When you walk down a university hallway, you know the office doors that catch your attention - the doors that have cartoons for you to look at, newspaper articles, posters for upcoming events, and so on. Well, the Desire2Learn homepage can work just the same way. By adding widgets to your Desire2Learn homepage you can help your students feel at home from the very first moment that they walk into your online office.
For example, here is the Desire2Learn homepage for my Myth-Folklore course. I've set it up with the class announcements and deadlines in the center column, while the right and left columns are full of widgets:
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(click the image to see a larger view)
In the left-hand column, there is the "Semester Progress" widget, with a progress bar that shows how far along we are in the semester. The "Random Fable" widget in the left-hand column displays an Aesop's fable each time the page is loaded. In the right-hand column, the "Greek Gods" widget displays a random god or goddess each time the page refreshes. Below that in the right-hand column, the "University Libraries" widget lets students search our university library holdings directly from inside Desire2Learn, while also giving them some tips about using E-Reserves and other library services.
When students log into this course, they know right away where they are and what's going on. The homepage looks different from the homepage of the other classes they are in: "Hey, Aesop's fables and Greek goddesses; this must be my Myth-Folklore class!" The images in the widgets are fun and eye-catching, and the content of these widgets is central to the topic of the course, constantly reinforcing what the students are learning in class and giving them a chance to learn a little bit more each time they log on.
SchoolhouseWidgets.com: Share and Enjoy!
The real genius of widgets is that they can be shared. I have created a website, SchoolhouseWidgets.com, where I have posted the javascript code for my widgets so that anybody who wants to add them to a Desire2Learn homepage can easily do so. You'll find widgets for Aesop's fables, Greek gods and goddesses, Hindu gods and goddesses, a Roman calendar, Bible women, Bible art, and more. These are materials related to my own teaching and research interests, and you are welcome to use any and all of them!
Even better: you can also create dynamic widget content of your own. You don't need to be a computer programmer. I use the handy Rotating Content Tool at the RotateContent.com website. To create a dynamic widget with date-based or random content, you just put the content you want into the cells of a table. The Rotating Content Tool does all the work of converting your content into the javascript for your widget.
If you'd like to learn more about Desire2Learn widgets, with specific tips on how you can create your own dynamic widgets, visit the SchoolhouseWidgets.com website or you can visit my course from the Share area of the Desire2Learn Community, where you can see the widgets at work!
