With all these extra classes, additional measures of organization have had to be made as well. I have this awesome master list on Microsoft OneNote that has put the organizational aspects of teaching on autopilot. (But that's another blog post entirely.)
One of my biggest weaknesses in online instruction is keeping up with the discussion boards. It's tough, because as much as I want my students to use them to participate in class, when I go into the boards a couple of times a week, I become overwhelmed with all the reading and find it difficult to actually particpate in the discussion.
I remember at the last Blackboard training I went to that there was an option for a subscriptions, so I started exploring how I could implement that tool. Here's what I found:
Go to the "Discussion Board"
Click on "Modify" next to the forum you wish to enable subscriptions to.
Under 3: Forum Settings, scroll down to the Subscribe menu.
Choose to allow subscriptions to threads or forums. If you choose to include forums, decide whether or not you'd like the subscription email to include the body of the post or just a link to the post.
Having subscribed to all my discussions, I'm looking forward to seeing how much more efficient I am with participating on the discussion boards.
Related links: Technology Teacher: Blackboard Discussion Board Features
