Project Background

The Learning Management Solutions(LMS) we chose to focus on is Blackboard. While analyzing the website for problems, we noticed that there is no functionality that facilitates communication between members of the class. This is a big issue because if you need to communicate with other members of the class then you need to set up a meeting time and place or set up some predetermined form of communication. This can get complicated because you need to find a common application you both use from the variety of communication applications such as Discord, Slack, SMS, WhatsApp, Snapchat, or many others.

With this project we hope to take out this unnecessary step and give the students and teachers a common line of communication right on Blackboard. This will end up helping classmates both in and out of the classroom because they will be able to communicate for projects, homework, etc. and additionally it gives students the tools necessary to connect with others they previously were not able to, for any other reasons.

Project Description

Our solution to this problem was implementing a live chat feature that will be added to every class right inside of blackboard. Our live chat will allow all members of the class to be able to send messages directly to other members of the class in a private channel, or send messages in a class channel to reach everyone at once. The professor will be able to create channels for relevant discussion topics (homework, projects, etc.) to keep communication organized. The professor will also be able to promote students or a teacher's assistant to admin in order to monitor the chat room and delete any profane messages. This feature will make collaboration easier and allow for greater student success.

Project Assets

Resources