals are different, in that only the instructor and members of a Group can view the Journal for that Group and the comments on it.) What students can not do is comment on one another’s Journal entries.
The latter restriction is important if you are deciding whether to use Journals or Blogs in your Blackboard course. By design, a Blog — whether a Course Blog that all users contribute to or an individual Blog that is maintained by a single student — is public;’ that is, all course users can view a Blog and comment on it (the exception is Blogs that are created within Course Groups, which can only be viewed and commented on by the instructor and members of the individual Groups). Consequently, if you want your students to post updates on ongoing research that they are conducting for your course and you want them to provide one another with constructive feedback, you would not want to use the Journal tool, since it wouldn’t allow your students to provide that feedback. By distinction, if you want your students to record their thoughts and reflections on a given subject or topic, but you don’t need or want them to receive feedback from other students on those thoughts and reflections, the Journal tool is your best option.
As a note to instructors who elect to use Journals in their courses that are visible to all course users, it is a good practice to remind your students that the comments that they post on their Journal entries are not private, but can be seen by everyone else in the course. Also, although comments on Journal entries are visible to all course users, the feedback that you provide your students when you enable Journal grading and grade their Journal entries is entirely private (as is your feedback on Blogs for which grading has been enabled).
For any questions that you may have about this or for group or one-on-one training on how to create and use Journals and Blogs, please feel free to contact the Distance Learning Office (629-7070/DLHelp@hvcc.edu).
Published: Thu, 06 Feb 2014 20:16:19 +0000 by m.petersen