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WebCT Introduction: Page 2
Threaded Discussion Utilities
The WebCT course environment provides a number of opportunities to discuss the materials presented in this course in real time as well as in your own time. Real-time, "classroom-type" meetings of small groups will be scheduled and held in the Chat Rooms (see below). Since it is the nature of an online course for a person to meet when it's convenient for himself or herself, the Threaded Discussion (sometimes called a Bulletin Board or a Forum) allows for putting up questions or comments at your convenience and letting others respond at their own convenience. To get the most from this course, be sure to allow time for visiting the discussion threads and sharing your questions and experiences with others who are taking the course. The more everyone participates, the more everyone will benefit.
The Help section of WebCT provides the following description:
"Discussions is divided into different topics which allow your instructor to create discussion groups around particular subjects. Topics can be public or private. Everyone in your course can access public topics, while private topics are available only to the set of students and teaching assistants that the instructor chooses."
Looking at the screenshot above, you can see many ways to use this communication utlility:
Compose message--This link calls up a window into which you can create a message. The window is displayed below, with the drop down menu displaying examples of topics that can be chosen. You should also type in a brief description of what your message will be about in the Subject box. Below the main message box are a number of buttons and options for handling your message.
You can attach files, create equations, and format and preview your message before posting it, among other options.
Search | Topic settings--The next buttons allow you to search the discussions list for topics you are interested in, mark messages "as read" thus eliminating them from the list, and update the list. Note that the "as read" business merely allows you to free up screen space for looking at new messages. Other buttons allow you to "unmark" all files and restore the list to "full strength."
Other ways to zero in on messages of interest are found in the next row of options. (See screenshot below.) A drop-down menu will display all the topics, allowing you to select message for a particular topic.
As already mentioned, you can use "Show all" to un-"Mark As Read" messages or only show those messages that you have yet not read. The "Threaded/Unthreaded" options allow you to look at the messages in chronological order (Unthreaded) or in the way people have responded to particular messages (Threaded).
Chat Room Utilities
From the WebCT Help files:
"Chat allows students, teaching assistants, and instructors to have real-time conversations with others in the course. There are four general purpose chat rooms and one general forum for the course. There is also a general chat room for all courses, which is a room shared by everybody from all courses on the same server. Conversations in the four general purpose rooms are recorded. Only your instructor can see the records."
We would like you to consider the "general-purpose" chat room as The Lounge--a place where you can meet with other students or instructors to discuss the course or anything else that may be of concern. Instructors and teaching assistants will post times when they will be available for contact via The Lounge, or if a transcript of the discussion is needed, one of the numbered Chat Rooms.
For most courses, the class will broken down into small groups, or even pairs, for real-time discussions, role-playing exercises, or other interactions that need to take place synchronously and be recorded. These transcripts can be made available to participants and if deemed worthwhile, to the whole class.
To open a chat room, click on one of the six links provided. A window like the one illustrated below will open. The window contains three main areas:
- The Output Interaction Box (main part of window at left) displays all messages sent and
received.
- The Users Logged On Box (right-hand column) shows the users presently in the room.
- The Enter Your Message Below Box (below the output box) is where you type your messages.
You can type a message into the message box and when you hit "Enter" on your keyboard, it will appear in the Output box for everyone in the room to read. The box size doesn't limit the length of your response, but it makes checking over long statements tricky if not difficult. You might want to open a simple text editor like Notepad and type in your message there, check it, then cut and paste it into the message box. Just remember it won't carry over a "return" to break text into paragraphs. You're better off chunking out long responses anyway.
We do ask that you limit your personal use of the private message function during a scheduled event since it can be distracting. But if you were to be contacted in private by the instructor who needed clarification on what you were to ask or say, you would click on the name of the instructor (or whoever you wished to contact) in the Logon box, then type and send your message. You can use the Control-click or Shift-click method to highlight multiple persons for your private message. Just be aware that at the administrative level, all private messages are transcribed.
Recommendations
For those who are used to participating in chat rooms, the WebCT room may not be as sophisticated as some other forums that are out there on the Web. But for those who are not used to this medium, we have some recommendations. First and foremost, register on the Discussion thread for Chat Newbies and partner up with someone to practice using chat in the Lounge or the all-course chat room. Get a group of three or more but no greater than six people and just "talk" to each other using the application. (And for those who are veterans of chat-room use: there's no rule against volunteering to help our newbies learn the fine art of chatting online!)
The other recommendation is to start right off with our suggestion about using Notepad (or the Mac equivalent) to compose your responses. (Don't use Word or a code-creating word processor. Ask any chat veteran in the Chat Newbies Discussion thread what he or she uses.) Having to wait to "enter" a reply means you could lose track of what you wrote, or you'll see that someone else has said what you were going to say. You might accidently hit Enter rather than Delete! You might get a private message and need to respond with something entirely different than what's in your "queue." Once you begin to use chat regularly, you'll see that, given the limitation of our chat room message box, using Notepad or other simple text editor will improve your effectiveness in chatting.
Troubleshooting
If you cannot get into a Chat room, check with your institution's Web administrator and make sure that: you have Java JRE installed on your PC and that port 4445 is open in your firewall. This port needs to be open for the chat to work.
There's Much More . . .
The Mail system of WebCT is self-contained although you can direct messages to your external e-mail server. Just be aware that it could get filtered by your institution's firewall!
We have attempted to provide a deeper look at the courseware being used to deliver the RUSA courses so you don't get the feeling you've been dropped off the end of the pier and told to swim ashore! If you have questions, don't hesitate to contact Donavan Vicha, RUSA Web Program Officer.
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