Living in Desire2Learn
Lorcan Dempsey of OCLC has an interesting post about the concepts of online “residents” and “visitors” as being more useful than the ubiquitous terms “digital immigrants” and “digital natives.” He borrows this idea from David White and talks specifically about online courses, wondering what the temporary inhabitants (AKA students) of those consider themselves. To extend his thought, I wonder if the instructors here at the University of Oklahoma mostly consider themselves online “residents” or “visitors” to our course management system, Desire2Learn?
Bizarrely enough, I do consider myself a “resident” of my Desire2Learn courses, but I don’t see how students can (if only because everybody else is “evicted” at the end of the semester, for one thing.) Furthermore, I am, like it or not, the “landlady,” though I tend to have all kinds of issues with the “municipal authorities.” (Their decision to not make the pager tool available anymore, for example, still rankles.) Unlike in Second Life, however, I can’t buy myself an island to build on. Pity.
The running joke of the Pager Tool. You made me laugh Dr. Martens! Sadly UWM also uses D2L…without the Pager Tool. Luckily my classes only keep some materials on D2L, so no real usage of the site. However when a person at UWM accesses D2L they have to search for their classes. How insane is that?
Even if students are considered evicted, I am glad of that eviction. Hopefully there will be a movement towards other online learning environs soon. D2L is just not to my liking.
Have to admit I always felt more like a tourist than a visitor. Sure, we’ll take your money, but we’ll make jokes about you behind you back and would really rather not have to mess with you at all. “Visit” implies welcome in my book.
Oh, the “tourist” comment is too clever to leave on this blog with its tiny readership: you should post it on Dempsey’s, which has a global audience. (And I suspect that it applies to all course management systems, not just to Desire2Learn…. and hopefully not just to my own courses!)