Desire2Blog

I am normally the interviewer for the Desire2Pod series, but this time Valerie Beyer of Desire2Learn interviews me about the Online Student Mentor program at Lake Superior College. The Online Student Mentor program ( PDF description ) was selected to receive one of the three Desire2Excel awards at FUSION 2008 held last July in Memphis. We are now in our sixth year of this program. Some of the best outcomes have been related to the number of students who decided to choose a career in education after their involvement in the student mentor program. The slides below are about three years old now, but can give you a good idea about some of the features of the program. LSC Online Student Mentors from Barry Dahl >

This podcast episode is an interview with Jeannette Brewer of Desire2Learn. Jeannette told me about many of the new features of Desire2Learn version 8.3.  The word Blackboard (or even Blackbeard) didn't come up once (until now). The title is a "Birds-Eye View of Version 8.3." We discuss several things including:  1) The look of the new My Courses widget,  2) Some of the other homepage management features,  3) New widgets,  4) How can 8.3 help me to manage my Schedule better? and  5) What are some of the lesser known features of 8.3?  Jeannette Brewer is the developer of Desire2Learn’s ePortfolio training programs. Prior to joining Desire2Learn two years ago, Jeannette completed her MSc at the University of York in the UK. She travels to clients across North America and the UK to help them set up their sites and train their staff. One thing that we didn't get around to in the (20 min.) interview was the HTML editor, which has seen a few changes. It i...

Jason Ohler from the University of Alaska will be the closing keynote speaker at the 2008 Desire2Learn User Conference next month in Memphis, Tennessee. Jason and I talked for about 20 minutes on the telephone yesterday about the work he does with new media, new literacies, and digital storytelling.  This podcast episode also includes a few hints about his conference keynote which is titled: Web 2.1 and the World of the Multimedia Collage. The first 19 episodes of this podcast series have been published using Odeo.com, however I am having increased difficulties with the site and finally had to post this episode at the Internet Archrive ( archive.org ) which is why the player above looks different from the rest of the series. Maybe Odeo will start to work properly again, but I am beginning to lose faith. After uploading the file three different times and not having it processed properly, the exact same file was rendered quickly and easily by the Internet Archive.

It's been a while since the last installment in the Desire2Pod series, but it's time to start getting geared up for the 2008 Desire2Learn User Conference this summer in Memphis. Last year I started the practice of interviewing the keynote speakers for a brief preview of their upcoming presentation at the conference. This year I am continuing that very short tradition. This is a 20-minute teaser about the upcoming keynote address by George Siemens . His Keynote topic is: "Connectives and Collectives: Learning Alone, Together." George is a proponent of a learning theory called Connectivism . At that same site you will find one of his blogs as well as other useful information such as this wiki . Another blog of his, elearnspace, is one of the required readings in my educational blog roll. George is a very frequent speaker at educational technology events, but he certainly has not reached the point of over saturation. One reason I say that is that this is the firs...

During my lunch hour today (I'm on a diet - no soup for you!) I recorded a phone interview with Michael C. Smith who is a patent lawyer who regularly works in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas - also known as the Rocket Docket for patent cases in the U.S.  This is the court where the Desire2Learn - Blackboard case was tried. This conversation was very enjoyable and informative, at least for me. I titled this post as the East Texas Law School Lecture because I learned so much from it - but it is not a lecture at all, just two guys talking about patent law. I had been reading Michael's blog ( EDTexweblog ) for updates about the D2L-Blackboard case and decided to contact him about doing an interview (his About page ). He readily agreed and a day later we have this recording in the can.  This is longer than most of my podcast entries, weighing in at 30 minutes.  Here is an abbreviated table of contents:  2:25 - Michael explains that he is a n...

