Discussions

In discussions, you can share thoughts and ideas about class materials. In Blackboard Learn, course members can have the thoughtful discussions that take place in the traditional classroom, but with the advantages of asynchronous communication. Participants don't need to be in the same location or time zone, and you can take the time to consider your responses carefully.

You can use discussions for these tasks:

• Meet with your peers for collaboration and social interaction.
• Pose questions about homework assignments, readings, and course content.
• Demonstrate your understanding or application of course material.

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Open a discussion

Discussions are an online forum about course concepts. Your instructor may expect you to create your own discussions and participate in existing ones. Your instructor can also grade your contributions.

Your instructor can also create a group discussion for you to discuss a topic with a group of your classmates.

More on group discussions

If your instructor added due dates for graded discussions, you can open discussions from your Grades pages, the calendar, and the activity stream.

From a course, select the Discussions page icon on your course's navigation bar. Select the discussion from the list that appears. Discussions can also appear alongside other course materials on the Course Content page.

Each time you open a discussion, new responses and replies appear with "New" to show any activity that's happened since your last visit.

More on creating responses and replies

Above the Participants list in the Author section, you can see who created the discussion.

Post a response first

Your instructor may require you to respond to a discussion before you can read other responses and replies. When you "post first," you aren't influenced by your classmates' responses. When you open this type of discussion, a message appears: Post a response to see discussion activity. You can't view discussion activity yet. Responses and replies appear when you post a response.

The Participants list won't show the number of others' responses and replies until you post a response.

Create a discussion

You can create discussions for your classmates to participate in. Your instructor can delete any discussions, responses, and replies.

More about deleting your discussions, responses, and replies

If allowed by your instructor, you can create discussions for your classmates to participate in. Your instructor can delete any discussions, responses, and replies.

Go to the Discussions page in your course. Select New Discussion.

On the New Discussion page, type a meaningful title. Choose your discussion title carefully. After you move your cursor off the title line, the discussion title saves. Only your instructor can edit the title.

Get the discussion started with a question, idea, or response. You can use the options in the editor to format text, attach files, and embed multimedia. If you view the editor on a smaller screen, select the plus icon to view the menu of options. For example, select Insert/Edit Local Files—represented by the paper clip icon. Browse for a file from your computer. A status window appears to show the progress of the file upload.

To use your keyboard to jump to the editor toolbar, press ALT + F10. On a Mac, press Fn + ALT + F10. Use the arrow keys to select an option, such as a numbered list.

Select Save when you're done.

On the main Discussions page, your discussion title appears with the label Created by student.

When course members open your discussion, you're listed as the author in the side panel.

You may edit or delete your own posts and may delete your own discussions if no one has responded.