Desire2Blog

Over the years I've done quite a few workshops that included some sort of reference to using comic strips in online courses, either as part of the content provided by faculty or as part of the student assignments. This narrated slidecast is a short (5 min. 40 sec.) description of some of the ways that comics can be used to pump up the creativity in an online course. Using Comics in D2L Using Comics in D2L from Barry Dahl

I recently gave a short presentation about using custom home pages for courses taught using Desire2Learn. D2L Custom Homepages by Barry Dahl from Barry Dahl Do you know what web pages are "framebusters" if you try to embed them into the D2L course home page? Check out slide 5. Do you know where you can easily make custom widgets for your course home page? Check out slide 9. Please share in the comments if you do something different and useful on your course home page.

My first look at Intelligent Agents in Desire2Learn. Having spent some time working on a Data Analytics project for MnSCU that would have served as an early alert system for online students not making good progress, I've been curious to see how deep the functionality runs in the D2L Intelligent Agents (IA) tool. The short answer is that there's some basic functionality there that might prove beneficial to some users, but the tool falls short of being a full featured Army soldier (you know, Be All That You Can Be!). (CC-by Flickr photo by Sarah G... ) I've recorded a narrated slide show that will illustrate the basics. In the slides you'll see: (a) where to access the IA tool, (b) how to create a new agent, (c) how to write a customized (sort of) email to be triggered by the agent, (d) how to schedule (or not) the agent to run when you want it to, (e) what happens when the agent is run, (f) and some pros and cons about the IA tool. Click the green triangle Play button...

Even though I'm happy with my decision to not attend the D2L User Conference this year, that doesn't mean that I wasn't interested in the goings on, nor did it mean that I didn't miss the many friends who were in attendance. I followed the Twitter stream from the conference in an effort to stay somewhat in the know. Here's a chronological listing of selected tweets. Desire2Learn_PR : Boat cruises, great food, connecting with colleagues… FUSION 2010 is off to a fabulous start! http://bit.ly/17POaR ( expand ) # D2L10 ajwms : At # d2l10 . Last time to see @140universityElluminate as sponsor, I guess http://twitpic.com/24h5u9 tabrown : Lots of fun catching up with folks at the #unD2L conference this evening # D2L10 ConnectYard : launching our new learning tool today for #d2l that integrates FB, TW & TM into courses. Stop by our booth at # d2l10 for more details! ajwms : Has anybody been able to get their iPad connected to hotel wireless at # D2L10 ...

I've been asked by quite a few people (seriously I have, approaching double digits) why I am NOT attending FUSION, the D2L User Conference that starts in a few days. I will very much miss hanging out with everyone at the Unconference Sunday night - in fact, I almost chose to attend this event without attending the rest of the conference, but decided against it. (CC photo by David Paul Ohmer ) A conference in July is never easy because there's just too much summer stuff, family-time, and all that jazz going on. But that's not the reason. We have severe budget cuts that are restricting our travel to these types of events. But that's not the reason.  Maybe I don't need to say this - but my disdain for Chicago is not carried over to any sort of disdain for the residents of Chicago. Without further ado, here is my Top Five List for reasons why I will not be attending the conference this year: Number 5: Location (actually this is a very distant fifth place) I hate at...

Blackboard went on another buying spree today . Just a few random thoughts. If Blackboard had purchased either Wimba or Elluminate, they could have spun it as a strategic business decision. By purchasing both of them, the only possible explanation is that it is another example of squelching innovation and limiting competition. In Ray Henderson's blog post , he refers to both companies as "former rivals." Although it's true that Blackborg has some sort of a lame virtual classroom, synchronous tool (I believe they call it the Bb POS), very few people who work in educational technology would have seen Wimba as a rival of Blackboard. Or Elluminate. Hell, we barely see D2L or Moodle as rivals of Blackboard. Maybe when you are the most hated company in the education sandbox, everyone seems like a rival to you. Ray also says "We hear consistently from our clients that their online infrastructure and offerings have grown from important to mission critical ." App...

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...