Welcome, students, to this brief introduction to
the new version of Desire 2 Learn. For new users, navigating this online course
management application will be relatively straight
forward, but there are some minor changes for those who
are updating from the older version. The first thing you will notice is the presence of a
quick access bar at the top. This bar will always be there to navigate D2L. The access bar has a link to your homepage
labeled "My Home." You can see this homepage here. It includes: A link to the UW-L Campus Calendar, News updates, Outage notices (if there are any), Links to non-course specific tools like your
calendar, locker, and ePortfolio, Help links, And (most importantly) your list of D2L courses. You also have access to your course pages on
the access bar using this dropdown. The bar also includes the three icons shown
here. A red dot indicates a new item. The message alerts icon offers quick access to
the pager, a communication tool within D2L as well as the D2L e-mailing tool. Pager messages will display here. Click the update alerts icon to see any D2L
notifications including news updates from your instructors,
updates to the grade book, and more. The chatter icon provides updates about
discussion posts to which you subscribe. Clicking the dropdown next to your username allows you to update your user profile with a
picture, contact information, and more. You can also turn on E-Mail notifications here by
clicking Notifications, providing your e-mail address, and choosing the options below. When navigating to a particular course, you will see more options in the banner at the top. These are course tools which you will use more,
less, or not at all depending on the course and the instructor. A news feed from your instructor displays here. Below that, you can browse course content in a
simplified widget. If your instructor has set assignments and
quizzes to display on the calendar, they will
display here. You can also view the calendar items for all or
some of your courses by returning to your home page, clicking Calendar in the banner, and choosing to view those calendars. All in all, we hope the transition to the new version
will improve your online course experience. If you have any questions about the features of
the new version of D2L, please contact the Eagle Help Desk in the Wing
Technology Center at 608-785-8774.