Interview with Shaunak Roy, Yellowdig - Innovators in E-Learning Series

People learn from each other and in online courses, the quality of interactions between students in their collaborative activities and with instructors is very important. Welcome to an interview with Shaunak Roy, founder and CEO of Yellowdig, a social learning platform that has been developed with the goal of enhancing the learning experience.

1.     What is your name and your relation to e-learning?
My name is Shaunak Roy, and I am Founder and CEO of Yellowdig, a social learning platform for education. I started Yellowdig with the fundamental believe that there is something magical about peer learning. Casual conversations, exchange of ideas, or occasional debates help form meaningful bonds with other learners, which make learning more fun, and real. As I look back into my own MIT and IIT days, I realize that I have learned as much from my peers as I have from my favorite professors. Some of those bonds have lasted well beyond those formative years and have morphed into lifelong friendships.

Shaunok on the video program, LifeEdge

2.     What is Yellowdig and what does it do? 
Yellowdig is a social learning platform that merges and combines the power of group learning and rapidly expanding real-time content from the internet into a seamless and easy to use learning platform. Yellowdig is Software as a Service (SaaS) that integrates into all Learning Management Systems (LMSs) and Portals to offer 1-click socially intuitive groups for a variety of use inside and outside of courses. For example, Yellowdig can be added in an individual course within minutes to offer a FERPA compliant, private and moderated collaboration forum for your course.

3.     How is it different than other collaboration apps?
The advantages of Yellowdig over other popular collaboration APPs such as Facebook Groups, Slack, and Yammer are the following :

·       1-Click Signup : Learners join the platform by clicking on a “Yellowdig” button in the Learning Management System (LMS), no separate registration required

·       Automatic grading and gradebook sync : Instructors can set up a points system to encourage learner participation, that is fully customizable from course to course.

·       Privacy and moderation : All the content remain private to a course and can be moderated by the Instructors and admins encouraging deeper and authentic participation.

·       Customization : There are many out-of-the-box and  custom configuration options available to support a variety of use cases and learning needs

4.     How are universities using the app? 
Yellowdig is bring used by over 40+ institutions and 140,000 learners across online, blended and residential courses and MOOCs.

5.     Many collaboration applications are not used in courses because they require so much extra time from the instructor.  How does Yellowdig approach that problem? 
We recognize that engaging students through prompt driven discussion and manual grading of discussion posts is a major time sync for instructors. In fact, this type of discussions tend to lower the quality of engagement as it feels less like organic sharing of ideas and more like assignments for the learner. Yellowdig, though peer driven discussion and automatic grading, substantially reduces instructor time commitment while improving both quality and quantity of engagement.

You can refer to our blog for many stories from instructors on how Yellowdig has helped them improve their instruction without increasing workload.

6.  What are your plans for the future?
We plan to continue to build our vision of making learning more engaging and real-world. We plan to add more features and data capabilities to help instructors and students get more from their learning experiences, from anywhere, at anytime and from any device. Our competitive advantage is our focus on working closely with our instructor community to co-curate the future of eLearning.

Check out Shaunak Roy on LifeEdge! https://youtu.be/SI-Y-bsHylg 

Portfolios in Training and Development E-Learning

Portfolios can be extremely effective in training and professional development, and are quite easy to implement in asynchronous e-learning, especially when access is limited, and it’s necessary to show the progress of one’s learning or skill-building over time.  Learning management systems such as the open-source Moodle can accommodate both asynchronous and synchronous (“live”) learning and are ideal for both individual and collaborative portfolios.

Portfolios can be used to show individual progress, which can be very motivating because it utilizes cognitive scaffolding and employs a building block approach.

Individual portfolios can also demonstrate how an individual achieves learning objectives, and helps target where performance is optimal, and where it can be improved.

            Process-focus

            Iterative

            Incremental changes / modifications

            Reflective knowledge

            Adaptive

            Evolutionary

            Critical thinking skills

Collaborative portfolios are very effective for the following:

            Sharing ideas

            Knowledge transfer

            Skill building

            Team-building

            Critical thinking skills

            SWOT analyses

            Strategic planning

Simple Solution

In the simplest form, an organization can put together a link to a Sharepoint or Document Exchange portal where individuals can log in and share their files with each other, and then comment.  A simple solution would also be to incorporate Google Drive, and to use Google Docs for portfolios.

LMS Solutions

It’s very easy to utilize elements with typical learning management systems.

Moodle

Moodle offers a wide array of modules and, as it is open source, it offers a number of advantages with respect to adding modules and features. There are a number of low-cost hosting solutions.

