Blogging

I am prompted to re-start my blog by the prompt from IR about active blogs.  It is very easy to get distracted from a regular update, and if a blog is not frequently used, why would people bother to go there?  No reason at all!

However, blogging with nothing specific in mind is equally useless and time wasting.  I am beginning to think that wikis offer a lot more, at least for collaborative work.  That said, I think the eServices blog, for instance, is a great way to keep informed of regular developments in that part of LLR.

The reason for my absence? Projects. Work! Absences due to personal reasons. And a PhD to get together.  A crisis of confidence on the later happens at least once a week lately. Is what I have written of academic worth? Anyway, only one way to find out.  Keep at it.

D2L Fusion Conference Wrap-up

Well, it has been a hectic 3 days.  (Paul  and Craig have another day of workshops.) We have experienced 97 degrees F; 60mph winds; rain and showers and lots of sunshine.

There were 485 attendees, the biggest D2L conference yet. The people have been fantastic.  We have been offered so much help from customers (although we will be an early adopter of Version 8.2, so we may be giving advice to others later on!); from D2L staff, who are friendly, informal but extremely professional.

The Power of the Community is a real concept. I think NTU staff (academics, educational developers, technologists, trainers, administrators, specialists, managers) will be able to make a real contribution. The sense it that D2L has a partnership with ALL customers; our success is their success; none of us can afford to fail!

I especially like the concept of ‘technology stewards’, as LLR, EDU included, can help bridge the barriers between desired learning and teaching outcomes and the possible technologies that could be used.

I have been able to meet some key customer contacts which I hope will stand us in good sted.

This evening, Paul and I have a meeting over dinner with the D2L Marketing Manager and International Sales Manager to see what we might be able to host during/after/before the ALT-C conference.  Look out!!

Tomorrow I hope to be meeting Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System staff over coffee.

D2L Accessibility Update

Janna Cameron, D2L’s Usability Specialist, gave an update on D2L’s activities related to accessibility.  As we have been already told, D2L take accessibility very seriously.

 It is built into the design cycle.  Design decisions are centralised so that consistency can be maintained.

Here is a summary of the points I recorded:

• all buttons are HTML
• consistent use of keywords
• consistent page layout so there is always the same navigational expectations
• Guidelines have been/are being developed for developers (I asked if these might be made available through the D2L Community, and this will be checked.)
• Jaws, Dragon etc are used in the development accessibility lab to check code for W3C Level 1 compatibility
• They focus on the Standards, rather than different assistive technologies, as customers could have a range of tools, but the Standards are consistent
• Aiming to be compatible to Level 2 guidelines in the future
• developers get online warnings if accessibility guidelines not followed
• Document Team is  also involved, creating accessible PDF documents on the Community site

Customers are encouraged to sign up for accessibility testing and Jane and Wendy’s names have been given to Janna.

Accessibility meetings are held bi-weekly on Fridays,  and customers can participate.

There is an online Accessibility Panel Presentation at 1.30pm EST on 17 July, with two customers on the panel.

Top wins to date include

• help materials
• headings
• skip links
• labels – consistent use
• standardisation of User Interface and Graphics.

Top future priorities include:

• specific labelling on more places
• standardisation of additional tools not covered in version 8.2

Janna had heard of us… so is looking forward to working with us on accessibility issues.

D2L Product Development

This was an intersting D2L presentation, outlining the processes used to define product development.

The main avenues are:

• The D2L Community: This is a customer space provided by D2L, which we will have access to, where there is a lot of information, sharing of advice etc, and discussion on issues/feature requests etc.
• Targetted focus groups and interviews with customers’ experts in particular areas.  e.g. SDK development has been informed by discussions with IS-type developers in customer institutions; ePortfolio has been influenced by focus groups
• Through customer D2L Administrator feedback on what isn’t right, what staff say they want (We will have to name our ‘administrator’)
• Through the customer D2L Account Manager, who should be so involved in what the customer is wanting to do that they can advise the product development team back at HQ if there is something that we would need.

Becasue D2L has grown significantly in recent years, they have implemented formal processes for controlling product development (and a road map). Detailed functional and system specifications are written, enabling more than one developer to work on a feature (good risk management).

