While getting started in my new job at Desire2Learn, I enjoyed an extended stay in the Kitchener/Waterloo area to get oriented to the company and meet some of the hundreds of new employees (new to me, anyway). Rather than tell you about the great corporate culture that they have developed at D2L (here’s a recent story (May 2012) about that), I want to tell you about where I stayed while I was there. This isn’t the normal kind of post that I make at this site, but it may prove interesting for other remote D2L employees as well as anyone else who might be traveling to Kitchener.
Queen’s Landing Guest House is a great Bed & Breakfast and only about a 20 minute walk from D2L Headquarters in the Tannery Building. Your hosts are Wilma and Brian Skipper. They share their beautiful home with people like me who enjoy a home away from home. This home was built in 1920, and “features ten foot ceilings, large porches, stained glass windows, etched french doors, hardwood floors and walnut trim.”
Read the full post … including the first recipe I’ve ever posted on my blog, along with many more pictures and more info about Queen’s Landing.
Filed under: Desire2Learn | Comments Off on Feeling at Home in Kitchener
Let’s say you’ve been dating someone for 8 or 9 years. After all that time, you still get along really well. Maybe it’s time to tie the knot and make your relationship more permanent – or at least as “permanent” as those things can be.
Figuratively speaking, that’s what’s happening with my career in education. I recently signed a job offer sheet and all the other necessary paperwork to tie the knot with a company where I hope to spend the rest of my working years.
I’ve known some of the people in this company for nine years now. They are talented and driven and inspired. There are many other newer employees that I’ve haven’t yet met. I’m looking forward to meeting many of the newer folks during the next couple of months.
It will probably not come as a surprise to many people in the e-learning world that I’ve taken a job with Desire2Learn. I’ve told many people over the years that there was only one company that I’d dealt with while CIO of a college in Minnesota that I would be willing, even anxious, to work for. That company is D2L. Even after a nine year relationship, nothing has happened to change that point of view for me.
Almost every interaction with them has been pleasant, engaging, and positive. I consider many of the D2Lers to be friends of mine. The company is doing great and I look forward to being part of the team that continues to execute on their mission and vision.
My connection with D2L started in the spring of 2003 when I was the chair of the the MnSCU IMS of the Future task force. Desire2Learn submitted a response to our RFP and was selected to be one of the four finalists for the process. In May 2003, I met John Baker and Jeremy Auger for the first time at St. Cloud State University for the day-long demonstration of the D2L platform. Their presentation that day, along with a superior written response to the RFP, elevated D2L to the top of the list of the platforms being considered. Other milestones:
My former college started using D2L in place of WebCT in 2004.
In 2006, I started Desire2Blog (which I shuttered last month – no new posts).
In 2011, my job was eliminated at the college. John Baker told me “If you ever need a job …”
In April 2012, I signed an offer sheet to become a D2L employee.
May 9, 2012 will be my first day on the job as Senior Community Manager for D2L, Ltd.
Just a few quickies.
I am able to work as a remote employee so my family will not need to relocate. Major kudos to D2L for making these opportunities available. Most of my time will be spent in “the hole” (my basement (dungeon) office) and traveling. I will spend a few weeks each year at D2L headquarters in Kitchener.
Although I don’t start until 5/9, I’m already working on some ideas to create a whole new User Community experience for D2L clients and employees.
I will no longer be conducting business as Excellence in e-Education. I loved it, but I’m going to love this even more.
I’ve made so many friends over the years who are in the D2L user community, like those in the photo below from various FUSION conferences between 2007 and 2011. I’m thrilled that I’ll still have the opportunity to interact with all those friends and with the new friends that I’ll get to meet along the way. Yay!!
During this academic year I will be working on a project called Action Analytics with the Office of the Chancellor at the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU). I will still retain my position at Lake Superior College, but part of my time will be devoted to this project.
Dr. Linda Baer of MnSCU was a recent guest blogger on Donald Norris’ blog Linking Analytics to Lifting Out of Recession. Dr. Baer described several data analytics initiatives that are ongoing within MnSCU as serving diverse populations and also the underserved populations. As a more recent step, she describes the following: “Linking Activities and Metrics. The second foundation step is to begin to link these many activities. The technology and infrastructure capacity of the system was supporting a large data warehouse with selected data mining capabilities. The dashboard enabled full display of campus and system accomplishments. Yet, the question remained: What activities were contributing to the most student learning and student success?”
Boosting Analytics and Predictive Modeling. Dr Baer continues with the following: “Realizing that the next big step was to develop analytic and predictive modeling capabilities … using national, state and local data, we could develop student information dashboards so each faculty member could review where the student was academically and then advise the best academic choices for ongoing success. Curricular assessment could be made to see what components of course learning worked for students and what needed more emphasis so tutoring and advising could further align best learning experiences to accomplish successful learning.”
The desired end result is to create an informational system that can be used to provide students with timely advice about how best to succeed in their current courses and in their more long-term programs oif study. To that end, I am working as part of a team to create a proof of concept for this project. We are analyzing sudent engagement data harvested from their activities inside Desire2Learn during the spring 2009 semester. Early results have favorable indications that the student engagement data might indeed be useful as a predictor of success in the course, although that analysis is not complete at this time.
Stage one is to create an advising model where advisors would be able to quickly see which of their advisees might be at risk academically and to help make suggestions as to which type of actions (interventions?) might be useful in bringing the student closer to a successful outcome. This work is ongoing and I expect to have much more to report about it over the next weeks and months.
At the top of the blog page you’ll see a new tab with a link to some of my Web 2.0 materials where I will be adding my content (from old blog) about my Web 2.0 Hall of Fame and other things about the web-based tools that I use every day both professionally and personally. On that page is also a link to another page that contains embedded screencast videos that illustrate some of the things I demonstrate in workshops about using Web 2.0 tools within Desire2Learn. This is mainly an effort to make my stuff more find-able.
Point #1: all of the things illustrated in those videos can also be done outside of Desire2Learn. They are shown inside D2L as way of directing the students to the tools in an easy manner.
Point #2: all of the things that are shown inside D2L should also work in other VLEs if you so desire. I have personanly tested most of these items in both Angel and Moodle without any problems. The same should hold true for other platforms.
While getting started in my new job at Desire2Learn, I enjoyed an extended stay in the Kitchener/Waterloo area to get oriented to the company and meet some of the hundreds of new employees (new to me, anyway). Rather than tell you about the great corporate culture that they have developed at D2L (here’s a recent story (May 2012) about that), I want to tell you about where I stayed while I was there. This isn’t the normal kind of post that I make at this site, but it may prove interesting for other remote D2L employees as well as anyone else who might be traveling to Kitchener.
Barry Dahl dot com 