Chat Rooms & Whiteboard

Access Chat Rooms

• Under the Teach or Build Tabs, go to Chat.
  
• A list of available chat rooms for your course are listed.
  
• To enter a room, click on its name.

Create Chat Rooms

• Under the Teach or Build Tabs, go to Chat.
  
• Click Create Chat or Whiteboard Room.

• Enter a Title and Max number of users.
  
• Click Save.

Using a Chat Rooms

• Upon entering the chat room, you will see the Participant List within the Chat Room. This is a list of the people that are logged into this particular chat room. You will also see the Whiteboard and Chat areas.
  
• Messages are entered via the Enter Text Here box. Type your message there and press return (or the Send button) to publish the message to the chat screen so everyone can see it.
  
• The Chat box displays all the previously published messages.

Some things to remember while you are chatting:

• Be patient—you can only "talk" as fast as you type. It is hard to type and read responses at the same time so take your time. Strive to make your communication in the chat room short and focused. Wait for a response to a question before you ask another.
  
• Make your statements as brief as possible. Your goal is to make the others in the room understand what you are trying to say with just a few words. This is not a publication—it is just a conversation. If you take too long trying to post the perfect response, the conversation will have proceeded past the point you were trying to make and your posting may no longer be relevant.
  
• During a session, there can be many people in a chat room; however, a good rule of thumb is the smaller the group, the better the chat. Smaller chats tend to be more focused and easier to communicate effectively in.

Chat Room Whiteboard

In the white space provided, you may insert graphs, equations, text, etc. In turn, other users may add to the whiteboard area and you will see their changes as they make them. This software simulates a single whiteboard in a classroom in which all of the members of the class can view and make changes. Other users may add to the whiteboard or remove items from it as well in "real-time".

Toolbar:

	Select tool		Move tool
	Pencil tool		Line tool
	Oval tool		Rectangle tool
	Reshape tool		Duplicate tool
	Zoom Out tool		Zoom In tool
	Text tool		Delete Selected tool
	Undo tool		Clear All tool

To add images or other graphics to the whiteboard area:

• Click Load File. See the File Upload Tutorial for information on how to add attachments. Avoid using special characters ( @ # % & ; ).

View / Download Chat Logs

• Click on the ActionLinks icon for the room you wish to view the log for, and select View Log.

• The chat log for that room will appear. Use Ctrl+A to select all.
  
• Press Ctrl+C to copy the chat log into Microsoft Word.

• Open up a word processor like Microsoft Word.
  
• Press Ctrl + V to paste the chat log.
• Choose File > Save As and save your chat log file.

Rename Chat Rooms

• To change the name of the chat rooms for your course, click the ActionLinks icon, and select Edit Properties.

• Edit the necessary information and press Save.

Troubleshooting

If you are experiencing problems with the chat tool, ensure that you are using an approved Web browser. The Chat does not work correctly in Safari for Windows, for example. See Browser Tune-Up page for additional help on selecting a Web browser.

Blackboard Chat requires an outbound connection to port 2304 for communication with its chat server. If you are experiencing problems with the chat tool, make sure that your Internet connection service, modem, firewall, etc. are not blocking outbound traffic for port 2304.