Communication Buffet, 3 quick ways to increase student engagement, presented by Sarah Nicholl of D2L at the D2LRegional in Burlington, Ontario. 9/19/14

1. Communications Buffet: Three quick ways to
increase engagement with Brightspace
Sarah Nicholl, M.Ed.
Senior Solutions Engineer, D2L

2. Agenda
• Engaging students in the learning process online
• Demonstration:
1. Providing Audio and Video feedback
2. Utilizing the D2L Intelligent Agents tool effectively
3. Personalizing the learning space through replacement
strings
• Activity: Small group discussion
• Wrap up

3. Session Objective
• By the end of today’s interactive 1 hour session, through
demonstration and interactive discussion, you will be introduced to
Audio and Video feedback, Intelligent Agents and Replace Strings in
Brightspace and their applicability to your professional practice.

4. We believe progress
is about people.
It’s about equipping a generation of
inventors, dreamers, and creators to
tackle new opportunities of the future.

5. Introductions and
Expectations
• Turn to the person next to you and
share:
• Your name
• Your role
• What you’d like to get out of today’s
session

6. Personal: Built for the
way teachers teach
• Customized settings to create a
personalized experience
• Unique learning paths
• Advancing the learning experience
and outcomes with insights
• Flexibility to meet the unique needs
of any course or instructor
• An engaged, collaborative community
of users

7. Audio and Video Feedback

8. Audio and Video Feedback
• Record audio or video for quick feedback
• Available in grader app or within the Learning
Environment
• Provides a quick way to give personalized
feedback

9. Audio and Video feedback in
Grader App

10. Audio and Video feedback in LE

11. Audio and Video Feedback
•Where can I find more information?
•https://documentation.desire2learn.com/en/leaving-feedback-
grading-dropbox-submissions

12. Intelligent Agents

13. Add alerts with Intelligent Agents
• Plan your alert by identifying:
• Purpose
• Agent
• Audience
• For example:
• Purpose: To prompt a learner to reach out to instructor, and let the instructor know,
when a learner is falling behind in a course.
• Agent: Notify the learner and instructor when a learner has not logged in for 5 days
AND has not achieved a passing grade on his/her biodiversity assignment.
• Audience: Learner and Instructor

14. Let’s have a look…

15. Add alerts with Intelligent
Agents
• Where can I find more information on how to use these features?
• Documentation site:
• https://documentation.desire2learn.com/en/Intelligent%20Agents
• https://documentation.desire2learn.com/en/replace-strings-for-intelligent-agents
• Videos:
•Intelligent Agents - Introduction - Instructor
•Intelligent Agents - Create New Agent (Part 1) - Instructor
•Intelligent Agents - Create New Agent (Part 2) - Instructor

16. Replace Strings

17. Personalize with Replace Strings
•You can use replace strings to personalize the site and email messages
for learners:
•For example:
{FirstName} First name of the user.
{LastName} Last name of the user.
{Email} User's internal email address.

18. Let’s have a look…

19. Personalize with replace strings
• Where can I find more information?
• https://documentation.desire2learn.com/en/Replace%20Strings

20. Activity

21. Small Group Discussion
In groups of three, number off and each take a sentence to
share/discuss:
1. I will use audio and/or video feedback in my (subject/grade) course to help with …
2. I will set up an intelligent agent for ….. because ….
3. I will try out a (name a replace string) in my (subject/grade) course because …
Then we’ll come back together and share highlights

22. Wrap up