This is a recording of a phone interview I conducted with Kenneth Chapman of D2L. Kenneth is the lead product developer for the D2L Virtual Learning Environment. We talk about the features of the new Desire2Learn ePortfolio tool. Some of the topics covered include: General idea of an electronic portfolio Features of the new D2L ePortfolio tool Why build one rather than use existing tools Integration possibilities between D2L VLE and ePortfolio Client planning prior to implementing the tool Plans for future development When will it be available for viewing and use

This is a recording of a phone interview I conducted with Deb Homuth, principal of the Ontario Virtual High School in Canada. Deb was a consultant/advisor for the D2L development team while they were designing and building their ePortfolio tool. It's about 16 minutes long. From their March 13 press release: "Desire2Learn Inc., today unveils ePortolio, a much anticipated new product that enables users to track, record, and reflect upon their progress from K-12, to post-secondary education and beyond. An ePortfolio is a digital repository of artifacts that demonstrates progress and achievement. Pairing social networking and informal learning with the traditional classroom, Desire2Learn ePortfolio provides users and institutions with a customized and personalized learning journey." Personalized Learning: "Today’s users demand a personalized learning experience that extends beyond the traditional classroom boundaries to include social networks of peers, evaluators, a...

While at the ITC conference I led a session that I've done many times called Podcasting without Fruit - for all the PC users out there who don't want to buy a Mac just so they can make podcasts. The session was not one of my better performances as I tried to do too much, too fast, blah, blah, blah. One thing I did illustrate is how to make an audio file with Audacity, how to add a music intro and exit to the file, how to upload the file to Odeo, how to embed the Odeo player into a blog post or VLE page, and how Odeo takes care of getting the file into iTunes. The problem came yesterday when I remembered that I just uploaded sort of a dummy file as an example. It was sitting in my Desire2Pod series and it needed to go away. So I get into my Odeo account and in an effort to delete the audio file - I DELETED THE ENTIRE PODCAST SERIES!! What a complete idiot. Luckily there are only 15 recordings in that series so far, not 50 or 100. Still, I had to start uploading those files once...

In this short (under 12 minutes) recording, I share some thoughts about the possible future development of virtual learning environments (VLE) and how they could be more like current Web 2.0 tools, more open to the public (where appropriate), and probably a lot more engaging and productive places to get your work done. Since I'm not playing fantasy football this year, I thought I would try my hand at fantasy e-learning. I admit that this is not the deepest of thinking. Just some thoughts that have been rolling around in my head, plus an effort to jump start the Desire2Pod series that has been dormant for several months.

Dr. Ruth Clark of Clark Training and Consulting will deliver the opening keynote address at the D2L User Conference this July in Duluth. Her keynote topic is "Learning Faster, Better" and is based on her recent book, Efficiency in Learning ( intro chapter ). She also has an even newer book titled "The New Virtual Classroom: Evidence-based Guidelines for Synchronous e-Learning." In this 12-minute interview she talks about her background and her current research, writings, and presentations.

Number thirteen in the Desire2Pod series is another interview with one of the keynote speakers for the D2L User Conference this summer in Duluth. Nancy White ( bio ) will deliver the keynote address on Wednesday, July 11 titled "Technologies for Communities of Practice." In this 15-minute interview we learn about her background, her consulting specialties, and some of her thoughts about the keynote topic.   We used the Pamela recorder for Skype on this call and there a few short stretches that are garbled. Apparently our Skype connection was not as good as it could have been. Sorry about that. I think you can still get the gist of those comments. We also have a somewhat abrupt end to the interview when we reached the 15 minute limit about ten seconds too soon.  Nancy's website: Full Circle Associates   Nancy's Blog (one of them): Full Circle Online Interaction Blog   Some of her resources: Online Community Toolkit

It's been a while since the last installment in the Desire2Pod series, but today's post starts a new series in preparation for the D2L User Conference this summer in Duluth. I will be interviewing the keynote speakers as well as others who will be presenting at the conference. This is just a little teaser about the upcoming keynote address by Will Richardson. He will speak about using the Read/Write Web in education, which is something that he knows more than just a little bit about. His blog, Weblogg-ed, the read/write web in the classroom , is one of the most visited and most widely read educational technology blogs in the world. His book, using Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms has also been extremely popular.

Start the audio file first, and then advance the slides when indicated. D2L User Conference 2007 from Barry Dahl Photos courtesy of SunFlowery (Flickr, Creative Commons) and Dennis O'Hara of Northern Images dot com .

