Journals are personal spaces for students to communicate privately with you. Students can also use journals as a self-reflective tool. They can post their opinions, ideas, and concerns about the course, or discuss and analyze course-related materials.
You can create journal assignments that are broad and student-directed. Students can reflect on the learning process and document changes in their perceptions and attitudes. Students can describe the problems faced and how they solved them. You can also create instructor-directed journal entries that are more formal in nature. You can narrow the focus with a list of topics for discussion.
Journals are ideal for individual projects. For example, in a creative writing course, each student creates entries and you provide comments. In this manner, a student can refine a section of a writing assignment over a period of time, with your guidance and suggestions. Students can also comment on their own entries to continue the conversation.
For complete information on visit the Blackboard Help Center pages. You can also watch a video on
- At this time, students are not notified if you edit any content in the journal.
- You can change a journal from graded to ungraded (or the reverse) as long as there are no entries or comments.
- If you delete an entry, it will also delete all associated comments.
- If you delete a graded journal, the journal is removed from the Course Content page and the gradebook.
On the Course Content page, select the plus sign wherever you want to add a journal. Select Create, then scroll down to the Journal button at the bottom of the Create Item panel. You can also expand a folder or learning module to add a journal within them.
Enter a meaningful title to help students find the right journal in the content list. If you don't add a title, "New Journal" and the date appear on the Course Content page.
- In the Course Content area, hover your mouse where you want to add a journal and select the plus sign > Create. []
- On the Create Item panel, select Journal. The New Journal page will open. []
- On the New Journal page, add a title and a prompt to set expectations and guidelines.
- Add a prompt to set expectations and guidelines. You can use the options in the editor to format text, attach files, and embed multimedia. If you don鈥檛 add a prompt, there鈥檚 a message for students on the journal page that you haven鈥檛 added instructions for this journal.
- Show or hide the journal. New journals are hidden by default. Students can't access a journal until you choose to make it available to students. You can create all your content ahead of time and choose what you want students to view based on your schedule. You can also set availability conditions based on date, time, and performance on other items in the course gradebook. On the Course Content page, students can see when you set the journal to show.
- Customize journal settings. In the Journal Settings panel, you can choose whether or not to allow users to edit and delete entries or comments. Under Goals & Standards, you can select Align with goals to ensure the activity measures the desired learning outcomes. To motivate students to post insightful contributions, you can make a journal count for a grade. Graded journals have more settings options available.
- Auto-generate a journal. If your institution uses the AI Design Assistant feature, you can use AI to create a journal. Select the Auto-Generate Journal button to bring up the creation panel.
- Incorporate video recordings with Video Studio. If your institution uses Video Studio, you can add audio and video recordings using Video Studio. When creating a new journal, select the Video Studio button in the content editor. Then follow the standard Video Studio workflow to add your recording.
- To set the journal as gradable, select the settings icon (top-right corner) to open the Journal Settings panel. When you choose to grade a journal, more options appear such as due date, maximum points, and adding a rubric. []
- The auto-generate journal button (at the top right corner on the journal page) offers a list of potential journal topics for you to choose from, which you can edit, and use.
The auto-generate journal button. [] - By clicking this button will open up the configuration options to help generate targeted content.
- There are 6 main areas in the Auto-Generate Journal Menu: []
- The Description area: Adding description would increase the likelihood of the AI Design Assistant generating more usable journal topics.
- The Select Course Items Button: You can select relevant course items to help generate more relevant journal prompts.
- The Desired Cognitive Level selection: Choose a desired cognitive level among Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, Create, or let AI to select a level by choosing 鈥淚nspire me!鈥. []
- The Complexity Level: This sets the level for students. The lowest is for grade 1 students, and the highest is for Ph.D. students.
- The Generate Title Checkbox: You can ask to generate the title of the journal as well.
- The Advanced Options: These options now enable the AI Design Assistant to generate the title and prompts in a different language than English.
- There are 6 main areas in the Auto-Generate Journal Menu: []
- On the course content page, locate your journal.
- Select the More Options for [journal name] > Edit or Delete. []
NOTE: Please see the Important details section at the top of the page for additional information on editing and deleting journals.