D2L to introduce photo stories

By Derek Baker, April 24 2017 —

Sharing everyday moments just got a little bit easier. Inspired by the recent additions to Facebook Messenger and Instagram, Desire2Learn will now include a photo sharing feature called D2LStoriez.

“We thought it was about time students and professors were able to share 10-second selfies or videos showing just how fun school is,” IT serviceperson Imogen Ingrid said.

D2L’s new photo sharing component will come with a host of features, including fun new filters that morph your face into Elizabeth Cannon’s, email notifications for whenever a classmate posts a new story and the ability to share photos with only certain individuals.

“Having the ability to share photos with only a few people in your class might make it easier to communicate with your group during a project,” Ingrid said. “But please, do not send dick pics over D2LStoriez. That would certainly result in non-academic misconduct.”

Ingrid said that the main goal of D2LStoriez is to foster student engagement in an accessible way.

“We at the university are totally #hip and get that #millennial students demand yet another photo sharing platform,” Ingrid said. “Students will be now be able to share the special academic moments, like ‘just finishing my 20-page paper at 3:00 a.m. the night it’s due’ or ‘what the heck was that test 😅 😅’.”

Additionally, D2LStoriez will be triggered by the “red dot of doom” that tells students a grade has been posted. Upon viewing the grade, the website will automatically open the webcam or front-facing camera on a phone to capture your reaction in the moment and instantly share it among your peers.

“What better way to capture the pure, raw emotion of students than to see them react to getting back their cellular biology final,” Ingrid said.

Ingrid also said that D2LStoriez will have an academic use as well. She says that professors can use the photo sharing feature to assign students personal responses to readings.

“Professors can be sure that students are staying on top of and getting something out of their readings,“ Ingrid said. “Sharing a pouty-face selfie captioned ‘#sad’ in response to reading something like Bridge to Terabithia or whatever they read in English classes is a great way to foster student academic interest.”

A prototype of D2LStoriez has previously been tested by a select group of students. Second-year psychology student Larry Labette made use of the feature over the past few weeks.

“After a particularly rough group project, I face swapped with trashcan and captioned it ‘my group members,’” Labette said. “Yeah, that didn’t go over too well.”

Still, Labette is excited to have another medium to post selfies to let others know how fun his life is.

“I also posted a few selfies of me partying throughout the day during Bermuda Shorts Day to show everyone how cool I am,” Labette said.

When told that his professors could also see his story of him not attending their class, Labette excused himself, saying he had a few apology emails to send.

D2LStoriez will roll out for everyone at the beginning of the Spring 2017 semester.

This article is part of our humour section.