You will not be able to see your course in Blackboard until your instructor makes the course available to you.  The instructor might not do this until the first day of class.  Also, not every on-campus course will use Blackboard, so ask your instructor if you will be using the program for your class. If your instructor has told you that the class will use Blackboard and the site has been made available, but you still can’t access it, please contact the Division of Extended Learning and Distance Education at DistanceEd@jtcc.edu or 804-706-5167.

To access your Blackboard course, click the link for the course in the “My Blackboard Courses” section on the “JTCC” page.

Every Blackboard course has a navigation menu on the left that enables you to access various areas of the course.  Click an item from the menu to go that area. Each course will have a different navigation menu, depending on the needs of the course, so yours will not look exactly like the one pictured. A brief description of some of the areas used in a Blackboard course is given below.  Your instructor might use different names for the menu items described below.

• Announcements—This is the first page you will see each time you enter the course.  The instructor uses this area to post important messages, updates, and reminders to students.  Make sure you check this page every time you enter the course. By default, you will see the announcements posted within the last seven days. If you want to see older announcements, click the “View Last 30 Days” or “View All” tabs on the top of the Announcements page.
   
• Syllabus/Course Information—This area provides general information such as textbooks, course objectives and procedures, grading policies, etc. Make sure to also visit this area to view the course syllabus.
   
• Faculty information—This area contains the instructor’s office hours, his/her contact information, and other information about the instructor.
   
• Course Material—This area typically contains learning materials, lecture notes, PowerPoint presentations, assignments etc. This information is generally broken down by weeks or chapters. Click the folders to view all of the course material needed for that chapter or week.
   
• Communication—This area contains tools that allow you to communicate with your instructor and classmates.
   
• Collaboration – This area, which focuses on tools that support interactive, real-time communication, includes the virtual classroom and chat tools. You must have Java installed to use these tools. 
• Virtual Classroom – The virtual classroom gives faculty and students the ability to communication at the same time through the use of a whiteboard and a chat area. 
• Chat – The chat area also allows faculty and staff to communicate online at the same time.
• Discussion Board – Discussion boards allow faculty and staff to post messages that other users can respond to at any time.  For details, go to the Discussion Board page in this tutorial.
   
• Group Pages – These pages permit the instructor to group students together to work on a project. Each group can have its own discussion board, virtual classroom, and file exchange. (The file exchange allows students in the group or the instructor to upload a file for others in the group to access.)  Students only have access to their group’s materials. 
   
• Roster – The roster lists the students enrolled in the class.  You can enter a name in the text box and click the “Search” button, or you can leave the field blank and click the “Search” button to get a list of everyone in the class.  Clicking a student’s name will take you to their Blackboard home page.
   
• Send E-mail – This feature allows you to send messages to anyone in your class. E-mail messages can’t be read from this location, only sent.  You will need to access your VCCS e-mail account to read the messages.  This also means that you need to copy yourself on any messages that you send, because Blackboard will not allow you to read your sent messages.  If you do not copy yourself on the message, you will not have a record of the message. 

• Student Tools—This area contains interactive tools for your course.
   
• Homepage—You may create your own personal web page for all of your classmates to see. To view your page, go to the roster in the communication area.  You can enter a name in the text box and click the “Search” button, or you can leave the field blank and click the “Search” button to get a list of everyone in the class.  Click a name to view that person’s Blackboard home page.
   
• My Grades—You can view your grades for the course. If a quiz was created with Blackboard, you can click your grade for that quiz to return to the page listing the results.
   
• Personal Information—You can change your password for all of your VCCS accounts in this area.
   
• User Manual  --  This is the online Blackboard Student Manual containing more detailed information on how to use Blackboard.

Next: Collaboration