Portfolio module. For example, Moodle 2.5  accommodates portfolios in a number of ways. Once the site administrator has enabled portfolios, the user can export a cluster of files into a portfolio that automatically saves into a file archive or Google Docs / GoogleDrive.

Workshop Module. Or, alternatively, you can use the Workshop module to develop spaces where a wide variety of files and activities can be housed and shared.

Forum Module. Another approach could be to use a Forum module to create a discussion board, and allow learners to post their activities that they will then pull together into a portfolio. In a final “display”, the learner can post the documents that constitute the portfolio.

Certificate Module. A nice feature of Moodle is that you can also use the Certificate module to generate a certificate once the portfolio has been completed, and the requirements for successful completion have been satisfied.

For more directions, ideas, check out Moodle for Training and Professional Development just released by Packt Publishing.  

Blackboard

Blackboard offers a number of ways to develop and display portfolios.

Discussion.  The first, and perhaps most inclusive and encouraging of group interaction is the Discussion Board. Keep in mind that Discussion Boards can be open to the entire class, or can consist of subsets and groups within the course.

Collaboration. In addition to having the public display and interaction via the Discussion Board, it’s also possible to set up small collaboration groups using the Collaboration tool.

Journal. In addition, for individual portfolios, the Journals tool can be employed, and a student can create a set of journals. While most people associate Blackboard with higher education elearning, Blackboard has prepackaged solutions for small to medium businesses (under 200 users) and associations. In fact, Blackboard’s ProSites “lite” LMS could be ideal for small-scale use of portfolios for specific association programs.

Desire2Learn (D2L)

Desire2Learn (D2L) has similar capabilities, but one may have to be a bit more creative. For example, it does not have a Portfolio tool, as does Moodle.

Dropbox

However, it’s possible to create a Dropbox that acts as a repository for the different drafts. Because many files can be uploaded to the same Dropbox, it’s easy to manage. The Dropbox can then be associated with Grades (the gradebook).  Rubrics can be associated with Grades, which makes it simple to evaluate different aspects of the portfolio.

Rubrics

In D2L, Rubrics have both Properties and Levels and Criteria. (I’m capitalizing these items because they are categories of tools found in D2L and are accessed through the tab marked “Edit Course.” Of course, Discussions (the discussion board) allows display and peer review of items in the portfolio.  It is easy to set up Groups and Sections for collaborative activities.

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Interview with Sue Polyson Evans, SoftChalk - Innovators in E-Learning Series

Welcome to an interview with Sue Polyson Evans, co-founder and CEO of SoftChalk LLC. Softchalk is well-known among online instructors for its product, LessonBuilder. Online instructors and course developers from the mid-1990s will already have an acquaintance with Sue through Web Course in a Box, which she helped develop. Readers may wish to weigh in on the current state of learning management systems.

What is your name and what is your involvement in e-learning?

My name is Sue Polyson Evans, and I am a co-founder and the CEO of SoftChalk LLC. I have been working in the eLearning field from its inception in the early 1990s when I was the principal developer of Web Course in a Box, one of the first commercially available learning management systems in the U.S. I’ve also had various management positions at the university level in both instructional and academic technology.

What is Soft Chalk (link, please), and what is its mission and vision?

SoftChalk’s flagship product is LessonBuilder, a software tool designed to allow educators to create professional, sophisticated e-learning content. The thing that is unique about SoftChalk is how easy it is to use – we like to say “If it’s not easy, it’s not SoftChalk”.


SoftChalk came about as a result of the work that Bob Godwin-Jones (another SoftChalk co-founder) and I did in the 1990s, developing learning management system software. As LMS systems began to proliferate on college campuses, we saw that educators needed an easy way to move beyond the static lesson content (word processing documents and slide shows) found in most on-line courses. Through our work with faculty, we found that although educators desire to create sophisticated, interactive content, they typically do not have the time to learn complicated authoring tools. So we set about creating a software product based on these principles: the software had to be simple to use, yet powerful enough that educators could create truly interactive content. And the lesson content had to be portable for use in virtually any learning management system or on any web server. The result was SoftChalk LessonBuilder.

Today, as the leading provider of educational content authoring software for educators in K-12, colleges, universities and medical schools, we think SoftChalk is the educator’s only choice for easy content creation. With SoftChalk, educators can create professional, sophisticated content, while students love the interactive, engaging lessons created using SoftChalk. SoftChalk’s easy-to-use LessonBuilder software provides educators with a tool that enhances their teaching experience, and improves the learning experience of their students.