Releases are influenced by:

• industry/government mandatory requirements
• impact of problems on the customer
• client’s continuous improvement objectives and plans that have been conveyed to the account manager (ie we could get something at x because we need it for y, but the rest of the customer base would get it in the next release, or at least that is how I interpreted it!)

I really did get the sense that D2L’s stated commitment to ‘relentless improvement’ was true and embraced by the staff. They also say that continuous improvement relies on ‘collaboration, collaboration, collaboration’. That means with us and other customers.

They are hiring experienced people but also growing internal staff (who do seem to enjoy working for D2L from what I can tell!). They maintain a ‘Known Issues List’ and I believe this is being made available to customers.  They also practice ‘listening’.

The LISA-B, really a ‘product advisory board’, is a group of large customers that was described to me by MW as like a parent guiding the child.  D2L pay very strict attention to the comments of this group. The group is chaired by a customer, and D2L have one vote at the meeting, should voting be required!

So, I was pleased with what I heard.

D2L Keynote speaker (Wednesday)

Nancy White, Full Circle Associates, gave today’s keynote address.  She was fantastic – content and delivery – and I was fortunate to have been invited to have breakfast at her table (John Baker invited me).  Her address ‘Technologies for/and/by community’ can be found at:

http://onlinefacilitation.wikispaces.com/Technology+and+-+or+Communities

Naturally I was extremely pleased when she said that the one professioanl group that has cracked the technology/people interface was librarians.  She called them/us/me ‘Technology Stewards’.  I like that term very much.

Her research has shown how tools developed for a purpose can be interpreted and used in different ways than originally intended. There were many references to Web 2.0, especially blogs and wikis which she describes as allowing individuals to make the technologies ‘work for me’.

She described 3 polarities:

• togetherness … separateness
• interacting … publishing
• individual … group

I won’t make a great deal of sense of the complex issues described, so see her presentation.

 Another site she recommended on this topic is:

http://www.technologyforcommunities.com/

D2L Keynote Speaker (Tuesday)

A fabulous presentation by school teacher, father and blogger Will Richardson, Connective Learning Group, titled ‘A Web of Connections: Why the Read/Write Web Changes Everything’.

 His presentation can be found at:

http://willrichardson.wikispaces.com/

Will demonstrated how politics, journalism and publishing has changed becasue of Web 2.0, e.g. politicians on FaceBook; online newspaper articles are really blogs, with readers able to post comments. Even shopping cultures have changed with many shoppers looking for customer comments on a product rather than relying on marketing information from the producer.

He asked ‘what is happening in education?’.  He said it is ‘stuck’; not changing quickly enough given the significant and rapid change in technologies. Technology is developing so quickly that we haven’t worked out how to use it well, before it changes again.

The web creates a space where passionate people will learn from each other through online conversations.

Content is everywhere, so we have to teach people to LEARN about the content, and to be Information Literate. (*** role for librarians)

He argues very strongly that teaching has to change to make it meaningful to the kids who are coming through schools to university.  He challenged us to ‘model learning in the social networking environment’ as this would be the way of the future.

I urge everyone to spend some time at Will’s wiki and explore the myriad of links in his presentation.

D2L Training (again)

Attended an interesting session on research into the use of tools within VLEs, including D2L.

The research was conducted at St. Cloud State University on academics taking undergraduate, on-campus classes. Of the 200-300 tools available in D2L, the ones most used were:

• Content files – 84%
• News – 66%
• Gradebook – 57.5%
• Schedule – 32%
• Discussions – 29%
• Quizzes – 27%
• Drop Box – 22%
• Survey – 16%

There had been no formal training on tools so this may have (would have?) impacted on take-up of a particular tool.

The findings, though, were:

• train academics on what they want to use
• some disciplines will be more likely to use specific tools, so teach them that tool
• One size fits all training programmes fit NO ONE; don’t teach everyone ALL tools at once.

The details we have on VLP Tool use, and the eLearning Benchmarking project analysis ought to inform D2L training programmes for each School. 

