By Barry Dahl at the PCC Online Summit, May 3, 2019. There are many tools available within the D2L Learning Environment that instructors can use to increase their course presence and inspire greater levels of student engagement. We'll take a look at personalized text through Replacement Strings, Video Note, Activity Feed, Intelligent Agents, and the use of free web tools.

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. Replace Strings

5. 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

6. 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

7. Edit Announcement
Announcement –
with Replace String

8. Announcement –
with Replace String
View Announcement

9. Writing a Quiz Introduction

10. Student Name in Quiz Introduction

11. Quiz Introduction

12. Writing a Quiz Footer

13. Viewing Quiz Footer

14. Quiz Footer

15. Strings in Quiz Questions

16. Viewing Quiz Questions

17. 2. Video Note

18. 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.

19. 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.

20. 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.

21. 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.

22. Video Note Example in
Announcements
Go to
Course

23. 3. Activity Feed

24. Activity Feed on Course Home Page
• Share Content Easily
• From one spot, the instructor can
create new posts to share
information and provide access
to activities. They can rest easy
knowing that their content will be
seen in the Brightspace Learning
Environment.

25. Activity Feed is a familiar interface
• Keep Them Engaged
• Staying connected with learners is key to
keeping them engaged and progressing.
• The familiar user-interface of the Activity Feed
in Brightspace is a great way to communicate
using a format that everyone is used to.

26. Activity Feed in Action

27. D2L Confidential Themes RoadmapD2L Confidential
Activity Feed – December 2017
What is it?
• Teachers can create assignment
posts from existing assignments
• Teachers can attach materials
from OneDrive
Why did we do it?
• To continue to simplify
workflows for teachers
December 2017

28. D2L Confidential Themes RoadmapD2L Confidential
Activity Feed – January 2018
What is it?
• Teachers can upload and
attach files to message posts
• Lessons now supports
scheduled posts and
assignment posts
Why did we do it?
• To continue to simplify
workflows for teachers
January 2018

29. D2L Confidential Themes RoadmapD2L Confidential
Activity Feed – February 2018
What is it?
• Video attachments from
YouTube, Vimeo, and TED
render in the feed
Why did we do it?
• To enable teachers to use the
tools they love
• Provide a more visual and
engaging experience
February 2018

30. D2L Confidential Themes RoadmapD2L Confidential
Activity Feed – March 2018
What is it?
• Toggle commenting off/on for
entire feed or specific posts
• Image attachments render in
feed
Why did we do it?
• Ability to manage commenting is
important to our users
• Provide a more visual and
engaging experience
March 2018

31. D2L Confidential Themes RoadmapD2L Confidential
Activity Feed – April 2018
What is it?
• Posts support simple HTML
markup
• Minibar notifications when
new posts and comments
are created
Why did we do it?
• Provide a more visual and
engaging experience
April 2018

32. D2L Confidential Themes RoadmapD2L Confidential
Activity Feed – May 2018
What is it?
• Pin post to top
Why did we do it?
• Teachers might have important
announcements or assignments
that they want students to see first
each time they visit the feed
May 2018

33. Example of YouTube
video in Activity Feed
Go to
Course

34. 4. Intelligent Agents

35. New and Improved
The Condensed Version
Intelligent Uses of Intelligent Agents

36. Definitions of Intelligent Agents

37. 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

38. What is an Intelligent Agent in
D2L?
Intelligent Agents can assist instructors and
other users 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.

39. Effective Practices with Intelligent Agents

40. Effective Practices with D2L
Intelligent Agents 1 of 7
Think carefully about whether you want the agent
to send an email to the student, or to you, or both.
• There are various examples of where you might want to
NOT automatically send an email to the students.
• Sending to yourself gives you one more chance to decide
whether to contact the student, or not.

41. Effective Practices 3 of 7
• Use Intelligent Agents sparingly:
• Repetitive emails may lose effectiveness
• Reserve use for the most important items

42. Effective Practices 4 of 7
• Carefully consider the implications of Manual versus
Automatic running of Intelligent Agents:
• Automatic Agents will run once a day, or less often,
as scheduled.
• Manually triggering the Agent allows you to
determine when the timing is right.

43. Effective Practices 5 of 7
• Use the Agent Name and Description fields to
your own benefit:
• Describe what the Agent is intended to do and
when it will be used.
• Add a reminder to yourself about info that needs
to be changed from term to term (due dates,
office hours, etc.).

44. Agent Name & Description Example
• Make the name easy
to understand
• Optional description
is very useful.
• All info can be seen
at a glance on the
home page for
Intelligent Agents.

45. List of Agent Names & Descriptions
• At a glance
• Agents listed in order
• Descriptions visible as a
quick reminder

46. Effective Practices 7 of 7
• Intelligent Agents become more valuable as class
sizes increase.
• It’s a matter of scale. Automatic messaging is of less
value when interacting with 10-15 students, and of
great value when interacting with 30, 50, 100, or
more.

47. 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.

48. 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?

49. Potential Pitfalls with Intelligent Agents

50. Potential Pitfalls 1 of 4
• Communications triggered by Intelligent
Agents use “Replace Strings.”
• Ensure that your replace strings are properly
formed.
• Use “name” strings sparingly, as you would when
speaking with the student.

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

52. Intelligent Use #2 – Success in 1st Week
• Why: To reassure students that they have completed
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.

53. #2 - Agent Name/Description & Roles

54. #2 - Agent Release Conditions

55. #2 - Agent Email to Students

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

57. #3: Email to alert you of possible
suspicious behavior

58. What’s New with Intelligent Agents?

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

60. 5. Free Web Tools

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

62. 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.

63. 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.

64. 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?

65. 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?

66. 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.

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

68. 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

69. 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

70. 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%

71. Increase Student Engagement and
Instructor Presence
Barry Dahl
Teaching & Learning Advocate, D2L