TeleCampus discussion board: Posting, Replying, Reading and Navigating
POSTING AND REPLYING
First you will click on the button that says Discussion Board.
Next, a window appears that provides a link for each module's discussion question. Click on the discussion question you want to answer.
Another window will open and provide you choices of how to respond. At this point, you can decide whether to add a thread or just to respond to what has already been posted.
If you want to start your own thread rather than respond to someone else's posting, click on Add Thread Now.
If you want to respond to someone else's post, you would click on the link to the left. The name on the right will tell you who posted the response. If you wish to email them directly, then click on their name.
You would then be taken to a new window. To respond - or post your message - click on Reply.
Once you have completed your posting, just click on Submit - and you will see your posting appear.
READING AND NAVIGATING
You have a variety of options when you want to read postings in the discussion board. When the board opens, you will see the questions that have been posted as well as answers to posted questions. You will also be able to tell who posted as well as the time and date that comments were posted.
To read a post, click on the topic of interest and you will be able to read the message.
To enable you to read more than one posting at a time, click on the Red Down Arrow or Show Options as indicated below.
An additional window will open and you will be able to "manipulate" the postings to facilitate reading. Note in particular that you can open several postings at a time - or an entire thread at once by clicking on the boxes to the left of the post and then clicking on Collect. This will eliminate some of the back and forth (annoying) steps you have to take when trying to read a thread.
You also have the option of arranging the messages to see what has been posted by alphabetically by author, chronologically by date, or alphabetically by topic. These options do not consider the threads of a topic, but instead list them by the preference you have specified. To rearrange the posts, click on Sort By and then choose how you would like to order the posts. The Default sorts by time and then by thread.
Using some of these sort options makes using the Discussion Board more user friendly.
