The Lightweight Chat tool allows you to communicate in real-time with your class. You can call on students, control what parts of the tool they have access to, record archives, kick students out of the session, and in general do the things you can do in a real classroom.

Entering a Collaboration Session

From the Control Panel:

1. Click the Collaboration link in the Course Tools box on the left.
2. You will see a list of all collaboration sessions in alphabetical order by session name—if you have not yet created a collaboration session, read the documents on Managing Collaboration Sessions for more details.
3. Find the collaboration session you wish to join.
4. Click the Join button to the right of the collaboration session name.
5. You will see a page that says “Chat Loading.” Depending on your connection speed, it may take a few minutes for everything necessary for the chat to run to download.
6. A new window will appear. This is the Lightweight Chat Tool.
7. The Lightweight Chat window has two major panes. On the left, you are shown a list of all users currently in the chat room. On the right, you see all messages sent to the group.

Changing Your Viewing Options for Private Messages

You can set your chat window to display private messages either inline (with the other messages you send and receive) or in a separate frame (which creates a new pane in the Lightweight Chat window which contains only private messages).

From the Lightweight Chat Tool:

1. Click the View button.
2. A new window, labeled Session Options will appear.
3. Select the radio button next to Show in-line or Show in separate frame.
4. Click the Ok button.

Configuring Access Rights for Active and Passive Users

You can determine what parts of the Lightweight Chat Tool users have access to, and you can differentiate between Active and Passive users.

From the Lightweight Chat Tool:

1. Click the Controls button.
2. The Session Controls window will appear.
3. Click the boxes next to each ability you want Active Users and Passive Users to have. In the Lightweight Chat Tool, you have the ability to set access to the following tools:
   • Chat allows users to type messages that are sent to all users and stored in the archive.
   • Private Messaging allows users to send private messages that are seen only by the recipient. Users can receive private messages even if they can not send them—so as a moderator, you can send private messages even if your students can not.
4. Click the OK button.

Sending and Receiving Messages

In the Lightweight Chat, the right pane of the window is dedicated to group information. The large pane toward the upper right is used to display messages and login information (and depending on how you have configured your options (see the “Setting the View” directions for more information) may include private messages as well. To send a message:

From the Lightweight Chat Tool:

1. The right pane of the Lightweight Chat window has all messages sent to the group. If you have just joined, you should see a message saying that you have joined the session (and a timestamp).
2. To send a message, click in the field just to the right of the Compose button.
3. Type your message and click the Send button (or press return).
4. In the window above the text field, you should see your name (or your username, depending on your privacy settings), followed by your message text, followed by a date and timestamp.
5. The message you have just sent will appear in the same box for everyone currently in the chat session. In addition, if you are recording an archive, the message will appear there (for more information on this, see the directions on recording archives).
6. Messages that other users send will appear in the same pane yours did.

Sending Longer Messages

You may occasionally wish to send a longer message than will fit in the compose field. If you’d like to send a longer message, you can do it by using the Compose button.

From the Lightweight Chat Tool:

1. Click the Compose button.
2. A window labeled Compose Message will appear. You can type your message here. While typing, pressing Enter or Return will insert line breaks; however, these line breaks will not appear when the final message is sent.
3. When your message is complete, click the Send button.
4. The smaller window will close and your message will be sent to the class.

Sending a Private Message

From the Lightweight Chat Tool:

1. Click on the name (or User ID) of the participant you wish to sent a private message to in the Left pane. The user’s name, role, and status should highlight in purple.
2. Click the Private Message button.
3. A new window, labeled Compose Private Message, will appear.
4. Type your message into the text field of the Compose Private Message window.
5. Press the Send button.
6. Your message will appear in your chat window (depending on how you've set the options, it may appear inline or in a frame on the right) and in the window of the user you've sent it to, but will not appear in any other user's chat window.

Note: Private messages will not show up in the archives for the chat. Note that this is a change from earlier versions of Blackboard.

Clearing Your Display

You can clear out your record of previous chat messages (as well as clear the screen for all your students).

From the Lightweight Chat Tool:

1. Click on the Clear button.
2. The Clear Display window will appear.
3. Click the radio button next to Clear Local Display Only or Clear All Users' Display, depending on what you want to do.
4. Click the OK button.

Managing Users

In the Lightweight Chat, the left pane of the window is dedicated to information about participants in the session. You can sort users, change their roles, call on them, view their personal information, and send them private messages using this pane. Users are assigned on of three roles: moderators, active users, and passive users, and you can control which tools active and passive users have access to.

Viewing Participants

From the Lightweight Chat Tool:

1. The left pane will show you a list of all current participants in the chat.
2. The number of current participants appears at the top of the list (in parentheses, after the word “Participants”).
3. Users who have set their name to publicly available in their Privacy Settings will have their first and last names appear here. Users who have not set their name to publicly available will have their user ID displayed.
4. Next to each participant’s name, an icon displaying the user’s role will be displayed:
   1. Users who are Moderators of the chat have a Globe icon;
   2. users who are Active Users have a face in profile icon;
   3. users who are Passive Users have the same face icon, but it is grayed out.
5. To the right of the user role, there is a column for the Raised Hand icon. If you have set users to Passive Users roles, they can raise their hands to ask questions—for more information on this, see the directions to Call on Users with Raised Hands.

