Denver,Colorado

Communications Buffet

• Three Quick Ways to Increase Engagement 1. Custom home page widgets2. Personalizing the Learning Space3. Utilizing Intelligent Agents

Effectively

Widget-based Home Pages

• Before you begin setting up your course home page, consider the needs of your students:– What information is most relevant to them as

students in your course? – What course materials and supplementary

materials will they need?– How can you maximize your course home page to

include relevant information?

Widget-based Home Pages

• At-a-glance, what do you want students to see?– Course news and updates– Important dates and reminders– Links to course content– Links to supplementary materials– Relevant RSS feeds

9.4.1 Standard Home Page with News & Widgets

V10 Widget Layout Options• Suggestions:

– Maximize the use of screen space

– Don’t repeat things in widgets and nav bars

– Encourage your students to enter course through home page, as much as possible

8 Layout Choices

Two Equal Widget Columns

Large Column on Left

Three Column Layout

Three Contest Entries

Three Embedded Polls

Replace strings

Building Custom Widgets

Laura Gibbs - OU

Full Custom Home Pages

• Any webpage/site can be used as a custom home page in D2L.

• Examples:– Course blog– RSS aggregator– Any course-specific web page

Custom Page Example

Personalizing theLearning Space

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.

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:• News: (Headline, content)

• Discussions: (subject and message)

• Content Topic: When you create a new file

• Dropbox: Folder instructions & feedback

• Quizzes: all custom boxes

• Checklist: Name and Description

• Groups: Description

News Item – without Replace String

News Item – without Replace String

News Item – with Replace String

News Item – with Replace String

News Item – with Replace String

In Quiz Introduction

In Quiz Introduction

In Quiz Introduction

In Quiz Footer

In Quiz Footer

In Quiz Footer

In Quiz Questions

In Quiz Questions

Example from CU Boulder

Assignment Feedback

assett.colorado.edu/d2l/replace-strings

In Custom Widgets

In Custom Widgets

Intelligent Agents

What’s an Intelligent Agent?

Definition:Intelligent Agents can assist instructors, administrators, and students by providing a quick and automated notification when defined activity occurs in a course or when there is a lack of login or course entry.

How do They Work?

•For each agent you need to determine:• what criteria it is looking for• how often it looks for those criteria• What the email should say and who

should receive it when the criteria are met

Client Use Cases in T & L• Automatic reminders to students:

– Not logging in to D2L– Not entering a specific course

• Message after poor performance: – Get their attention and encourage

them to seek extra help• Message after good performance

Advantages of Using Agents

1. Increases communication between instructor and student

2. Personalized message, doesn’t look like a canned response.

3. Send links to other resources, tutorials, tutoring center, etc.

Possible Disadvantages

1. Need to manage the agents effectively to ensure effective communications.

2. If students receive too many of these messages they’ll know they are automatically sent (not personal).

3. Something could break.

Go to Edit Course

Determine Criteria

You can do both

This email was only sent to the instructor

Denver,Colorado