Why not use chat on Blackboard?
I have used chat and found it can only by used by some of the people some of the time, never by all of the people some of the time and certainly not by all of the people all of the time! Email on the other hand waits for each student to have the time to read it and gives each of them a chance to send their comments if they want to say something. it is also possible for me to log each students comments in their own files and keep track of their participation. I also think chat has a tendency to become more like routine conversation about things not part of the course and so, is a waste of time.
