D2L Regional Events 2014 - Building Custom Widgets in Brightspace
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The document discusses using widgets to customize course home pages in Desire2Learn (D2L) learning management systems. It provides tips on choosing widgets that display relevant course information for students, such as news, dates, and course content. The document also highlights options for organizing widgets on the page and links to external resources for building custom widgets. Examples of fully customized home pages that integrate external websites are also presented.
D2L Regional Events 2014 - Building Custom Widgets in Brightspace
- 1. Building Custom Widgets to Enhance Your Home Pages Regional User Forum Ontario! Barry Dahl Sr. Community Manager, D2L
- 2. Widget-based Home Pages • Before you begin setting up your course home page, consider the needs of your students: – What information is most relevant to them as students in your course? – What course materials and supplementary materials will they need? – How can you maximize your course home page to include relevant information?
- 3. Widget-based Home Pages • At-a-glance, what do you want students to see? – Course news and updates – Important dates and reminders – Links to course content – Links to supplementary materials – Relevant RSS feeds
- 4. “Traditional” Home Page w/News & System Widgets
- 5. V10 Widget Layout Options • Suggestions: – Maximize the use of screen space – Don’t repeat things in widgets and nav bars – Encourage your students to enter course through home page, as much as possible 8 Layout Choices
- 6. Two Equal Widget Columns
- 7. Large Column on Left
- 10. Replace strings Three Embedded Polls
- 11. Community Posts about Widgets • Go to the new Brightspace Community –community.brightspace.com • Go to the Teaching & Learning Community • Go to the T & L Wiki • Go to “Widget Central”
- 12. Laura Gibbs – Oklahoma University
- 13. Some Problems with Widgets • Mixed content blocking in most browsers – Check out the Firefox extension • Lack of “https:” embed code for widgets • Widget-building sites come and go: – Google Gadgets – WidgetBox
- 14. Full Custom Home Pages • Any webpage/site can be used as a custom home page in D2L. • Examples: – Course blog – RSS aggregator – Any course-specific web page
- 16. Let’s look at some examples • Go to the Learning Environment for the D2L Regional events – community.desire2learn.com/login • Use Course Search to find “Barry’s RUF Sessions”