Proposals

Instructional Technology Conference 2009

Title: Timesaving Tips for D2L Faculty

Name: Ellen Smyth

Audience: All Faculty

Audience Level: All

Length: 45 minutes

Abstract: Faculty can greatly improve efficiency, potentially saving hours and hours of work, using some nifty Desire2Learn features and supplementary software. A smorgasbord of tips will be provided, advantages will be discussed, and a small amount of time will be spent covering how to use these features. Take home packages include detailed instructions on implementing each tip.

Description: Tips so far include:

1. Stack 'Em, Stack 'Em, Stack 'Em - Using the Course Mappings feature in D2L, administrators can combine course shells. If instructors are teaching several sections of the same course in D2L, the instructors can more easily modify content if all sections are combined into one shell so that modifications need only be done once instead of twice or thrice.

2. Edit All Superpowers - The Edit All features in Content, Dropbox and Quizzes allow you to change titles, hide from students, and in some cases modify dates to every item in each respective area on a single screen.

3. HTML for Easy Edits - Faculty can create or convert syllabi, course schedules and other documents that frequently change from semester to semester using the HTML editor in D2L so that they can then edit these documents inside D2L with two clicks. No more downloading the document, modifying, saving, uploading and re-linking!

4. Display in Calendar - One of the more obvious ways to save time, the display in calendar option allows faculty to add due dates to the calendar for dropbox

assignments, discussion assignments, quizzes and exams without ever manually creating these events.

5. Link to Grades - This feature allows faculty to send quiz grades directly to the gradebook, to grade assignments from the dropbox, and to grade discussion postings from the discussions area.

6. Add Multiple Topics - Perfect for when faculty are first designing courses and want to load dozens of documents, they can zip all files, load them into Manage Files, and then create topics for these documents easily in two clicks.

7. Export/Import Calendar - Those manually created events in course calendars can be exported, dates reassigned to correspond to the new semester, and then imported back in.

8. Email from Classlist - Users can email individuals or the entire class in just one or two steps from the classlist, which is much easier than trying to use the address book in D2L.

9. Copy Components - Faculty can copy all or parts of courses using the Import/Export/Copy function.

10. Supplementary Software - Faculty can use the Firefox browser to sometimes dramatically improve page-loading times, reduce Active X problems, and prevent Java errors. Faculty can use Respondus 3.5 software to create quizzes and tests from pre-existing publisher-created pools, in many instances, from text files, or from MS Word files. WebDAV can be linked directly to the Manage Files area of a course, allowing the instructor to modify any and all documents - not just HTML - on his or her computer and instantly update the course, without all of the downloading, modifying, saving, uploading and re-linking nonsense!

Session Type: Lecture/Presentation

On-Site Equipment Requirements: I prefer a SmartBoard, but I can make do with a computer projector.

Contact Information/Affiliation:
Ellen Smyth
Distance Education
Austin Peay State University
P.O. Box 4717
Clarksville, TN 37044
smythe@apsu.edu