D2L related – Page 4 – All The Young (edu)Punks

D2L related
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- e-learning

RSS Feeds Into A Widget for D2L

Posted on May 16, 2012July 17, 2014by Jon K.

Part of my previous (and current) job was (is) to document and describe how to accomplish tasks in our LMS, Desire2Learn. However, there’s lots of things that I learned from others, but have since forgotten the original source, and moreover, can’t find a simple answer for what I used to know. Networked learning indeed. So, the next few posts (hopefully at a more regular interval) will have links to resources that I should know how to do, and push to document locally in PDF format with nice screenshots and everything.

I can’t believe I didn’t document this, nor kept a copy of the process for this, but The Clever Sheep has already done it via video, so I’ll link here: http://blip.tv/the-clever-sheep/using-rss-feeds-in-desire2learn-1012466 – there’s a primer on RSS and what it means, which is not entirely useful for my purposes. Typically my usage is in response to a question like: How do I get an RSS feed into my course? I like to use PDFs to document things – people tend to need to see pictures, and like to print out instructions to have next to them as they do the task. Usually my PDFs get spit out as a response to a question I’ve had more than once, and as such, they get the benefit of many iterations of feedback on the writing and how functional the instructions are.

We’re upgraded to 9.4.1 of the D2L Learning Environment, but will be going to Version 10 soon. From my preliminary investigation of version 10 (thanks Matt Teskey and D2L for the early access) the process doesn’t change and pre-existing RSS Feed widgets import into the new course just fine – nothing breaks.

I would also have to acknowledge the great work that Alan Levine did with Feed2Js, and Barry Dahl who’s presentation on Web 2.0 in the LMS was the starting point for where I’ve gone in the last four years. So here’s my gift back – How to Embed a RSS feed in a D2L Homepage Widget (PDF). Bonus offer: if you would like to edit the original document, I’ll be glad to share that too, drop a comment and I’ll get in touch directly.

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D2L related
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Speculation on Version 10 of Desire2Learn’s Learning Environment

Posted on April 1, 2012May 16, 2016by Jon K.

As one of the three administrators at my institution of the LMS, we got an invitation to the unveiling of version 10 of Desire2Learn’s LE. We were also asked what we thought the new system would be like, what the big change will be. I started mulling over what it could be, thinking about all the permutations. I had spoken with someone I knew who had seen the new version and when I said no, their only response was “it’s different”. So while I may be right in the speculation, it’s not because I have insider information. Here’s some things that I think might be a part of the new Learning Environment:

1. Further integrated with Social Media. During the 9.4.1 upgrade D2L added some minor touches, being able to add Likes and Tweets to items in the LE, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the User Profiles replaced with Facebook or Google profiles.

2. No more Homepages with widgets. While I like the widgets approach to homepages, I think it’s probably run it’s course. What would replace it? Perhaps a dashboard type interface, like the one in ePortfolio, where when one logs in, they are presented with an activity page, which lists all their courses, and the activity within them.

3. No more Content. I’ve grown to hate how faculty use Content as a repository for PowerPoint and PDFs. I wish that there was more inventive use of the Content tool, and if it’s going to be a big change, getting rid of Content would be a big change. Is it the sort of change everyone would want? No. I think it would freak a lot of people out, but D2L is well aware of disruptive change, and maybe it’s something that as a company, they would be daring enough to go to. The things that were in Content would now be tied to Competencies, or Outcomes, or some other activity. In essence, it forces faculty to rethink the use of this learning object. Alternatively, the Content tool could be re-worked so it allows students to create content as well (based on Instructor level permissions). I’ve seen this in other collaborative software like FirstClass – where instructors can grant students permission to do different tasks.

4. Badges. D2L could easily craft some badges to award a user for passing a course (eg. PSYCH 1A00 badge complete!), completing all the assignments, based on their Intelligent Agents tool. While I personally think badges are silly, almost as silly as the paper diplomas are printed on, there seems to be a shift towards using badges as a motivator for completing a course. I can certainly see that being useful, and it would be a big difference over the competition for D2L.

5. Blogs tool be deleted to be replaced by simplified WordPress installs. OK, this is my personal wish, but how great would it be to have a one-button opt-in wordpress install (a simplified one – perhaps with no add-ins or only a selection of themes) for students. It would be even better then, if courses could have a blog tool where collaborative writing could occur.

By the way, Happy April Fool’s Day, even though this is not an April Fool’s post.

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D2L related
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- Digital Life
- e-learning

Answers for 2011

Posted on January 3, 2012July 17, 2014by Jon K.

Well, I guess a year’s time is as good as any to have some answers – even if the answer may very well be no answer. For the original post see: Questions for 2011. Yes, there will also be a Questions for 2012.

1. What makes anyone think that the video games push (mostly by the iOS platform devices, but Xbox, Playstation and Wii) has anything to do with formal education?

Well, I don’t know if gamification gained any traction, but things like achievements in video games have lent themselves to things like badges. I suspect that my original assertion that it will be marginalized, will remain until someone can quantify and measure the whole process, much like they’ve tried to do with standardized testing.

2. Why haven’t educational institutions really pushed for a mobile learning environment?

I think there’s been some motion here – certainly the open courses are structured so that they are mobile friendly, and the big two LMS vendors (Desire2Learn and Blackboard) are both becoming more mobile friendly, I suspect the resistance comes from the institution’s inability to control and verify that a potentially mobile student may not be that student, and the only way to assess a person is still in-person. I don’t think it matters anymore, in work most people will use the Internet to research a possible solution to whatever problem they face, so knowing something isn’t as crucial as it once was. Knowing something however does allow you to find a solution sooner – making you a more efficient worker – which is what capitalism wants.

