Presentation by Barry Dahl, Teaching & Learning Advocate at D2L. Wednesday, October 9 at SFASU. This presentation was different than most, due to the collection of D2L tools currently used at SFASU. The D2L Lunch-n-Learn events will showcase teaching and learning within Brightspace, and sessions will feature topics such as effective practices in instructional design, web accessibility, increasing student engagement, and much more. It’s a great opportunity to exchange new ideas, as well as learn more about the Brightspace community.

1. Using Brightspace Tools to Increase
Student Engagement and Instructor
Presence
Barry Dahl
Teaching & Learning Advocate, D2L

2. What is Student Engagement?
• Stovall (2003) suggests that engagement is defined by a
combination of students‟ time on task and their willingness
to participate in activities.
• Krause and Coates (2008) say that engagement is the
quality of effort students themselves devote to
educationally purposeful activities that contribute directly
to desired outcomes.
Source: bit.ly/D2Lengage

3. What is Instructor Presence?
Based on
Community of
Inquiry
Framework
Theory, by
Cleveland-
Innes,
Garrison &
Vaughn
(Athabasca U.)
Source:
bit.ly/D2Lpresence

4. 1. Discussions: Student Introductions

5. Typical 1st Week Assignment
“Please post an introduction of yourself
to the rest of the class on the
discussion board.”

6. First Week Student Introductions
• How many of these can you read in one lifetime?
• “Hi!! My Name is Kristine. I’m currently working towards
my LPN degree. I would like to complete my RN
someday too. I stay busy chasing around my 3-year-old
boy & 2-year-old girl! I also have 5 horses, 4 dogs, 3 cats,
2 goats, and one husband. They all keep me very busy,
but I love it. We live on a farm in case you couldn’t guess.
I am very excited about this course; it should be very
interesting!”

7. Alternative Introductions
• Spice up this assignment to keep yourself
interested and to let your students scratch
their creativity muscles a bit.
• Here are three options to consider:
1. Deserted Island for a Year
2. Three Faves
3. Family Member Introductions

8. Deserted Island Prompt

9. Deserted Island Reply

10. Three Faves Prompt

11. Three Faves Reply

12. Family Introductions Prompt

13. 2. Replace Strings

14. Personalized Text with Replace
Strings
• Not Personalized Learning
• That’s a big topic – a whole day by itself.
• Let’s look at how you can make the learning space
feel a bit more personal to the students

15. Adding Names in the LE
• {FirstName}
• Each user’s first name
• {LastName}
• Each user’s last name
• {OrgName}
• College/District org name
• {OrgUnitName}
• Course name
Tools where this works:
•Announcements: (Headline, content)
•Discussions: (subject and message)
•Content Topic: When you create a new file
•Assignments: Folder instructions & feedback
•Quizzes: all custom boxes
•Checklist: Name and Description
•Groups: Description

16. Edit Announcement (News)
Announcement –
with Replace String

17. Announcement –
with Replace String
View Announcement

18. Putting both names into Quiz
Introduction

19. Quiz Introduction up-close

20. Quiz Introduction After Published

21. Quiz Footer

22. Quiz Footer Student View

23. In Quiz Questions

24. Quiz Question Up Close

25. 3. Video Note

26. Increase Instructor Presence with
Video Note
• A built-in media recording tool. It makes it
easy to personalize the learning
experience with short, video-based
feedback, comments, or instructions.

27. Video Note Adds Your Human
Touch to the Course
• Video Note is a D2L tool that allows a simple
way to record video using your computer’s
webcam and instantly publish it in your D2L
course.

28. Notes about Video Note
• This tool can be used anywhere in D2L where you
can find the standard HTML editor.
• The recordings with Video Note are limited to 3
minutes.
• It might be just enough for a basic announcement or a feedback.
• If you are looking to create longer videos, please consider using
another video recorder tool.

29. More Notes about Video Note
• You cannot download or embed the files created by
Video Note, they can be only played in D2L where
you created them.
• Recordings posted in Content, Assignments and
Discussion topic details can be copied from course
to course.
• But since they can’t be captioned, it’s a better idea to have
longer-term videos created and uploaded on another platform.
• Also, most institutions purge Video Notes older than 6 months or
so.

30. Video Note Example in
Announcements
Go to
Course

31. 4. Intelligent Agents

32. Definitions of Intelligent Agents

33. What is an Intelligent Agent?
• An intelligent agent is a software that assists
people and acts on their behalf.
• Intelligent agents work by allowing people to
delegate work that they could have done, to the
agent software.
• Source: Hanh Tran & Thaovy Tran

34. What is an Intelligent Agent in D2L?
Intelligent Agents can assist instructors,
administrators, and students by providing an
automated notification when defined activity
occurs in a course (or not) or when there is a lack of
login or course entry.

