Students Getting Acquainted with Blackboard's Discussion Board

    We made a big breakthrough in science 7 classes today! I have been working on getting my Blackboard page up and running for my students and today I can see they are really getting the hang of how to use it. I added tasks (homework assignments), calendar events, announcements, important document files of extra copies of notes etc. They were already familiar with these parts of Bb from their other classes, but I discovered last week that they did not know anything about discussion boards. I started a thread yesterday and two out of 115 students noticed. Today in class I showed them all how to get there and how a board works...and now I'm getting posts by the minute from all of my classes! So far we are just saying hi and the kids are being silly but I feel like that is OK for the time being- until the first real discussion thread (maybe next week). I think this is a powerful way to teach students netiquette, that is, how to conduct oneself online. I am a little worried about students crossing the line but overall I trust them to know to be respectful. Some of my colleagues are very weary about the idea of opening up discussion boards, making assignments easily accessible etc. My opinion is that you cannot stop technology and you cannot stop our kids from using it...so jump aboard and learn how to best educate students on the matter!

    My question to all of you out there...how do you feel about using something like Bb for middle schoolers? upsides? Downsides? I'd be happy to hear what you think, this is pretty new to me!