Take-aways from the D2L Connection: Alberta Event - Personalize Learning with Intelligent Agents and Release Conditions

Have you struggled with knowing what information to include in D2L and which to leave out?  You know that some learners need lots of support, and you know that other learners don’t need nearly as much.  So what can you do?  Do you include everything in your unit folders “just in case”?  You could.  But this can become overwhelming and confusing for learners to navigate.

Did you know that you can use D2L to release materials selectively to learners on a need-to-know basis?

You may wonder, why would I want to limit the information I provide to all learners?  Well, simply, to make things simpler.  Your course can be streamlined, and as a bonus, you can increase the appearance of instructor presence by allowing specific material to be released to meet individual learners’ needs.

Here’s a scenario: you have a learner who has just flunked a quiz or other assessment.  So you, brilliant, ever-present instructor, use Release Conditions to automatically make additional support available and use an Intelligent Agent (personalized email sent automatically based a criteria you have established) to inform this learner of the material that has been made available specifically to address the issue and provide more practice for a concept.

What’s the point?  If you have sufficient opportunities for formative assessment, you can have learners see only the vital information in your courses and keep the extra stuff hidden until a Release Condition has been met.  Your courses will be streamlined and your learners will know that each file is important and can’t be skipped.  It will eliminate the temptation to have folders such as “Extra Material” or “Additional Handouts” or “Supplementary Resources” that are rarely accessed by the learners who need them most.  

Click here for a video that shows how Release Conditions and Intelligent Agents can be used together to personalize learning.

Lorna