We would love to have you visit us online at http://www.softchalk.com and we invite you to download the 30-day free trial version of SoftChalk – the download link can be found on our website.

Who do you consider to be the target audience? Why?

On the one hand, SoftChalk’s primary target audience is the educator or content expert who desires to create professional-looking, interactive content for their digital learner. In addition, we target school administrators who are looking to leverage the investment they have already made in technology for online learning, and specifically in a learning management system. Very often institutions have difficulty getting faculty on-board in using an LMS, or adapting their course for distance delivery. But if you give those educators SoftChalk, they actually enjoy using it to create content. Once an educator has content they are enthused about, they see the value of the LMS as a way to deliver the content, and they see that adapting their course for distance delivery is very do-able.

What makes Soft Chalk effective?

SoftChalk is effective for three reasons – first is ease of use. SoftChalk works just like a word processing program. Most everyone is familiar with the word processing program interface so the learning curve for SoftChalk is very low. The average faculty member can learn to use SoftChalk in 2-3 hours. Secondly, educators really appreciate the ability to create professional-looking content very quickly. And lastly, the ability to create engaging, interactive content by including customizable Flash activities, pop-up annotations, and self-check questions with feedback, is key to student engagement.

Have recent changes in the way online learners interact changed anything about Soft Chalk? (social networking, twitter, wikis, multimedia, voice boards, etc.)

A very popular new feature of SoftChalk is the ability to easily embed YouTube videos into a SoftChalk lesson. We are working on another new feature that will be available in SoftChalk V5, scheduled for delivery in Spring 09. This feature will allow the content author to perform a federated search of multiple content/media repositories to locate images, video, audio, and text content for inclusion in their SoftChalk lesson. We think that the ability to create a “mash up” of content from various sources in a SoftChalk lesson will be extremely popular.

Please list and describe a few key benefits of using Soft Chalk.

I’d like to share some SoftChalk customer comments to help illustrate some of the key benefits of using Softchalk.

From Michael Chaney, Cincinnati State Technical and Community College, Respiratory Program Instructor, “I have a student who had barely passed every term of our professional program. Two terms ago, his grades shot up significantly. When I asked him what he had done differently, he said it was the time he spent with the activities in my new online lessons. He was referring to the SoftChalk activities. My experience is the more time students spend with the material, the better they do. They can do this in a variety of ways, but will probably pick the one that is the most fun. I think the SoftChalk activities that give instant feedback, are easy to use, and can be taken multiple times would be the one they will pick. As I had hoped, SoftChalk was improving student learing!”.

And from Nancy Terrell, Hampton City Schools, Teacher Librarian, “SoftChalk LessonBuilder allows us to easily organize information for both teaching and professional development because it makes it so easy to integrate our own content and then add SoftChalk’s interactive activities. Here in Hampton City Schools, we love having this resource to assist us in our instruction”.

And lastly, from Bill Ganza, Director of Professional Development at Florida Community College in Jacksonville, “LessonBuilder is easy to use and creates stunning interactive lessons that keep students engaged. In a very short time ANYONE can produce professional looking lessons that increase student motivation and aid in the learning process.”

For those who would like to try SoftChalk, you can download a 30-day free trial from this link:
http://www.softchalk.com/lb_trial.html

And you can view short “Quick Start” videos that give you a “jump start” on using SoftChalk from here:
http://www.softchalk.com/lb_demo3.html

We also offer free, live online demonstrations of the software. You can sign up here:
http://www.softchalk.com/webinar/


Please describe upcoming activities.

SoftChalk offers an “Innovators in Online Learning” webinar series where we feature educators in the field who are using SoftChalk in innovative ways to enhance instruction.

This is a monthly series, and in January we feature Adora Svitak, a 10-year old published author and teacher, who will be demonstrativng the interactive web pages and learning tools that she created using SoftChalk.

Then, in February, we feature Angelique Smith and Jennyly Nevarez, faculty at Valencia Community College, who will demonstrate SoftChalk instructional modules they have developed and published in their statewide digital repository, “The Orange Grove”.

We invite anyone who is interested to register for these free webinars here:
http://www.softchalk.com/webinar/

Optional question: Do you see any applications of Soft Chalk for developing online courses for technical / professional development?

Absolutely! Although SoftChalk started in the higher education world, it has developed a large following in K12 and is catching on in corporate training. It is amazing that we have SoftChalk users who are developing content for such diverse groups of students – from gifted middle school kids, to community college students , to University nursing students, to the Air Force. It is truly a cross-disciplinary software tool.