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D2L Expands Collaboration and Community in Brightspace

New features enhance personalization and engagement to help support learners through the pandemic and beyond

Press Release

D2L, a global learning technology company, today announced a suite of product features that expand D2L Brightspace’s ability to help foster collaborative, lifelong learning communities during the pandemic.

“COVID-19 disruptions have had a devastating and potentially enduring impact on young learners, especially those who were already facing challenges. That’s why we’re investing in new features to enhance Brightspace for educators, learners, and families,” said John Baker, CEO and President of D2L. “As we move forward as a newly public company, we’ll continue to make everyday tasks faster and workflows smarter. This will benefit everyone in our learning communities – our graders, content creators, educators, learners, and those that support them – in education and in the workforce.”

As we all continue to shift between in-person and virtual settings, the demand for technology-enabled learning is increasing. D2L is responding with enhancements to:

  • help families and teachers stay connected
  • make it easy for video to be accessible on any device with automatic closed captioning
  • deliver expert content design support
  • make learning more personalized, inclusive and engaging for the more than 15 million people around the world who use Brightspace.

“Learning should not be an isolated process, it should be done within a community,” said Liz Miller Lee, Director of Online Learning at International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). “With the huge increase in the use of technology in the classroom, school districts need ways to organize all the learning that’s happening. The features that Brightspace gives us to help build that community are incredibly important.”

Building Community for Learners

New features help make it easier for students, families, and teachers to connect, stay informed and receive notifications about students’ progress, anytime and anywhere, including:

  • New Brightspace Parent & Guardian app that makes it easier for parents and guardians of younger learners to access Brightspace with a single click from any Apple or Android mobile device – or through a website.
  • Updates to the widely adopted Portfolio and Portfolio at Home, which work together to capture learner’s activities and experiences year after year throughout their learning journey.

Enhancing Video Technology to Build Human Connections

Integrated video technology cultivates interactivity and personalization for people of varying abilities and on any device.

New enhancements mean educators and learners can access embedded, easy-to-use, video experiences throughout Brightspace and:

  • Stream videos using adaptive technology that works on older devices and slower bandwidth speeds
  • Explore videos – new video search capabilities leverage the multi-language auto-captioning features in Video Note to show you exactly where the terms were referenced in the videos. And chapters make it easy to highlight the key sections to review.

In addition, during the pandemic D2L integrated virtual classroom tools within Brightspace, such as Zoom Video Communications, Inc., Microsoft Teams, Bongo, and Google Meet.

New Additions to D2L’s Learning Services Portfolio

New, flexible Courseware Subscription Services provide customers with access to dedicated, ongoing expert support to help design and develop appealing, interactive, and inclusive content to help drive engagement within learning communities.

These updates to the Brightspace platform build on other user-inspired changes, including the addition of pronouns to the user profile, updated assignment and content experiences, enhancements to Course Publisher, and Brightspace HTML Editor.

Building on continued feedback and conversations with customers through the Product Idea Exchange, D2L will continue to help make it easier for people to learn by enhancing and improving Brightspace — helping users save time and boost workflow efficiencies over the coming year.  

For more information on the latest features, please visit: D2L.com/brightspace/new/.

About D2L

D2L is transforming the way the world learns—helping learners of all ages achieve more than they dreamed possible. Working closely with clients all over the world, D2L is supporting millions of people learning online and in person. Our growing global workforce is dedicated to making the best learning products to leave the world better than they found it. Learn more about D2L for K-12, higher education and businesses at www.D2L.com.

D2L Media Contact

Colin Horgan
‪Executive Communications Director
[email protected]
Twitter: @D2L

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