PROPEL Faculty & Staff Blog

Creator+ is the name used for an all new way to create more visually appealing and interactive content inside of D2L. It is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) content authoring HTML5 editor similar to H5P with a more user friendly interface and shorter workflow while also losing some more in-depth functionalities that aren’t used very often.

Using it, we can create highly desirable, engaging, and delightful learning experiences in minutes. With easy-to-use tools and leveraging existing workflows, we can build dynamic content that appeals to the love of learning, improves comprehension, and achieves higher levels of engagement for instructors AND learners.

Insert Element enables us to easily and seamlessly create dynamic content and chunk concepts following instructional design best practices. What do YOU think of when you see a blank white page (much like the one you are reading this on, ironically!) with some text on top? Exciting, engaging, and dynamic may not be at the top of that list. Functional? Sure. But we can do better!

When creating content in D2L, from ANY of the content editors, you may now select “Insert Element” from the “+” Menu to create brand new content that is formatted in a more engaging, visually appealing way. Let’s take a look at how Creator+ can take this bland-looking paragraph you are reading right now and spice it up a little!

From the revealed menu you can then select which type of content you’d like to add. To keep things brief, I will not be going over every single content type in this blog (though PD opportunities for Creator+ are on the way!) but feel free to try out all the options! For this example, I’m going to be using the “Callout” element, one designed to grab the attention of the reader for something very important that should be taken note of, a visual way of telling someone “HEY! This is GOING to be on the test, promise!” for example.

From the next window, I’m going to select what type of icon I want to be in my big new callout element. As this is a big update for us, I’m going to select “Jumbo”! Then enter my title, and my content before selecting “Preview” and then inserting my brand new content into my course.

“Joseph, that was way too easy, I just hit like two extra buttons, there is no way I’ve made that big of a difference” – You, (Probably).

We are all a little wrong sometimes, because with that little effort, we have transformed our boring paragraph into an accessible element that steals attention! Check it out below, is your eye drawn to the top paragraph first or the one we just made?

Pretty neat, right?

Again, this is only showing one of the new elements for this example and more will be added into the future! Feel free to test out ones that are interesting to you! Anyone can do it!

Earlier I did mention that Creator+ also allows the creation of interactive content! Let’s take a look, shall we?

Practices deepen comprehension and reinforce concepts using formative practice questions in Content HTML topics. To make one, you can select “Insert Practice” from the “+” menu in ANY of the HTML5 Content editors inside of D2L.

From here you will be able to choose which type of interactive item you would like to make (and eve more are on the way!). For the sake of this example, let’s do a “Fill in the Blanks” item.

From here you can follow precise on-screen instructions on how to make your new interactive content! Let’s make this about just how easy this was to make, shall we?

Once you are all done and insert the content into your course it will show off some of the fields you entered above. Select “save and close” and you are done, that’s it!

And behold, a brand new interactive item!

Please note, at this time, interactive items can NOT be linked to the grade book and should only be used as supplementary materials as that is what they are designed for!