Sharing ideas, creating connections, strengthening online strategies and improving
student success
Oakland Community College recently co-sponsored the regional D2L Connection: Michigan event, welcoming 88 higher education leaders, educators and innovators from 23 institutions
and companies, including 35 from OCC. D2L (Desire2Learn) is a powerful online learning
management system used by higher education, K12 and corporate training to deliver
course materials, create interactive learning activities and assessments, and communicate
with students with updates, assignment, discussion forums, feedback and video-based
content.
Attendees from Michigan, Georgia, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Texas and Florida met to
learn more about the D2L online learning platform for instruction.
OCC faculty and staff led the event, including Interim Provost Dr. Jolene Chapman;
Dean of Academic Technology and Instructional Innovation Kayla LeBlanc; OCC’s Academic
Technologies Group (ATG); and English professor and ATG Technology Fellow Sharon Korth.
Instructional Technologist Linda Wareck served as the lead organizer and delivered
the welcoming address.
“D2L has been our learning management system partner for 14 years,” Wareck said. “We
first hosted a user group meeting at OCC’s Orchard Ridge campus in 2011 and have continued
growing with the D2L community ever since.”
The event focused on connecting colleagues across institutions to share ideas and
strategies for strengthening online learning for students.
“By enhancing our partnership with D2L, we can leverage our experiences to expand
innovative instructional technology at OCC,” Wareck said.
Wareck, Korth and Instructional Technologist Dawn Bauer also led a breakout session,
"Really Simple Interaction: D2L Tools = RSI Without Drama," offering practical, ready-to-use
strategies to boost student engagement. The hands-on session showed how to use D2L
Brightspace's built-in tools to better connect with students and improve teaching
efficiencies, without adding to instructors’ workloads.
Participants left the event with new ideas, stronger connections, and a deeper understanding
of how to use D2L to its full potential.
“Bringing together the D2L user community showed what’s possible when educators get
the opportunity to learn from one another,” LeBlanc said. “The ideas were practical,
the conversations meaningful, and the connections lasting! Our team is so proud OCC
could host an event that inspired fresh perspectives and strengthened our shared commitment
to student success.”
Wareck emphasized the value of collaboration in her opening remarks.
“We’re grateful to everyone in our user group community who contributed to this successful
event,” she said. “We look forward to continuing our work with D2L and offering more
events like this in the future.”
About OCC
Oakland Community College (OCC) has educated over one million students since 1965.
OCC offers more than 80 degree and certificate programs and is committed to student
success with affordable tuition, support services, flexible class options and top
transfer opportunities. The College serves more than 20,000 students annually while
advancing our community through education, training and career support. OCC is nationally
recognized as Michigan’s top online college, and seventh in the U.S., by Newsweek’s America’s Top Online Colleges 2025. Learn more at oaklandcc.edu.
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Media Contact: Marketing & Communications | (248) 341-2020 | contactus@oaklandcc.edu