3.i - Using Chat and Virtual Classroom

The chat and virtual classroom features of blackboard allows interactive synchronous conversations among students and instructors for the course. Each live chat session allows students and instructors to immediately post, and respond to each other at the same time. If you have ever used any type of Internet Relay Chat (IRC) before, you are already fairly familiar with this type of online conversation.

The difference between a "Chat" session and a "Virtual Classroom" session is that a Chat only allows textual conversations. Each participant can type text messages that appear in the "chat room". A Virtual Classroom session not only allows textual conversations, but also includes a "whiteboard" where students and instructors can draw using drawing tools, can open webpages to view by all participants, and can even open specific pages in the course to discuss online.

Please note that the Chat and Virtual Classroom features REQUIRE each client computer to install the Java Runtime Engine from Sun Microsystems©. Please refer to Section 2.B - "Software Requirements" of this guide for details about how to download and install the Java Runtime Engine. If you do not have the JRE installed, you will not be able to use the Chat or Virtual Classroom features of Blackboard.

The Chat and Virtual Classroom features will open in a NEW browser window. If you have a "pop-up blocker" on your computer, you may have some trouble the first time you try to use the Chat or Virtual Classroom. The first time you click on either of these features, you will notice a pop-up blocker warning message. You must "train" your popup blocker to allow pop-ups from NSU's Blackboard server in order to keep from seeing this message every time you try to open a Chat or Virtual Classroom session. Below are two examples showing how to train the Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack2 browser, and the Google Toolbar pop-up blocker. While these are the two most common forms of pop-up blockers, there are others. For learning how to train other pop-up blockers, please refer to the documentation included with those blockers.

Training Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack2 pop-up blocker:

The first time the Chat window tries to open, you will see a message such as follows:

Click on the yellow area that reads: "Pop-up blocked. To see this pop-up....". This will open a menu where you can "train" your Internet browser to always allow popups from the NSU Blackboard Server:

You will be asked to confirm adding this server to your list of "trusted" servers with a dialog box as shown below. Click on "Yes" to allow Blackboard to display popups on your computer:

Training the Google Toolbar Popup Blocker:

If you use the Google Toolbar, you may also have to train this pop-up blocker as well. The first time you attempt to open the Chat on Blackboard, the Google Toolbar will notify you by displaying an icon within the Google Toolbar:

You will need to click on the "... Blocked" button on the Google Toolbar. This will automatically add the NSU Blackboard Server to the Google pop-up blocker's trusted server list, and you will notice the icon change from "... Blocked" to "Site Popups Allowed":

If you still continue to have the pop-up window blocked, please read through the screen, and you will see that the screen also contains a link to open the window without the pop-up blocker stopping the window. Once you have successfully opened the Chat or Virtual Classroom, you can start collaborating online with the new features. See the illustrations below for a walk-through on using the Chat and Virtual Classroom features of Blackboard.

First, you will typically find the Chat and Virtual Classroom under the "Collaboration" tool. This tool is located in the Communication Area of your course:

This will open the Chat/Virtual Classroom listings, showing all of the available Chat rooms and Virtual Classroom sessions that are currently active for the course. Here you can click on "Join" next to any of the available Chat/Virtual Classroom sessions to join the live session:

Using the Chat Features:
This is an illustration of the typical Chat screen. Refer to the detailed explanations below the picture for complete information about each one of the features on this screen:

The "View" button allows you to customize your chat window view. The "Clear" button will allow you to clear the chat window conversation on your computer. This is handy when a large number of messages appear and you want to clear the screen.
This area lists all the currently online participants. Anyone who has signed into the Chat session will show up in this list. You can click on a username and use the features in sections D and E below.
This is the main chat window. It shows all the typed responses from all the participants. The window only keeps a limited amount of messages in the "buffer". Unless the Instructor is "Recording" the chat session those message that "fall off" the buffer will NO LONGER be visible and are lost. Please keep that in mind.
The "User Info" button allows you to select a participant, and then click on this button to view the participant's details.
Use the "Private Message" to send a private message (not visible to other participants) to one or more participants. First, click on the participant's name, and then click on Private Message to send your message to that participant.
This text box is where you will type your messages and responses for the conversation. Simply type your sentence, and then press enter, or click on "Send".
This is the send button. If your "enter" key does not automatically send the message to the main conversation windows, you can click this button to send the message.

Using the Virtual Classroom Features:
This is an illustration of a typical Virtual Classroom screen. Please refer to the screen and the detailed explanations below the screen to get complete information about each of the features available in the Virtual Classroom:

The classroom tools area contains several tools to control your view of the Virtual Classroom. The screenshots below will demonstrate each of the tools in more detail. The default tool which opens when you connect to the Virtual Classroom is the "Whiteboard" tool as demonstrated in the illustration above.
In this view, the tool being displayed is the "Whiteboard". This screen allows you to draw lines, and shapes as well as add text and symbols to the whiteboard.
These are the whiteboard tools. You can select different tools to draw and collaborate on the Whiteboard screen to the right.
This is the participant list area. It is the same as the participant list in the Chat feature. See the Chat features above for more information about this part of the screen.
This is the Chat area of the Virtual Classroom. The Virtual Classroom's Chat area is the same as the Chat as described in the section above.

The course map, allows you to browse the course, and select specific pages to open while in the Virtual Classroom. Using this tool, you can browse the course map, select pages and content items available and show them one the screen. In the drop-down selection at the bottom, you can decide whether you want to Display To Class, Preview In a New Windows, or Refresh the Course Map Display.

Using the Group Browser, allows you to select an Internet Webpage, and choose to display the webpage to all the participants in the Virtual Classroom session. In the example below, the student has selected to display the Google Search Engine to the Virtual Classroom session:

You can also use the "Ask Question" and "Question Inbox" to ask questions of the course, and have the Instructor respond to questions. When you ask a question, you will see the number of questions in the Question Inbox increase. For example, in the illustration below, there is currently one question in the Question Inbox:

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