Journals allow your students to engage in reflective practice throughout the semester in a private platform that only the instructor and the student can access.
You can create a journal by going to:
- Control Panel > Course Tools > Journals
- The Tools menu item > Journals
- A content area > Add Interactive Tool > Journal
This viewlet from Blackboard’s On-Demand Learning Center will take you through the Journal creation process step-by-step.
During creation, you can also specify whether you’d like students’ journals to be graded. Journals can be indexed monthly or weekly, and instructors can comment on students’ entries. (Note: Formatting of comments is currently unavailable, but a Blackboard representative said this feature would be available in a future version.)
Groups can also have journals. Journals and Blogs are VERY similar in groups, but there are some subtle (and important) differences:
- In a Group, you can select whether all members of the group can view the journal (essentially, a blog), or members have individual journals (leave “Permit Members to View Journal” unchecked). Blogs are available to all members of the group by default.
- Blogs have the option of anonymous comments and entries. Journals do not.
Once you’ve named your journal, please be careful not to edit the link; doing so may be associated with a bug.
Another idea: Journals can also be used by students to post short, written homework assignments that are all displayed on one screen.
If you have any questions, please send an email to blackboard@richmond.edu .