Home from Tennessee - Ready to Go Back

I returned Saturday night from the Tennessee Board of Regents e-Learning Summer Institute on Web 2.0 and now I'll be heading back to Memphis in 3 weeks for the Desire2Learn User Conference - FUSION 2008. I had a great time in Memphis and met some really great people, many of whom will also be at the D2L conference. On my last night I went to Corky's BBQ and definitely Put Some South in My Mouth. After returning home I was catching up on some email and RSS feeds when a couple of things caught my eye about the D2L conference:
  • According to the D2L Patent Info Blog, the judge will be hearing Blackboard's Motion for Contempt against D2L's proposed workaround (version 8.3) on Monday July 21 and Tuesday July 22 which are the first two days of the conference. This is pretty amazing timing. I'm sure that it's pure coincidence, but some of those Blackbeard conspiracy theorists out there (you know who you are) are probably thinking that Bb somehow influenced the judge to schedule it on these dates. This should add a fair amount of drama to the conference proceedings.
  • On a completely different tangent, I was pleased to see that all three of my breakout sessions have reached full enrollment for the conference. D2L is one of the few conferences that have you actually register for the sessions that you are going to attend and then limit the attendance at a session rather than letting people just pack into a room in any way possible.
  • Although I presented at the TBR Summer Institute on much of the same stuff, I'm going to re-work several pieces of the material to add some new examples and to organize the Web 2.0 content into the three sessions as listed below:
Date - Monday, July 21st from 11:30am to 12:30pm
Title - Present: Web 2.0 Tools Inside Desire2Learn
Description - Slide presentations can be augmented and made unique with an array of Web 2.0 applications. This presentation will demonstrate the use of these applications inside Desire2Learn. Slide presentations, screencasts, live video streaming, and others will be shown. (Also, photo slide shows will be included)

Date - Tuesday, July 22nd from 1:15pm to 2:15pm
Title - Collaborate: Web 2.0 Tools Inside Desire2Learn
Description - Social networking and collaboration are enabled by many new free Web applications useful in education. This presentation will demonstrate the use of these applications inside Desire2Learn. Social bookmarking, Wikis, Web Office tools, and others will be demonstrated.

Date - Monday, July 21st from 2:45pm to 3:45pm
Title - Be Creative: Web 2.0 Tools Inside Desire2Learn
Description - Student creativity can be enhanced by many new free Web 2.0 applications. This presentation will demonstrate the use of these applications inside Desire2Learn. Digital photo projects, cartoons and comic strips, music videos and other tools will be shown.

I'm a little confused about which of these are hands-on and which aren't. Either way though I provide all participants with a guest account to access the D2L course materials so they can continue to review the content for a couple of months after the conference. Maybe they'll let me use the D2L Community site to do that rather than the LSC site. I'll have to ask (maybe I just did).

Comments

Denise Kreiger said…
Hi Barry,

In the 3 presentations you are doing on Web 2.0 tools, do you embed the Web 2.0 applications (e.g., slide presentation, screen cast, photos, etc.) in D2L's Content or do you "Quicklink" out to where the slide presentation, etc., is hosted elsewhere? For example, are your social bookmarks created/built within a D2L course or do you Quicklink to something external such as del.icio.us?
Thank you, DK
July 01, 2008 9:18 AM
Barry Dahl said…
Hi Denise,
Actually I usually show 2 or 3 options about how to integrate the Web 2.0 content or tools into D2L. Typically I show how the tools can be brought inside D2L so that they just show up as part of the course content, or in discussion postings, or in other tools.

I have a series of videos that be found at: http://barrydahl.blip.tv/

Most of these videos show embedding things inside D2L. Sometime using embed code by itself and pasting it into a D2L content page, but often embedding the entire page or site inside the course using the URL Quicklink option for creating a content page. This works especially well with things like del.icio.us, Shared items on Google Reader, and several other services.
July 01, 2008 10:05 PM
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