I'll post one more snippet from the recording of the phone interview I gave to Jonathon Lunardi. The first post was here. This is the last question that he posed to me. We attempted to discuss what the LMS (IMS) of the future might look like. I don't think that it is a very thorough answer and primarily points out how hard it is to envision a future LMS when the future of education and e-Learning seems to be somewhat unclear. I would love to get some comments on this post with other thoughts about how the LMS platforms may need to change in the coming years.

I recently received a request to be interviewed by Jonathon Lunardi about the Blackboard patent suit against Desire2Learn as well as other things related to e-Learning and learning management systems. Jonathon is the CEO of SINAPSE Consulting and the COO of SyncRoots and is generally interested in the e-Learning marketplace.  This podcast only contains two of the six questions and answers from the interview. To keep the podcast length a bit smaller, I've divided the interview into chunks. I'm not sure if I'll post the first two-question chunk because I'm not so sure that it's very interesting ... in my own opinion my answers were rather boring and long-winded.  What I'm posting below is the audio from questions 3 & 4 that Jonathon asked during our nearly hour-long interview.     00:50 - Jonathon asks if D2L is the main competitor to Blackboard, are there others?  03:15 - Angel's competitive position  03:50 - eCollege and others  04:15 - Open sou...

Version 8 of D2L E-Learning Environment includes a new Blog Tool. Click on the graphic to go to the D2L Website , then scroll down to learn more about the blog tool or to open a larger screen shot of the tool. In this 14 minute podcast I chat with Kenneth Chapman of D2L about the new tool. Questions about permissions, roles, privacy and the like are all addressed.   2:00 Accessibility testing of blog tool 2:40 Blog watch for blog reading 3:50 publish RSS feeds 4:30 managing permissions (private or public?) 8:15 supported file types in posts 10:30 appropriate use concerns 12:00 what about wikis? 13:00 my passing shot at Blackboard

This particular podcast probably doesn't apply to anyone not affiliated with MnSCU . Congratulations to Minnesota Online for receiving the Tekne Award for 2006 . An awards ceremony was held on October 26, 2006 at the Minneapolis Convention Center. MnOnline will also be receiving an award on November 10 at the International CAEL Conference in Boston. These awards are indicative of the good work that has been done since the inception of Minnesota Online about five years ago. Obviously, receiving these awards begs the question of why I am proposing that we need to make several changes to MnOnline and to the governing council. I have the pleasure of serving as the Chair of the MnOnline Council for the current academic year, which puts me in a precarious situation of being critical about the (award-winning) organization that I also support and am helping to lead into the future. At the recent CAO/Dean/CSSO meetings (includes basically all academic and student services administrators ...

This is a 17-minute podcast about using the Desire2Learn Learning Object Repository (LOR).  This DOES NOT look at the  definition of learning objects,  creation of learning,  the sharing of learning objects, or  the tagging of learning objects with meta data.  SO! What does it cover? Listen to the podcast to find out.       Thanks to Kenneth Chapman of D2L for lending his expertise to this podcast.

Extra, extra!! Read all about it (or listen)!  This morning, October 24, Desire2Learn is announcing that the 2007 D2L User Conference will be held in Duluth, Minnesota. Lake Superior College (LSC, that's my school) will be co-hosting the event with the University of Wisconsin Superior (UWS). I've created a short podcast telling all listeners why they want to come to the Duluth/Superior area for this conference on July 8-11, 2007.  Links to info about the area:  The Minnesota Connection:   LSC website: www.lsc.edu   Visit Duluth: http://www.visitduluth.com   Northern Images Photo Galleries: http://www.northernimages.com/webgallery/   Duluth Canal Park and Harbor: http://www.superiortrails.com/duluth_lake-2.html   Duluth Canal Park: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_Park_(Duluth)   Duluth Aerial Lift Bridge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_Lift_Bridge   Minnesota North Shore Info: http://www.northshoreinfo.com/ ...

This is a 27-minute interview with Susan Bentley, Instructional Technologist at LSC, who is also experienced as an online teacher and online student. We talk about some of the challenges and solutions for training faculty members who are just getting started in e-learning.