Desire2Learn

4 Comments Posted on education, educational technology

My OTRK12 reflections

I spent most of this week in Mississauga, planning and helping to run the On The Rise: K-12 Digital Learning symposium. We had less than two months from semi-approval to event date, so timelines were super-tight. Plus, March Break finished about 10 days before the symposium…

Well, it was tough to plan, but it was awesome. e-Learning Ontario provided enough funds for us to bring educators from all over the province, providing equity for those from distant boards (read: Northern Ontario). It gave us an opportunity to meet face-to-face with the people in our region whom we usually only get to connect online with through Adobe Connect or Skype. I didn’t get quite enough time with my Sudbury-North Bay friends because of my schedule, but we were able to reconnect over one meal with the Northwest folks on Monday night at least.

I also had the opportunity to meet a number of educators from around Ontario who, up until now, had been exclusively digital acquaintances. I got a chance to meet @ColleenKR, @MarkWCarbone, @pauldhondt, and a bunch of others. I heard from several people that the networking opportunities were awesome, and I have to agree.

Keynotes

John Baker from D2L and Dr. John Malloy from HWDSB were both awesome keynote speakers. I could probably write a whole post about their speeches, but I’ll just let you look at my Twitter feed for Tuesday, March 26th (Baker) and Wednesday, March 27th (Malloy). I’ll mention here that Dr. Malloy referred quite a bit to “A New Culture of Learning” by Thomas and Brown, which I now must buy.

Sessions

Most of my work on OTRK12 happened before the conference began, so I was mostly able to attend the sessions I wanted to. A couple of them really stick out in my mind:

SG1 – Small Group – Administrators

I didn’t get to attend this one, but I heard so much about how awesome it was I figured I should mention it. :)

T11 – Adobe Connect

Okay, this is the one I delivered. The audience was very mixed (teachers, admin, eLCs, elementary and secondary), and I’ll admit to feeling a little scattered. Thankfully the technology functioned nicely, so I didn’t have to fall back on my local PowerPoint of screenshots. If anyone has any questions about using Adobe Connect as a teacher, program resource person, or an administrator, feel free to contact me.

T22 – Leading an Engaging Online Learning Program in Your Secondary School

This was a presentation/conversation by one of my favourite people in education, @fryed. A principal and a superintendent from my board attended this session, and the perspective from Superior-Greenstone was perfectly relevant to the challenges and opportunities we have in Algoma. Thanks, Donna!

W42 – Looking Good: Giving Your Themes, Homepages and Navbars a Graphic Designer’s Touch

This is another I-didn’t-get-to-go-but-it-was-awesome session. @timrobinsonj and @PJAnello hosted this workshop, and the excitement and laughter was all over Twitter. (They’re also from my region, but that’s not the only reason they’re awesome)

W56 – Round Table: Barrier Busters for Administrators

This session was the last one of the conference for me, and it was great. People didn’t want to stop the conversation because it was so rich, but we had to cut it off. There were some really, really smart people there, and the depth of their thinking on the issues surrounding e-Learning and Blended Learning was really impressive. I heard especially great thoughts from @markwcarbone and @WallwinS, some of which are now immortalized in my Twitter feed.

My Algoma Team

I was fortunate to be able to bring two principals, four teachers, and a superintendent to OTRK12. The shared experiences, the development of perspective, and the excited planning over lunch and on breaks were exactly what I was hoping for when I committed to this conference. I have such high hopes now for our board as we move thoughtfully forward in more fully implementing digital learning in our classrooms and for professional sharing and development.

Bittersweet, as always

It was emotional saying goodbye to everyone again. I’ve been working closely with these folks for weeks, months, and even years in a few cases, and they’re among the greatest people I’ve ever known. I can’t imagine that another group anywhere has the kind of passion, vision, caring, and enthusiasm as the delegates at OTRK12. From where I’m sitting, it was the greatest single event to advance digital learning across all of Ontario that I’ve ever seen. I’m crossing my fingers and looking forward to next year!

Leave a comment Posted on education, educational technology

ReplaceStrings for D2L From Dave Baker

Here’s what @DaveBakerD2L sent me today:

We are adding more as we go but here is a fairly comprehensive list:

Org Info:
————
OrgID: {OrgID}
OrgName: {OrgName}

Course Info:
—————
OrgUnitID: {OrgUnitID}
OrgUnitName: {OrgUnitName}
OrgUnitCode: {OrgUnitCode}
OrgUnitPath: {OrgUnitPath}

User Info:
————-
UserId: {UserId}
OrgDefinedId: {OrgDefinedId}
UserName: {UserName}
FirstName: {FirstName}
LastName: {LastName}
InternalEmail: {InternalEmail}
ExternalEmail: {ExternalEmail}
RoleId: {RoleId}
RoleCode: {RoleCode}

For the Current OrgUnit:
{OrgUnitId}
{OrgUnitName}
{OrgUnitCode}
{OrgUnitPath}

For the Organization:
{OrgId}
{OrgName}

For the current user:
{UserId}
{UserName}
{OrgDefinedId}
{FirstName}
{LastName}
{ExternalEmail}
{InternalEmail}

The user’s role in the current orgunit:
{RoleId}
{RoleCode}

Intelligent Agents:

What replace strings can I use in the subject and message?

