UGuelph and D2L sitting in a tree

News of a new collaboration between UGuelph and D2L, on a major pedagogy research initiative:

The pedagogy research project strives to help schools track and report on learning outcomes across programs over time. Researchers will use D2L’s predictive analytics capabilities to document and discover the effectiveness of assessment tools on specific subjects while working with educators to develop a curriculum that results in greater student success.

via University of Guelph to Leverage Desire2Learn’s Integrated Learning Platform for $6 Million Pedagogy Research Initiative | Desire2Learn Press Release.

2 quick thoughts on this:

1. awesome! D2L really does play well with others, and invests in improving teaching and learning rather than just polishing shiny baubles.
2. surely there is more to this than just predictive analytics. I’d love to see a pedagogical collaboration that was about in-the-trenches teaching (and learning) online, and not just massaging the data gathered about online activities. D2L has been trying to foster an online community of teachers (and others) in their D2L Community site¹². It would be really cool to push that community up a few notches and open the doors so anyone can follow along (or join in).

Desire2Learn really feels like they care about teaching and learning - the Fusion conference last year was different from any other vendor conference I’ve been to, and felt decidedly like a good teaching-and-learning conference rather than a buy-our-shiny-products vendor conference.