Hey Guys, Elaina here!

I know that it is halfway through the semester and many of us are stuck in our routine. As a senior, one of the things at the forefront of my mind is getting a job after I graduate.  Now of course there are no guarantees depending on the field you’ve chosen as well as the competitiveness of the current job market; but there are a few things that D2L can help with for your future.

One of those things is providing you with an ePortfolio.

This does an excellent job of collecting all of the things that you have worked on and turned into your classes. You can upload your grades, papers, pictures, art projects, websites and more.  On your ePortfolio you can create a collection that contains all of your accomplishments. You could group everything you upload into collections for display purposes.

Once you are confident that your little corner of D2L properly reflects what you want to display to the world, you can invite individuals to view your page and in turn you can get invites for other pages. You can build sharing groups and solidify your connections for the future.  You can create reflections on your work as well as provide links to outside content and even a form response.

If you would like to know more about D2L’s ePortfolio, check out our YouTube video:

Graduation and entering into the job market is a scary thing, but trying to find a way to show all you have contributed to UWW shouldn’t be!  Use the tools that D2L has provided for you to help you in the future!

Thanks for your time,

Elaina

Hey guys! This week I thought that I would go back and address the Discussions Page on D2L. I thought that we could, you know, sit down and talk about it…we could even discuss it.

It had to be said folks.

Anyways, I am sure you noticed a slight change to the Discussions page over the last couple of months. I have heard a wide range of reviews, good and bad.  However most of them all come down to appearance, not whether or not it is more user friendly. So I thought that this break down will be very helpful to you guys.

First to get to the Discussions page click on the link in the course navigation bar

This will take you to your Discussions List Page.

This is something that many people find overwhelming initially but you don’t have to fret, most of what has been changed about this page is to help you stay organized. If you collapse everything then you have the ability to look at just one discussion forum at a time.

Now from there you can open one of the collapsed tabs and look at all the information within a single forum at a time.

They have also made it easier for you to keep up with the updates that your classmates make to the post.  Along with the description of each discussion, they now have three little display categories; ‘Unread’, ‘Posts’, and ‘Views’.

If that is not enough by itself, on the right side of the page there are announcements on who last posted to the discussion and when.  If you would like an update about these as soon as they happen, there is a little ‘Subscribe’ button with a star right above that.

To check on all of your subscriptions, click on the ‘Subscriptions’ tab at the top of your screen

When you would like to post to a discussion thread, click on it and you will be taken to the topic page.  This is what you traditionally think of when you think of discussions.

Here you can make your post and give your opinions and be on your merry way. You click on compose, you make your post and may subscribe to the thread from here if you so choose.  If you aren’t ready to post you can save it as a draft. You can maybe even just scrap the whole thing and try again later if you are having an off day.

You can add a file, but you don’t have to. This could be useful in class if you are having a spirited discussion and you suddenly feel the need to post an article to prove your point. It could also be useful for posting appropriate reaction images to something that someone else said.

When you are all done carefully reading all of the posts, (or you have just clicked ‘Mark All Read’ because you want to get those dang notifications off of your D2L) click on the ‘Done’ button in the top right corner.

That is all I have for you today! If you want more information about the Discussions page, watch our YouTube video.

Thanks for your time,

Elaina

Hey guys! Today I am going to talk about the Quizzes page of D2L. Many of you may be thinking, “Elaina, what are you doing, so far you have just been going down the line and talking about the tabs in the order of appearance on the course navigation bar!” and to that I say: “I am a rebel that doesn’t follow anyone’s rules!”

Just kidding! I thought it would be the perfect time to cover this since so many of us are currently suffering with the weight of midterm quizzes looming ominously over our heads.

The first thing need to know is that you get to the quizzes page by clicking on “Quizzes” in the course navigation bar!

This will take you to the quiz page where your professor may or may not have posted future quizzes that you will have to take.

Though some professors may leave their quizzes open to take whenever, most professors only allow their quizzes to be taken during a set few days.  These dates are located underneath the quiz title.

The far right side of the row, you will notice that there are a set amount of attempts that you have for each quiz. Some professors will allow you to have multiple attempts at a quiz, but most will only give you one attempt.

To begin taking a quiz, click on the blue link to whatever quiz you want to take.  You will then be taken to a new window that contains all of your questions.

One tip for taking a quiz is that you save as often as possible. There is a save button after every question. Utilize this and click it as often as possible.  This is a good idea because in the event of a common computer tragedy (computer freezes, friend turns it off, dog eats it, etc.) all of the questions that you have completed and saved will remain intact.

The easiest way to tell if you have answered and saved a question yet is by looking at the side bar on the left side of the screen. Another way to tell is by looking in the same row to the right of your question and there is a little floppy disk symbol (or save symbol, for those kids that don’t know what a floppy disk is).  All completed questions will have a blue floppy disk.  If the symbol is still without color, then it is unsaved and therefore unfinished.

If you think that you will have trouble remembering that, then never fear, there is a key to remind you what symbol means what, located in the sidebar.

When you are all finished with your quiz, I would recommend clicking “Save All Responses” (just to be safe), and then clicking on the “Go to Submit Quiz” button.

This will take you to a last window where you can decide to make any last minute changes than you want. You can still click on the questions in the left sidebar and it will take you to those questions.  When you are truly and completely finished, click on the “Submit Quiz” button.

Something else that I should bring up is LockDown Browser.

This is a protected browser that you are required to use for some quizzes. You will have to download it first if you have never used it before. When LockDown is running, you are unable to open other windows or access other parts of the internet. It allows you to take your quiz in a controlled environment as designated in D2L. LockDown should not be used in other areas of D2L.

If you would like more information on how to download LockDown Browser, visit our wiki page about it.

That is all I have on Quizzes for the moment. If you would like to learn more, check out our YouTube videos.

Thanks for your time,

Elaina