Desire2Blog

D2L created some new buttons for giveaways at Educause. Sadly, the button company appears to have made a typo on one of them. Can you spot it?

This story is almost too much to believe. I guess that is why the blog post at the D2L patent site has a title of: "Grab yourself a cup of coffee and get comfortable - we have a story for you!" Many of us who attended D2L's 2008 User Conference (FUSION) in Memphis were distracted by the court proceedings that were occurring simultaneously in Texas. This was the proceeding where the court found that D2L version 8.3 does NOT infringe on Blackboard's bogus patent. From the blog entry: "Blackboard convinced the Court that it should be permitted to have a representative at FUSION, Dr. Mark Jones (who served as Blackboard's expert witness) and the Court agreed. Counsel for Blackboard further requested: We would ask the court and ask D2L not to disclose that Dr. Jones is an expert for Blackboard or is connected with Blackboard at the conference. The court, I'm sure from its past statements, has read some of the blogs and some of the Internet traffic on this. And...

D2L Users Conference at St. Paul RiverCentre in July 2009 This from MnSCU CIO Ken Niemi: "St. Paul’s RiverCentre will be the site of the 2009 D2L Users Conference. MnSCU will co-host the event with Desire2Learn. The event kicks off on Sunday evening, July 12. The main conference will be July 13-15, with post-conference sessions July 16-17. This is a great opportunity for MnSCU faculty, administrators and technical staff to attend an international conference within driving distance. The 2008 conference was held in Memphis, Tennessee, where an all-day Executive Session was offered for the first time. Given the success of that session, it will be offered again at the 2009 conference in St. Paul. The session will be geared toward an audience of high level planners and administrators, including CAOs, CIOs, presidents, and other executives involved in planning and administering enterprise system technology and learning management systems. We look forward to c...

I'm just passing along the following questions and answers from the D2L Patent Blog . Q. Does Learning Environment 8.3 infringe Blackboard's Patent? A. No. Q. Didn't Blackboard try to get the court to say LE 8.3 infringed? A. Yes, but the court ruled against Blackboard. Q. Why did the court rule against Blackboard? A. Because the court found (1) that the design of the system was in Canada; (2) that the steps of the method patent were not performed in the US for clients who were hosted on Desire2Learn servers in Canada; and (3) that the installation step of the method patent was not performed in the US for clients that are self hosted in the US. Q. Does that mean Desire2Learn is a safe choice? A. Yes. The safest choice, in fact. Only Desire2Learn performs steps of the patent outside of the United States. No other Blackboard competitor that we know of can say that. Q. Does the patent affect any non-US clients? A. No, not now, not ever. Q. What about ...

This is a free conference . Friday, November 7, 2008 at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Some of the e-learning sessions listed in the program include: Care to Moodle? Description: Overview and demonstration of the open source online course platform, Moodle. Matching Practice to Outcome . Description: An Examination of Online Teaching from Multiple Perspectives-- students, interns and professor. Presentation of information from a research project that systematically examined the practice of online teaching to discover what works, what is challenging and the relationship between practices and outcomes. My Online Course Speaks to Every Student--Does Yours? Description: Discussion of accessibility issues surrounding D2L (and/or other learning management systems). Part 1-Becoming aware of the various barriers to learning for many students in courses delivered with D2L and developing awareness of work arounds to these barriers. Part 2-Tips and tools for developing accessibl...