Sorting the Participant List

You can sort participants by name, role, or order in which they raised their hands (if you are using active and passive users).

From the Lightweight Chat Tool:

1. In the left pane, click on the criteria you wish to sort by.
2. If you click on the Participants tab, you will sort participants in alphabetical order by user name or last name, depending on each user’s privacy settings (you only see first and last names of users who have made that information available).
3. Clicking on Role will sort users by role (moderators, active users, and passive users).
4. Clicking on the Hand icon will sort users by whether they have their hand raised, and if they do, by the order in which they raised their hands.
5. Clicking on a sort button again will reverse the order of the sort.

Viewing User Info

From the Lightweight Chat Tool:

1. Click on the name (or User ID) of the participant whose info you wish to view. The user’s name, role, and status should highlight in purple.
2. Press the User Info button.
3. A new window will appear with all information from the user’s profile that is publicly available (this depends on the user’s privacy settings, but may include name, email, address, job title, and phone numbers).

Changing a User's Status

You can change any user (or a group of users) from Active to Passive users and back again. This will change their access rights, depending on how you have configured access rights.

From the Lightweight Chat Tool:

1. Click on the name (or User ID) of the participant whose status you wish to change. The user’s name, role, and status should highlight in purple. If you need to select more than one user, you can shift click or control click on the additional users you need to select.
2. Immediately to the right of the Private Message button, you will see a button with the Active User icon (which looks like a profile of a person) and another button with the Passive User icon.
3. If you wish to change the user or users to Active Users click the Active User button.
4. If you wish to change the user or users to Passive Users click the Passive User button.
5. You can also change the role of a single user by double-clicking on the Role icon next to their name in the participant list.

Calling on Passive Users

If you have passive users in your lightweight chat session, they have the option to raise their hand by pressing a button that appears (only for passive users) below the participant list (for details on this, see the student documentation on the Lightweight Chat tool). You will see a hand icon appear next to their name, next to a number. This indicates the order in which students raised their hands. To call on a student with a raised hand:

1. Find the user you wish to call on in the list of participants.
2. Double click on the Hand icon next to the user’s name.
3. To change the user back to Passive once they have finished talking or asking their question, follow the directions for Changing a User’s Status above.

Expelling a User

If a user is being disruptive, as the moderator, you have the option to expel them from the collaboration session. You can’t block them from re-entering, however, unless you remove them from your course completely.

From the Lightweight Chat Tool:

1. Click on the name (or User ID) of the participant whose info you wish to view. The user’s name, role, and status should highlight in purple.
2. Press the User Info button.
3. In the User Information window that appears, press the Expel User button.
4. The Expel User window will appear. Click the OK button.
5. The user will be expelled from the chat.

Recording an Archive

Archives let you record what people say in a chat session. Once you have recorded an archive for a particular chat session, you can review, sort, modify, and remove archives—for more information on this, please see the section on Managing Archives. To record an archive:

From the Lightweight Chat Tool:

1. Press the Record button. It’s in the upper right and is shaped like a circle.
2. The Name Archive window will appear. Enter the name for the chat archive. The default is the current date and time.
3. Click the OK button.
4. A message will appear that indicates that you have started archiving.
5. In addition, below the Compose field, a message will appear for all users that indicates the current state of Archiving.
6. While recording is in progress, you can press the Pause button to stop recording without having to start a new archive.
7. When you have finished recording your archive, press the Stop button. You can leave the virtual classroom without stopping the archive and it will continue recording.

Inserting a Bookmark into an Archive

If someone makes a particularly salient point that you think you'll want to return to while you're recording an archive (or if you have a long-running archive and want to mark a particular time) you can insert a bookmark. This will create a place in the archive that users can jump to when viewing the archive.

From the Lightweight Chat Tool:

1. You must be recording an archive to insert a bookmark.
2. Press the Insert Bookmark button to the right of the Record, Pause and Stop buttons.
3. The Create Bookmark in Archive window will appear.
4. Enter a name for the bookmark in the text field.
5. Click the OK button.

Ending a Collaboration Session

When you have finished a collaboration session with the Lightweight Chat tool, you have the option of expelling all users as you close the session.

From the Lightweight Chat Tool:

1. Press the End button.
2. The End Session window will appear.
3. Click the OK button.
4. All users will be expelled from the collaboration session and the session will be over.

More Information

Q. I recorded an archive, but students tell me they can’t see it!

A. Archives are created as unavailable by default. See the section on Managing Archives for more information.

Q. I expelled a student from the Lightweight Chat tool, but he/she keeps returning! How can I expel them permanently?

A. You can't! You could remove them from your class entirely, but there's no way to block someone from entering a collaboration session.