Communications Buffet

Barry DahlSr. Community Manager, Desire2Learn

Communications Buffet

• Three Quick Ways to Increase Engagement 1. Personalizing the Learning Space

2. Utilizing Intelligent Agents Effectively

3. Novel uses of Release Conditions

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

In Quiz Introduction

In Quiz Introduction

In Quiz Footer

In Quiz Footer

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

ReleaseConditions

What is Conditional Release?

• Conditional Release is used to define the

order in which a student accesses course

materials.

• "Release" means visible or accessible to

students.

• Most commonly used release conditions

are date and time, but other types of

conditions are available.

Examples of Conditional Release

• An instructor can use Conditional Release to

specify that:

– a Dropbox folder is available to a student only if he

or she is registered for section number 002.

– only students who have visited a link to the

syllabus can take Quiz #1.

– students who score less than 60% on a quiz will

see a link to a Content topic called "Post-Quiz

Review: What Was Unit 3 All About?"

Release Conditions work with:

• Checklists• Content modules

and topics• Custom widgets• Discussion

forums and topics

• Dropbox folders• Grade items and

categories• News items• Quizzes• Surveys

Release can be based on:

• Group or section enrollment• Roles (ex: student, TA, instructor)

• Viewing content• Authoring a Discussion message• Submitting to a Dropbox

Lots of signals about conditions

Lots of signals about conditions

Sample Welcome Post in News

• In order to get started successfully, you should

carefully review the contents of the Syllabus module.

Before you can progress to the rest of the

course Content and Discussions, you will have to

score 100% on the Course Requirements Quiz,

which will serve as our Course Contract. You may

need to refresh/reload your Internet browser after you

receive the appropriate grade on each quiz to gain

access to the Course Content and Module

Discussions.

Example String of Conditions

• Checklist completion– Quiz is released after checklist is completed

• Quiz grade entered in gradebook–Widget is released based on quiz score

• Got to the LE for example

Communications Buffet

Barry DahlSr. Community Manager, Desire2Learn