Desire2Learn

Desire2Learn

A set of "play" accounts: URL = https://anz9.desire2learn.com

Usernames = mgs_student01 mgs_student02 mgs_student03 mgs_teacher andrew.pate miffy.farquharson louise.r-l

Password for all = venice (one word all lowercase)

=Transforming the Teaching and Learning Experience with Innovative eLearning Solutions= Our Learning Suite (which includes a Learning Management System / LMS) is transforming education, training and networked learning experiences. Our clients are seeing higher retention rates, better learner outcomes, reduced costs, improved brands, growth, increased user engagement and satisfaction rates. Our systems are designed to have a measurable impact on strategic priorities. Our continued focus on security, accessibility, reliability, user experience and performance means you will always have a system you can count on to ensure you maintain a leadership position.

Desire2Learn  Presented by Mark Yaxley   Andrew Pate; Louise Robinson Lay; Miffy Farquharson; Wayne Reed; Denise Summers; Alison Barnett; ? Canadian  Australia for 3 years, mostly focused on universities and distant learning. Deakin moved from Blackboard. And unis in Singapore. 2 schools in Queensland. Brisbane Grammar 5 years. Wodonga Middle Years College. Training and support – 24/7 support in Canada to the whole world  Paradigms – extensive and flexible. Shouldn’t have to change the pedagogy to suit the software. Hierarchicial. Class, cohorts, year levels, etc. Profiles only an example: students can be students and teachers. Entry level user – collect and drop work  Higher level – personalized lessons and interface. Student profile  Locker = dropbox   Courses can be personalized or generic across the school. Widgets can be set system wide or altered if you have the inclination and skills. Tabs across the top of the page control access to information. Instant feedback. Pages are bookmarkable. Multiple pages can be opened. Content can be linked anywhere in the system. Discussions can be embedded into content documentation, as can quizzes. Homepage is totally customizable. Also for teachers. Can have open in a separate window. Teacher profile  Views the same, but access is different. Key problem is usage. ** Course builder **. Includes help sheets within the system. ** Blueprint builder **. A group of teachers can work collaboratively to create a course. Courses can be created behind the scenes so that the teacher sees all the work sitting ready to use. Instructional Design Wizard  Starts from scratch looking at the outcomes and working through the content and assessment. This creates the bones/ framework of the course for content to be added to. Build curriculum mapping in IDW. Copy curriculum from the framework and then build the course from the bones to the clothes. You can create a course cohort where everyone teaches the same thing, or basic bones built up by teachers depending on the course. And anywhere in between. Core content can be fixed, and the collaborations can be flexible. Navigation  Layouts, widgets, navigation bars can be embedded, changed and created. Embed codes can be used – eg. YouTube. Live feed RSS can be embedded, eg. Blogs  Learning Technologies integrations – Google Apps and WikiMedia. Standards-based content can be embedded to the courses. Links to MediaWiki/ G-Apps without having to create separate logons for each student. Create MediaWiki, add News Item to alert students. Classlists  Can impersonate students to assist with learning   Messaging   Reports   Check blogs   May not be visible or as open as for teachers DropBox  Full integration with TurnItIn – automatically linked to enable plagiarism checking. Categories and Grade Levels can be set by teacher, but more probably set at school level. Both written and physical assessments can be recorded. The assignment can be set from documents to audio to video. Resources can be uploaded. Language can be forced – download the language pack and embed into course for full immersion. Can be drag and drop, or much more complicated. Lots of parameters can be set, including submission dates. Absent students can be made exceptions. Differentiated learning can be set. Intelligent Agents  If a student gets low marks, an email can be sent to whoever you want. Tutors, House Leaders, Parents, etc. Rubrics  Essay rubric (eg.) – template, then add and change to suit, can be shared across classes, subjects and the school. Analytics  Cross-reference behaviours in the system that will reflect results. Eg. Students who don’t login during the first weeks are at risk, analytics can help identify the at risk students, and also over-achievers. Release Conditions and Directions – support sequential learning – contributing to discussions, finish a unit, etc. ePortfolio  Not a core product. Student owned. Dashboard. Includes RSS, Invites, Friends, Assessments, can create artefacts (learning object) and invite other students to assess, could be a word doc or up to a video. Can capture report cards. Teachers create forms that can be filled out by the student. Eg. Work Experience. Teachers can use the forms to scaffold the stages of a project. Artefacts are tagged to link them together. Eg. Geography, Year 10. Collections are created from tags. ** Presentations ** – can be used to send to prospective employees. Pull together the artefacts into 20 different templates (also creatable). Can include reflections and assessments from students and teachers. Timetable? Can be imported from the TT? Yes you could. Virtual integration. Wayne would like to see: timetables, classes, medical alerts. Theoretically do-able, depends on the integration of imports. Staff acceptance will be critical for usage. ** Email ** can be fully integrated with our current system. Depends on how you set it up. ** Student Management System ** – export and import is the problem. ARP – goal is to have all teachers and students log in and go to their home page. MY – accessibility to hardware is paramount. ** Attendance ** can be tracked. If you set up the background workings properly then you can free up teachers from routine duties. DS – Can you see what students have done, and what teachers have already taught? Yes, using the tags (protocols), and also setting up the curriculum. Exemplar (or not) work can be kept for the year, or beyond. Depends on the amount of storage you want to use. Pager  Chat   MSN   Shift in the learning paradigm from teacher-focused. There are great Web 2.0 apps, but hard to assess. This system gives access to Web 2.0, but creates a framework for assessment. Parents  Can see homework, assignments, quizzes, reports, marks. Can also set up parents as mentors using their skills. Access to a teacher account to create resources as a parent-teacher collaboration. Alumni  The alumni is tricky, depends on access needed. Much reduced user rate – could possibly have limited access to things like ePortfolios. Depends on what you want them to do, what role, what access. Could be better to have an area on the website. Better than @StudyWiz? Rubrics  Release paradigms are more advanced   Extensibility   Support   Quick access to content   Usability   Global reach   Excellent out-of-the-box   Everything that you want to change has to be changed with support in SW   Teachers can ‘own’ their whole area (if allowed)   Reports can be csv exported   Code is very clean   Works on all browsers – Windows is the worst (doesn’t adhere to the standards), Firefox, Safari on the iPad/ iPod/ iPhone   HTML 5? – MY - get back to you. So long as it isn’t something that’s blocked (eg. Flash on iPhones) then everything should work on mobile device. User conference  User blog Roll out strategy  MY - Teachers who are respected as educational leaders. Once they have the tools to use it. They’ll understand all the pitfalls. Support - various levels. See website for details  Training - various levels. See website for details. Strong support from the management. – eg. If homework not on the system, then you don’t have to do it. ( J )  Parent access from the start. SMARTBoards - file saver is PDF. Video of the lesson can be uploaded. Do use Flash but not separate. If it’s embeddable then you can embed it. Closed at 5.19pm