The following are replace strings you can use in the subject line and the message (email body).

{OrgName} – The name of the organization.
{OrgUnitCode} – The code for the org unit.
{OrgUnitName} – The name of the org unit.
{OrgUnitStartDate} – The start date specified for the org unit.
{OrgUnitEndDate} – The end date specified for the org unit.
{InitiatingUserFirstName} – The first name of the initiating user.
{InitiatingUserLastName} – The last name of the initiating user.
{InitiatingUserUserName} – The username of the initiating user.
{InitiatingUserOrgDefinedId} – The Org Defined ID of the initiating user.
{LoginPath} – The address of the login path for the site.

Leave a comment Posted on education, educational technology

Struggling with user interfaces

I work in Desire2Learn, a Learning Management System (LMS) or Online Learning Environment (OLE! – I prefer this acronym, for obvious reasons). When I work with a new student or a new teacher, I’m always reminded of something important:

I’ve used this before; they haven’t. It’s not obvious.

I know where everything is. Of course you click on Content. Where else would you click? You mean, you’re considering one of the forty other links on the screen? But you want Content… oh, you mean you would have called that something else?

We need consistency for e-Learning.

Students take courses online from our board and from other boards, and it’s very helpful for them if we use the same terms, put things in the same places, etc. It cuts down on the amount of adjustment going from one course/organization to another. But just how important is it?

I’m not renaming Content.

Don’t worry, I don’t want to do anything too drastic. But I’ve had several experiences in the last three weeks or so where people got a little lost in the system. I have a widget on the default course homepage that I called “QuickNav” that provides links to the mostly commonly accessed tools, and the feedback is that it helps:

QuickNav

(BTW, the icons came from the Open Clipart Library, an excellent collection of public domain SVG files, which includes the stuff from the Tango Desktop Project)

So, I’m thinking about reworking the homepages for the Semester 2 startup in February to make things a little more navigable. We are also upgrading to D2L’s LE10.1 in January, so that might affect things a little (I’m not sure how much yet).

Peter Anello (@PJAnello) pointed me to Barry Dahl’s slideshow from the Denver, Colorado Regional User Forum. It has several slides on homepages, so I’m considering that stuff. Anyone have any exemplary homepages they want to share, either Org-level or course-level?

The Point

I’m trying to simplify everyone’s life a little, especially the students’ lives. The interface should be simpler, and right now there is a bit of a cluttered legacy that I think is a barrier for people. I’m looking for help, suggestions, experiences… what works for you?

Leave a comment Posted on education, educational technology

New BLTs – where to begin?

[Note: I tried to add an audio clip of me reading this post, but WordPress apparently wants me to get a “Space Upgrade” to enable that feature. Didn’t realize that. I’ve posted it to my Google Drive for now, and here’s a link. I’ll work out something better (and also free) soon.]

Click here to access the audio version.

I had a couple of good meetings this week with new BLTs (Blended Learning Teachers) who had attended eSymposium last week. They’ve clearly been thinking about the impact of technology on learning. Our conversations ranged from avoiding the filter bubble to engaging students who don’t have access to technology at home, and everything in between. I was struck by the careful consideration that teachers were giving to the use of technology in their classes (what’s efficient? what’s helpful? what’s optional?) and the decisions that resulted from that thinking. It was very encouraging, and although I finished the day exhausted from our efforts, I was also energized by the enthusiasm I saw (which explains the midnight-on-a-Friday blog post). I’ve been pondering for a couple of days, and I decided it might be worthwhile trying to consolidate our discussions into some recommendations that I can pass along. I don’t imagine that these are new, but perhaps they’ll help an interested-but-terrified new BLT somewhere.

(I mostly talk about Blended Learning in the context of using Desire2Learn, the Learning Management System funded by e-Learning Ontario, in a public school in Ontario.)

Start

Get your e-Learning Contact to make a course (or a bunch of courses) for you. Log in. Poke around. Srsly. Until you have access, you’re mostly stuck. In my board at least, this is a zero-commitment step. If you’re not happy with what you see, no hard feelings.

Define A Goal

Why are you doing this? Because you believe students need the skills that Blended Learning helps to develop? Because you want to share with students in a way they’ll find relevant? Because you need to overcome geographical barriers? These are all great reasons; which is important to you and your students? Once you’ve thought about the goal, it will frame and define your decision-making about how to proceed and where to spend your energy.

Try One Tool

It’s not good to try everything at once. If you’re the rare wizard who can leap into the environment with utter success, that’s great; however, you’re likely working with a group of students who need to get used to the water a bit. Take it easy. Try one thing first (I suggest using the Discussion tool). Branch out when your learners are ready.

Try Something That Isn’t Academic

Post some news about your dog. Have a discussion about the Blue Jays. Collect school spirit photos in a dropbox. Ask for a haiku related to technology. Less pressure on students is usually a good idea.

Look Around For Ideas

The groups I worked with had a list of ways to use different tools in D2L. Take a look if you want, then head to Twitter, e-Community, or your favourite research site for more.

Get Help

You have an e-Learning Contact. They can help. Honestly, you should email them. They can help you technically, connect you with other people, and show you some possibilities you maybe hadn’t considered. Also, they’re nice people. (Full disclosure: I’m an eLC, so I’m nice too.)