Desire2Blog

I offered a one-hour workshop last week about using Meebo and MeeboMe inside D2L as another way of communicating with students. According to the Meebo website : "Meebo is a web based IM that lets you log into your IM networks from any computer with a browser and internet connection with no firewall issues. It employs technologies (like AJAX) to make it act more like a desktop application, which dramatically improves usability. Many users enjoy the benefits of a native DHTML application, as it does not consume as many system resources as a Java applet (such as ICQ2Go or Yahoo Web Messenger). Meebo also offers other services such as a chat room client and a personal IM client for your personal/corporate web pages." I've been using it for about three years now. I don't use the basic IM feature as much as I'd like, primarily because so few of my contacts use IM as a regular means of communication. However, I think the MeeboMe feature is just brilliant. You'll se...

I just finished watching the recordings of the D2L webinars from March where they demonstrate the Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) features of Desire2Learn. This seems like a major step forward, IMO. You can find the webinar links inside the D2L C ommunity . If you're not a member, I do believe that you will need to request access to view the recordings. The webinars were conducted by Chuck Severance of the IMS Global Consortium and Matt Teskey of Desire2Learn. I've spent the past several years demonstrating ways of embedding web-based tools into D2L and other LSM platforms. However, in all those cases there was only the appearance of integration between the tools and the LMS - but now this is possible to happen in a truly integrated process. "Truly integrated" means that your authentication credentials can be passed between the tool and the LMS with actual single sign-on. ( Screenshot above CC photo from Chuck Severance, dr-chuck on Flickr) Two specific appli...

I am the presenter for a Magna Publications webinar scheduled for March 23, 2010. The title is: Free Web 2.0 Tools to Use Inside Your LMS. This seminar costs $249 if you register at least a week in advance. The slides below (embedded from Zoho Show ) indicate the things that I will be demonstrating during the online seminar. Because there are so many of them, I will likely have time to show either one or two examples for each of the eight goals. I've done this workshop many times live and at least once before as a webinar. I'm looking forward to it. We'll see how it goes.

Remember when D2L was fighting the good fight? My single biggest disappointment (at least professionally) in 2009 was when D2L decided to make peace and lie down with the devil. That warm fuzzy feeling for me is all gone now. That's a shame. Partnering with Blackbeard? That's a much bigger shame. And what the hell is going on with the USPTO re-examination of that stupid patent? Is that no longer an issue? It is for me.

The LSC Online Programs Advisory Committee decided to craft a set of netiquette guidelines that would serve as the recommended list that faculty could use for their online courses. It's not a full policy or anything like that, just an attempt to give them some useful information to post in their online courses. Faculty are free to use them, change them, add to them, not use them at all, or whatever. The list is posted in the LSC wiki . This project was taken on because many of our online faculty had been using a particular web resource for many years as a netiquette guide. That web page began carrying less-than-attractive banner ads and quite frankly was always more about general online netiquette rather than focused on online learning. There are quite a few other sets of guidelines out there, but many of them are rather lengthy or include items that we don't feel are needed, and occasionally we just disagreed with them. So, we decided to write a relatively short list of our ow...

I usually keep an eye on a Twitter search looking for posts that have something to do with D2L . The beginning of the semester is always interesting, especially as students are posting their unfiltered thoughts about school, online courses, professors, D2L, and lots of other things. Here are some examples. I'll leave out their Twitter names since I don't know these people. Dear D2L though my college, please fix yourself so I can take quizzes on Firefox. THANK YOU! Love, Cissa trust me, everything you click on d2l... and the time u spend on each "page" they cn see.... 71 unread discussions on D2L? CRAP! I was only gone for one weekend! In class with a professor that doesn't know how to work the internets and d2l. Maybe he should use the googles. ocu's desire2learn has to be the shi**iest web page ever. period. well, aside from the other ocu web pages. Online classes start today. Not liking their new D2L system. Go to a "Laptop Campus"...should ALL of ...

You might need to read the previous three posts to get a feel for all of my concerns about the proposed changed to MnSCU course definitions. For now let's just say that I think they're on the verge of turning a molehill into a mountain. (That's my photo from Pilot Mountain, NC - definitely not a molehill.) So, you should be asking, what is my proposed solution? Very simple. Here they are. On-ground courses: any course that is scheduled in a traditional classroom setting for the traditional amount of seat-time, which for us equals about 16 hours per credit. It should not matter whatsoever whether the faculty member chooses to use the Internet (in reasonable ways, see caveat #1 below) , whether they use active learning exercises, whether they use PowerPoint, or whatever. Faculty members teach their classes how they choose to, within the normal guidelines of the institution. Blended courses : any course that meets in the traditional classroom for a portion of the normal amoun...