SFASU: Using Brightspace Tools to Increase Student Engagement and Instructor Presence

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 1 st 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: Deserted Island for a Year Three Faves 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 1 st Week Why: To reassure students that they have completed all the class expectations for the 1 st 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 2 nd 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: 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? If you are having students use web-based tools to create class-related work, are the creation tools accessible to them? 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 38% 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