I was just reading an article by Dr. George Siemens, an alum of RRC, and he lists five elements that he includes in a framework for educational technology. I think these are interesting to reflect on as we consider educational technology’s future at RRC.

1. “Does the technology foster creativity and personal expression?
2. Does the technology develop the learner and contribute to her formation as a person?
3. Is the technology fun and engaging?
4. Does the technology have the human teacher and/or peer learners at the centre?
5. Does the technology consider the whole learner?”

Do we consider our learners to be parts of an educational machine, or are we empowering them in a human learning centered way? Is technology in education about people or about simply using technology? Should we, as George suggests, be working towards “creat[ing] tools, technologies, and pedagogies that enable creation, personal formation, engagement, fun, and joy”?

Release Conditions Introduction (Brightspace Community Video)

Please note that the instructor and student view in this video are using an old version of Brightspace (LEARN) on another institutions system.  The layout of course content may seem unfamiliar.

Attaching a Release Condition to a Quiz

(Brightspace Community Video)

Release conditions allow you to create a custom learning path through the materials in your course. When you attach a release condition to an item, users cannot see that item until they meet the associated condition. For example, you could attach a release condition to the second topic in your course’s content area that would hide that topic until users viewed the topic before it. Or you could create a condition that required users to view a content topic before gaining access to a quiz, or one that required them to post to a discussion topic before they could see a content module.

If you attach multiple conditions to an item, users must meet all conditions before they can access the item. For example, you could require users to visit the first three content topics in a unit before gaining access to an associated quiz.

More information available from the d2l Resource Centre:  https://documentation.desire2learn.com/en/Release%20Conditions

Intelligent Agents Video (Brightspace Community Video)

Log in Criteria + Release condition Intelligent Agents (Brightspace Community Videos)

Intelligent agents monitor an org unit (course) to find activity that matches criteria that you set. The criteria that the agents search for are login activity, course activity, and release conditions in Learning Environment.

Example uses for intelligent agents include:

• Emailing users with grades below a certain level.
• Checking for users that have not logged in within a specific number of days.
• Checking for users that view a specific content topic.

Detailed instructions available through d2l Resource Centre: https://documentation.desire2learn.com/en/Intelligent%20Agents