D2L: Essentials

In the following tutorials you will learn to conduct basic day-to-day course management tasks. Feel free to work through the content in order of topic or jump around. The online format allows you to take control of the content found here. You are encouraged to have your D2L site open in another window, so you can experiment, as you learn.

Get Started

Log into D2L Brightspace

To log into D2L, visit http://learn.mru.ca and enter your MRU username and password.

Course Copy

In this video, you will learn how to copy your course into an empty course shell.

Navigate Brightspace Learning Environment: Navigation

This video is a tour of the D2L learning environment, with a specific focus on navigation.

Navigate Brightspace Learning Environment: Account Settings

In this video, you will learn how to edit your account settings.

Getting Started - Create a Profile

In this video, you will learn how to create your personal profile.

Getting Started - Manage Notifications

In this video, you will learn how to contol how you receive information about course activity by editing your notification preferences.

Learning Environment - Navigate Homepage and My Courses

In this video, you will learn how to navigate the homepage and My Courses widget.

Note: For MRU's version on D2L Brightspace, the ability to customize the homepage has been turned off.

Make a course active

In this video, you will learn how to change the availability dates for your course.

Pin favourite courses

In this video, you will learn how to pin courses to the top of your course list to make them easier to access.

Learning Environment - Switch Roles

In this video, you will learn how to switch roles in order to view your course as a student.

Content

Content - Add a Module

In this video, you will learn to structure and organize your content by adding modules and sub-modules to your course.

Content - Create a File and Insert Stuff

In this video, you will learn to:

create new topics in your course
add images, videos, or other objects into a topic

Content - Upload a Topic

In this video, you will learn to upload files from your computer or device to include as a topic in your course.

Content - Add an Existing Activity

In this video, you will learn to add an activity (assignment, discussion, quiz, etc.) to a content area in your course.

Content - Rearrange Topics, Submodules, and Modules

In this video, you will learn to rearrange content items to build and structure your course.

Create a Link to an Online Document or Website

In this video, you will learn to add link into your course content that goes to a Google file or another website.

Content - Attach a Release Condition

In this video, learn how to attach a release condition to a content item in your course.

Content - Delete a Module

In this video, you will learn to delete an entire module at once.

Content - Content Topic Completion Tracking

This video will give you an overview of completion tracking for content topics.

Manage Files - Upload a File and Add it as a Content Topic

In this video, you will learn how to:

upload a file using Manage Files
add a file to your course from Manage Files

Remove "Materials" or other extraneous item titles in D2L

In this video, you will learn how to remove the extra titles that appear in the content area.

Discussion boards in D2L vs Blackboard

In this video, you will learn the difference between discussion boards in D2L and Blackboard.

Narrate PowerPoint, save as video in Google Drive, link in D2L

In this video, you will learn how to:

create a narrated PowerPoint
save the PowerPoint as a video
upload a video to Google Drive
link a video in D2L from Google Drive

Add a Composite File to Your Content

In this video you will learn how to upload composite files (.zip) to your course content.

Assignments & Grades

Assignments – Create an Assignment

In this video, you will learn to create an assignment.

Assignments - Grade Submissions in Assignments

In this video, you will learn to grade a student's submission from within Assignments.

Assignments - Grade Assignment Submissions Offline

In this video, you will learn to download and grade student submissions offline before providing online feedback.

Grades - Understanding Grades

This video outlines key aspects of creating and using your grade book.

Grades - Create a Grade Item

In this video, you will learn to create a new grade item in your grade book.

Grades - Enter Grades

In this video, you will learn how to enter grades in your grade book in the following ways:

spreadsheet view
by learner
by grade item
by category

Assignments - Associate an Assignment with a Grade Item

In this video, you will learn to associate an assignment with a grade item in your grade book.

Setup weighted grades in D2L from imported Blackboard grade center

In this video, you will learn to:

use the Setup Wizard in grades to include weights
edit grade items to adjust weights
clean up the grade book to remove unneeded items

Setup weighted grades in D2L from scratch

In this video, you will learn to:

create a grade item and assign both a point value and weight
edit a grade item
assign an assessment to a grade item

Track Attendance (recommended method)

In this video, you will learn to download a copy of your class list as a spreadsheet so you can track attendance.

Set up iClicker with D2L

In this video, you will learn to:

register for an iClicker account as an instructor
create a new course on the iClicker website
integrate iClicker with your D2L course

Class Progress - Understand and Modify Class Progress

In this video, you will learn to customize Class Progress to display indicators relevant to your course.

Annoucements

Announcements are a quick and easy way to broadcast messages to your students in a timely fashion. The announcement tool can enhance student accountability because they will always know what is expected of them for upcoming classes through an announcement.

Announcements - Create an Announcement

In this video, you will learn how to create an announcement.

Announcements - Delete and Restore Announcements

In this video, you will learn to:

delete an announcement
restore a deleted announcement

Teaching Tips - Make Regular Announcements

This video provides suggestions for making regular announcements to increase communication with your students.

Attendance

The Attendance tool allows you to create class sessions, track attendance and set cause-for-concern alerts for students who are missing too many classes. You can even share attendance information with your students to enhance accountability and transparency.

You can find the Attendance tool in your classes now under Assessments in the navigation bar.

Take note

You do not have to make your entire course unavailable to build in it. You can hide specific content areas or make specific content folders unavailable to users while developing your course content.