D2L Fusion 2026: what we brought home from Phoenix

Fusion is always one of the highlights of our year, and this year in Phoenix was no exception. Our team spent the week at D2L Fusion 2026 talking with educators, learning designers, and leaders from across the Brightspace community, and we came home with a full notebook and a lot of energy for what comes next.

The conversation everyone kept coming back to

One theme came up in almost every conversation we had. As AI becomes part of everyday student work, educators want a clearer way to understand what students genuinely know and can do. It was a thread running through the sessions and keynotes too, where the message was that assessment needs to grow alongside the way people learn.

This is exactly why oral assessment is getting so much attention right now. When answers are easy to generate, a real conversation is still the most trusted way to see how a student thinks, reasons, and explains their understanding. Orals have always done this well. What has changed is that they can now happen at scale, across large cohorts, without adding hours to an instructor's week.

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Why oral assessment kept people talking at our booth

We felt that interest firsthand at Booth M, where Brett, Andy, and Michael met a steady stream of visitors throughout the week. There were plenty of good conversations, a few waffles, and some socks that found happy new owners. Most of the people who stopped by were thinking about the same challenge, which is how to keep assessment authentic and human while still making it manageable for busy teaching teams.

Our Oral Assessment and Practice solution turned out to be a natural answer to that question, and it was a pleasure to walk people through real examples using our Brightspace use case booklet.

The three new tools we were excited to share

Our solution brings together three learning tools that support students from early practice all the way through to reflection, with pedagogical AI helping instructors along the way.

Oral Practice gives every student a calm space to rehearse explaining their thinking before an assessment. Through dynamic dialogue supported by AI, students build confidence and critical thinking, while instructors gain early insight into how each student is progressing.

Oral Assessment makes it possible to run consistent oral assessments at scale through structured live conversations. Students demonstrate genuine understanding, and AI supports instructors in the moment by strengthening questioning, surfacing key insights, and generating session summaries.

Oral Reflection helps students articulate their reasoning and build a habit of reflection, so their learning becomes visible. AI highlights the key moments, which means instructors gain meaningful insight without having to review every recording.

Thank you, Phoenix

Fusion reminded us that the future of assessment will be shaped by many thoughtful people working together, and it was a privilege to be part of that conversation. If you visited us at the booth, thank you for stopping by and for sharing what you are working on. And if you missed us, we would still love to show you around.

You can explore the full Oral Assessment and Practice solution or book a demo whenever you are ready. For more on designing assessment that holds up in an age of AI, our ebook on learning design for AI resilient education is a good place to start.

And if you would like to explore what oral assessment could look like at your institution, you can book a meeting with our team whenever it suits you. We would be glad to walk you through it and answer any questions you have.