Very soon you may find yourself engaged in ongoing conversations about the course discussion topics or other interests your classmates have in common.

Remember when you are working within WebBoard's threaded tree structure, you should use either the "Reply to" or "Reply/Quote"  function to make comments on your classmates' postings. If you do not use the "Reply to" or "Reply/Quote" buttons to respond to a message, and instead select the "Post New Topic" button, you will create the first message of a new Topic. Sometimes this is exactly what you want to do, for example, if you are submitting your answer to discussion question #2 for Week 1, you should go to the "WK 1 – DQs" Conference, then post a New Topic called, "DQ #2." Your message will become the start of a New Topic and all subsequent messages (for example, your classmates’ comments) in this Topic will form a thread. If everyone follows this important tip, the conference will be tidy and discussions will be easy to follow.

There are many Conferences within each course and many Topics within each Conference. It is of vital importance that you know where you are sending messages in the virtual classroom. You do not need to address a message at all, because, when you "Reply to" or "Reply/Quote" to a message, the address is automatically filled in and your message will be sent within the same thread (Topic and Conference) of the original message. When you want to start a new Topic, you Click inside a Conference then select "Post New Topic," and your message will be the first message of a New Topic within that Conference.

You can delete your own messages (but not those of others)! This is good to remember so if you accidentally send your message to the wrong thread, or use the "Post New Topic" function instead of "Reply," you can virtually undo your mistake and send it again! Please keep this in mind in order to keep our discussions on track.