3. Will the consolidation of the web conferencing tools that education typically use (Wimba and Elluminate) mean that new companies with new models will arise?

Well, they haven’t arisen yet, but there’s a plethora of tools out there to replace Blackboard Collaborate or whatever it’s called this week. However, no one has put together the killer app – which I hope is the form the web conferencing takes – mobile native, low bandwidth friendly, and most of all, accessible.

4. Wither edupunk?

Yup. edu-post-punk should be interesting.

5. What will Pearson as a publishing giant and accredited University mean?

Turns out, not much. Unless you consider an extremely walled off garden of textbooks in a proprietary LMS with Google Doc integration something.

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D2L related
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- e-learning

A New Method of Assessment

Posted on April 1, 2011July 17, 2014by Jon K.

Well, not quite new, but a new wrinkle on the old way to assess language skills. When I worked in the Second Language area of my former employer, they did assessments in an interview session where the interviewer could only ask and respond according to a script. I always thought that this could be automated and it was one of the items I was going to push forward this year before my contract was not renewed. Ah well, missed opportunities. It’s nice to see that Desire2Learn’s latest upgrade allows for recording right in the tool – finally. This is something second language learners have been looking for – having used other solutions like the clunky Can8 system – having an audio stream connect directly to the LMS is a great thing. Of course, assessing verbal skills is tricky, and certainly you wouldn’t want to do too much of this sort of assessment at a distance, but business courses could easily say record your 10-second elevator pitch, listen to it, improve it and submit the best version. All in that one assignment you have a reflective component that deepens the learning and builds a practical skill both things lacking in higher education. To build it out further, you could add in a component of what makes a good elevator pitch prior to the assessment, perhaps a video of a good elevator pitch or a demonstration of you giving an elevator pitch.

For me this is a real advancement in LMS’s. We’re not relying on written skills (which have been in decline for the last few decades) as much as one used to because profs are bored with marking papers and students are bored with writing papers. Yes, papers still have a purpose in higher education. Look at the popularity of Michael Wesch, who largely has gained his academic fame from videos on YouTube (not to say that he’s not a highly respected anthropologist, he is the author of many of those papers!). Surely these are markers that education is changing – shouldn’t academics respond?

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D2L related
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- e-learning
- Web Design

Adding MouseOver Tooltips Within Desire2Learn

Posted on October 7, 2010July 17, 2014by Jon K.

Lightly tested with: IE 7/8, Firefox (Win) 3.0/3.5, Chrome 5/6, Safari (Win/Mac) 5, Safari (Mobile). No guarantees for browsers earlier or later.

I’ve been working both angles of my strengths lately – I was asked by a faculty member who was trying to use the D2L tools for glossary and content in conjunction to provide context sensitive tool tip like definitions of terms. Like all web programmers, why start in a vacuum? So knowing that a great tooltip JS is available in JQuery, I considered using it. The JQuery solution is a large one to embed the entire library for a couple of functions. Looking further, I searched out this tutorial/premade tooltip script, which does the job nicely. It would clobber any styles created by D2L that had been already added to a topic created prior to adding the script, so I had to hack around it to fix that. I also had to fix the tooltip always surfacing above the text, which in the frames based LMS world, defeats the purpose of having a definition; in this case you get a definition you can’t read because it’s behind a frame (or the top of the window). Another fix I put in was to ensure the box did not appear off screen if it was too close to the edge of the window, it still does in certain cases, which I haven’t narrowed down – if anyone out there wants to take a crack at fixing it, be my guest.

The implementation of the script isn’t too difficult if you’re OK with editing HTML code (a matter of adding three lines and editing two lines) and are precise in your edits.

Here’s a link to the PDF instructions and the zipped file with the javascript and CSS file.

Of course, if there’s any errors please let me know and I’ll correct and/or clarify them as soon as possible.

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Connectivism
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- D2L related
- e-learning

How Much Is Too Much (Training)?

Posted on October 5, 2010July 17, 2014by Jon K.

I’ve been thinking about the resources we provide for the continued migration of faculty at work from whatever system they’re using (there’s FirstClass, WebCT, Blackboard CE 6, maybe one or two Moodle, several proprietary web-based creations and CourseTools – so a total of 6 different systems) to Desire2Learn. The department has offered over a hundred training sessions over the last year and a bit. We’ve pushed out thirteen multi-page documents in addition to Desire2Learn’s documentation. We have a dozen training videos, and have published all our workshop documentation. We’ve seen probably a hundred or more faculty members walk through our doors for one on one help.

Are we doing too much?

Is there too much information, or are people turned off by the sheer amount of resources and contact we’ve provided? Or maybe is it not enough? Our rough estimates guess that we’ve maybe seen one third of the faculty. Will another two hundred sessions get everyone? What about the part timers? No one pays them to attend workshops, no one pays them to develop resources, but it’s in their best interest to do so (keeping it for themselves and reusing it again or elsewhere).

I think that maybe we’re stifling people’s curiosity – people might explore and innovate with online learning if they had the curiosity to do so. Maybe too much is too much and we’re creating a real version of information overload. If this is the case then we need better ways to manage the information, or to teach these skills to people (which we do not). Maybe we’re killing people’s sense of play by telling them what they should do. I don’t have any answers really, just questions, which if you’ve read my blog at all, you should come to expect.

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