35. Intelligent Use #1 – Welcome to the
Course
• Why: To greet students after their first entry to an online
class, and send additional information.
• When: Daily, during the first week or two.
• How: Set to check for first course access over the past 1
day.
• What: Send an email to the student (CC you, if desired)
within 24 hours of first accessing the online course.

36. Sanity Check – Does it Make Sense?
• Use Intelligent Agents when there isn’t a better way
of communicating:
• Can a D2L Notification work better?
• Can a News Announcement work better?
• Can a personally crafted email work better?
• Would a discussion board posting work better?

37. Replace Strings for Intelligent Agents
Examples:
• OrgName = Barry College
• OrgUnitName = Accounting 101
• InitiatingUserFirstName = Jon
• InitiatingUserLastName = Doe
• InitiatingUserUserName = jon.doe
• NOTE: curly braces are essential,
and no spaces

38. Intelligent Use #2 – Success in 1st Week
• Why: To reassure students that they have completed
all the class expectations for the 1st week of class.
• When: When the student has completed the
activities.
• How: Use release conditions for the required items,
triggering IA when all conditions are met.
• What: Send an email to the student (CC you, if
desired) encouraging them to keep up the good work.

39. #2 - Agent Name & Description

40. #2 - Agent Release Conditions

41. #2 - Agent Email to Students

42. Intelligent Use #3: Agent to notify
you of curious activity

43. #3: Email to alert you of possible
suspicious behavior

44. Intelligent Use #4 – Improved Quiz Scores
• Why: To congratulate a student on significantly
improving quiz scores between two quizzes.
• When: Within 24 hours of the 2nd quiz being
graded.
• How: Use two release conditions for
• a) “Receives less than (XX%)” on the 1st quiz, and
• b) “Receives more than (XX%)” on the 2nd quiz.
• What: Send an email to the student with
encouragement to continue on the upward path.

45. What’s New with Intelligent Agents?

46. Added Feature 4 of 7
Customizable
From: name
and
Reply-To: email
addresses

47. 5. Free Web Tools

48. Mixed Content – Browser Issue
•Brightspace Learning
Environment is a secure site.
https://
•Embedding content from an
unsecure site (http://) creates
a mixed content issue.

49. Embedded Mixed
Content in
Brightspace
•The blue custom widget
is an embedded audio
file using an audio player
from an unsecure site.
•It doesn’t show up at all
on the page.

50. Better Idea: Use
only Secure
Content
•There are a growing
number of web-based
tools that have made
their sites secure.
•Avoid mixed content
whenever possible.

51. However!
•Embedding external content
from an https: site is great
and all that, however…
•Now we come to issue #2
•Is that content accessible to
students using Assistive
Technology or those who rely
on keyboard-only access?

52. It’s Not Just One Issue
Today we will focus on the top issue listed below. The others
are also very important:
1. If you are using a web-based tool to create course content or
an embeddable object into an online course, is that content
accessible to students with disabilities?
2. If you are having students use web-based tools to create class-
related work, are the creation tools accessible to them?
3. If you, as instructor, rely on assistive technology (AT) to do your
work, will these sites work with your needed AT?

53. Example - Embedded Prezis are Inaccessible
• The text in this
presentation cannot be
read by a screen reader
program.
• The image cannot have alt
text applied in the Prezi
interface.
• On the plus side, you can
advance using keyboard
shortcuts.

54. Is this the Answer?
• Does the lack of
accessibility mean that
you should stop using
Prezi for all online
course purposes?
• Probably not.

55. Is this a Better Answer?
• Rather than stop using
Prezi, also consider
providing an alternative.
• Possibilities:
• Same content in an
accessible PPT file
• Export Prezi to PDF then
make the PDF accessible

56. Prezi Score
• What does that mean?
• That is the score for Prezi by the accessibility reviewers at
Web2Access, an awesome resource from the University of
Southampton. URL: www.web2access.org.uk

57. Web2Access Sample Scores
• Mindmeister 47%
• Glogster 64%
• Animoto 67%
• Flickr 69%
• Blogger 80%
• Soundcloud 80%
• Amazon 87%
• Wordpress 89%
• Yammer 93%
• TED Talks 93%
• Hot Potatoes 93%
• Microsoft Word 96%

58. Using Brightspace Tools to Increase Student
Engagement and Instructor Presence
Barry Dahl
Teaching & Learning Advocate, D2L