An interesting thoughtwas that if academics seem to be able to use D2L without ANY traiinng, then think what we can achieve with fit-for-purpose training programmes for Schools at NTU! Again, academics sharing experiences in traiing was found to be very beneficial.

The impact of the Discipline was the strongest relationship to the use of particular tools, next to Class Size.

D2L General Conference Comments Day 2

1. Recommended blog: www.pedagogyonline.com by James Falkofske.  He is at D2L Fusion and has links to numerous D2L stuff.

2. NTU has been invited to join the informal large site collaboration group. It is called the Multi-State D2L Group. Its members include: Minnesota State Colleges and Universities; Rochester Institute of Technology; University of Wisconsin System; University of Arizona; The Ohio State University; Iowa University; and Tennessee Board of Regents.

This group will provide enormous support as we implement D2L.  NTU will be one of the first customers using V.8.2, so we will be able to offer some information on our own experience to the group.  The colleagues are generous with their offers of help; they would love excuses to have to visit NTU!

The group is self forming, and operates with a monthly conference call of between 90 and 120 minutes. They rotate the chair amongst themselves; make meeting notes available on a server at Iowa; maintains an update and issues register; and operates sub-groups of technical and pedagogical staff (tbc – which sub-groups exactly)

Ohio State and Arizona are planning to upgrade to 8.2 in the near future; and Iowa plans to do so over the winter break.

3. Desire2EXCEL – this provides a series of awards in the categories of L&T, Programme, and Community Service Award.  One day I anticipate the NTU makes nominations to these awards!!  The winners had innovative programs; the ceremony was fun, with a ‘people’s award’ judged by the audience using Clickers.

4. Clickers: A mention was made over tea of an academic who uses clickers to check attendance at his classes.  He asks a humorous question at the start of the class, and the response rate indicates how many students were present at the start of the class.  Using the clickers to answer other ‘silly questions’ during the class and at the end, allows the teacher to know how many students remained to the end; when they left etc.  Interesting use…

5. There is considerable interest and friendly comment about when NTU will host a D2L user conference in England. I am assured by the current conference chair that D2L do most of the actual work, should we be in a position to offer to host at some stage.

6. It is a long story, but I am returning to the UK with two American Teddy Bears. 

7. Thanks MW for the drink voucher.  Didn’t need it in the end, though! Having a quiet night writing up my blog!!

D2L Library eReserve/Short Loan

The presentation by Ellen Jones and Jack Pirette from University of Iowa was interesting. (I have thanked every Iowa staff member who had anything to do with the NTU visit!) It was also the first session of the morning (8.00am) and had a small audience, but it turned out to be a very interactive session, with lots of audience comment and participation.

Librarians have been given a ‘role’ in D2L that allows publishing to courses.  Their access has been restricted to just allow publishing to courses that they have a relationship with.

They built a local tool which relies on D2L web services. Instructors give librarians access and they can un-enrol them as well, although in practice none have been un-enrolled.

The library had abrogated responsibility for copyright and  academics bear all the responsibility.  (There was some gasps in the audience with this news, and I am happy for LLR to maintain the responsibility.  Our educational licenses also require this centralised management, and this is not the case in the USA.)

Putting e-Reserve items in D2L helped encourage academics to use it as students said they valued the facility. Librarians have a role in helping to educate staff on tools available.

My thoughs were that LLR is well placed,  with its strong student focus, which means that our assistance to academics is facilitated through the ALT, who then broker the necessary services within LLR.  The discussion highlighted how inefficient silos of activity are, and how this can’t lead to good customer service.

D2L Train Trip

A lovely evening was had at the Duluth Historical Railway Museum and then on a train trip along the north shore of Lake Superior.  The weather was perfect; the evening was clear; the views were stunning (forests, lake, lovely houses, people and dogs walking).  Everyone was friendly and waved at the occupants of the train, who waved back naturally.  (The natives are very friendly, I have to say!!)

Paul and I had a drink in a bar near the hotel on the way home – very American and fun.

Now to bed.  It is late.

ByeD2L guys!  Look out for the next installment.

 And where was MW when we needed a drink voucher???