I recently returned from D2L’s annual Fusion Conference, which was held in Denver, Colorado this year. In addition to a great location, there were several exciting product announcement in the mobile area that really caught my attention. I am particularly interested in the REST web services API that I believe is slated for release along with 9.4 in October.
Audrey and I presented a poster session on some of the ways we are enhancing faculty training using mobile technology including:
- The D2L Quick Reference app for instructors, which has already been discussed on this blog.
- Embedding QR codes in training resources.
- A new iOS app I’ve been working on that automatically downloads workshop handouts, links, and other resources when launched. You can find out more about the initiative by reading our post on the ETS blog!
Rather than a traditional poster, we decided to simplify things a bit by bringing only a QR code that linked to a mobile-optimized web page with the poster details. Not surprisingly, the poster drew quite a few visitors!
Lia and I stuck around the area for a few days after the conference was over and had an amazing time touring breweries, hiking in the Rocky Mountains National Forest, and just hanging out together. Take a look at some of the pictures from our trip on my Flickr page!
I finally got around to publishing my newest iPhone app on Friday. The app is called D2L Quick Reference App and is made for educators using the Desire2Learn LMS. The app features a list of topics that load individual lesson views, a preference screen for entering support contact information, and a “shake for help” feature that lets instructors easy email or phone support.
For more information, check out the blog post on my website.
A few days ago I wrote a tutorial on using Google Voice in Desire2Learn on the PSCC TeachTech blog. While there are many potential uses for GV in D2L, the post focuses on only 2 – creating call-in quiz questions, which could be used for pronunciation tests or short speeches, and using the voicemail embed option to quickly deliver streaming audio announcements for students. If any of this sounds interesting, check out the article and feel free to post any questions or comments you have on the TeachTech blog!
I was able to attend Fusion, the Desire2Learn users conference, along with the D2L UnConference in Chicago last week. Like last year, both events turned out to be great get-togethers full of both information and inspiration.
The announcement that I’m most excited about is that we’ll soon have a mobile version of the D2L learning environment! Although they announced plans to develop native applications Android, iPhone, and Blackberry devices, the demo of their mobile-optimized website impressed me the most. The service is focused mostly on allowing students quick, on-the-go access to course content. Users accessing the system from a mobile device are automatically redirected to the mobile site, where they can browse content, check news items, and visit bookmarked items.
Another welcome addition to the LE is an updated version of the TinyMCE HTML Editor. The new editor appears to do a MUCH better job stripping out Microsoft crap-code when content is pasted from Word into the editor. The new MathML and LaTeX tools within the editor also look promising, but I am not a math person and haven’t tried entering formulas myself. While the much-hated Object item still lives in the toolbar for now, an “Insert Stuff” tool is being developed that should make it much less painful to embed audio, video, and other stuff in the HTML editor.
On the development side, the folks at D2L are adding a REST API for their web services. I never took the time to learn to work much with SOAP and this should make it much easier to interact with the system (at least for me). I’m not sure if they announced a timeline for introducing the new API, but I’m anxious to check it out when it does arrive!
I also had lunch with a Kaltura representative and was excited to hear about SSO with D2L, integration with TechSmith’s Relay product, and an HTML 5 version available soon. He also mentioned the ability to upload caption files for hosted videos and said that Kaltura and D2L were working together on deeper integrations which would be announced in a few months. I’ve been interested in Kaltura before, but found the lack of captions to be a deal breaker – it’s probably time to take another look now!
So, those are the tidbits I found most interesting from D2L’s Fusion 2010 conference. Of course, getting to meet new D2L users and chat with some of the great folks I met last year was wonderful too.
If you’ve used the course content tool within Desire2Learn (D2L) for any length of time, then you’re probably familiar with the D2L HTML editor. This editor, common between many content management systems, gives you a standard what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) interface for creating pages for your students to view. This tool basically gives you a simple way to create HTML documents, or web pages, using an interface similar to Microsoft Word without the need to learn HTML or other web programming languages. As powerful as the tool is, it still lacks features that make it easy to create standards-based, aesthetically pleasing HTML files for your students.
Web accessibility and usability are huge subjects that I’ll try not to address too much here. However, there are a few key points worth mentioning:
- When designing web pages that are accessible to students using screen readers, the structure of the page is extremely important. For example, the use of heading tags – H1, H2, H3, etc. allow screen readers to navigate through the content. Although you can certainly create structured pages using the HTML editor, it may not be an intuitive process. The editor also forces you to style text based on <font> tags, which should not be used if CSS styles are available.
- Online text is most readable when sans-serif fonts are used, when an appropriate amount of space between the lines of text is utilized, when text is easily resizable by the viewer, when the length of each line of text is limited to around 100 characters, and when text is visually “chunked” into manageable pieces. Unfortunately, the D2L HTML editor gives you little control over these aspects of page design.
- Pages in an online course need to maintain consistent formatting and style. These conventions make it easier for students to read through the material.
I could keep going here, but I have a feeling this post is going to be rather long anyway, so let’s move onto a discussion of the actual project!
In an effort to address these shortcomings of the HTML editor within D2L (and other CMSs) I’ve created a simple set of templates that work within the LMS to create pages that are easier to read and support greater accessibility. I actually saw a similar set of templates demoed at a conference this summer, but noticed some potential problems with the framework, so I’ve decided to create my own set of files and offer them for download. It’s my hope that the templates I have created here will make it relatively easy for instructors with little or no prior knowledge of HTML and CSS to quickly and easily create web pages for online courses. I should also mention that the icons used in the templates were provided by an awesome graphic designer named Everaldo Coelho. You’ll notice links to his websites in the footer of each template, and I ask that you keep that link intact if you decide to use these templates in your own course. In addition, he has provided these icons for use by educators only, so you’ll need to send me an email from a .edu address if you would like to download the files.
Moving on …
So what do the templates do? Well, they basically let you create more accessible files for your course. A picture is worth a thousand words, so take a look at the example below to see what we’re talking about here.
Here’s a demo page featuring many of the options available within the framework.
How do I use the templates?
Good question! I’ve created a D2L course component consisting of a demo page, several different page layouts, and all the resources you’ll need to upload in order to use the files. If you’re using Desire2Learn, you should probably get started by taking a look at the instructions for importing that course component.
Instructions for importing the course component in Desire2Learn
Once you’ve imported the files into your course and created a copy of the layout that you want to use, you might want to also take a look at the Formatting Your Pages tutorial.
For a quick overview of how to use the templates, you can also watch the short, terribly-produced video!
Please let me know if you have any questions or comments about the templates. I’m always happy to consider adding additional features that you might need. You can leave your comments below!
PS – I’ve added a link to a stand-alone version of the templates that can be viewed without requiring Desire2Learn or any other LMS. It contains all of the page layout templates as well as samples of some completed pages I’ve been created using the framework.
Update – The folks at D2L have released their own set of templates that look pretty nice. You can find out more information here –http://www.desire2learn.com/access/instructor_resources/HTML_templates/
