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 

Interview with Matt Loper, Moonlyt.com: Innovators in E-Learning Series

One might argue that it's not necessary to have a special platform for online tutoring -- after all, free platforms such as Skype and Facetime are very effective. Further, opensource web conferencing such as Big Blue Button have many of the features (whiteboard, tools, etc.), of an Adobe Connect or Omnovia. However, when it comes to locating vetted tutors and subject matter experts, it's another matter. Moonlyt.com has launched a new platform to integrate the different elements: video chat, scheduling, tutor profile, etc.

Welcome to an interview with Matt Loper, co-founder and CEO of Moonlyt.com.

1.  What is your name and your relation to elearning?
My name is Matt Loper and I am the Co-Founder and CEO of Moonlyt.com.

2.  What do you think are some of the issues that currently concern elearning program developers?
There are a lot of great companies and nonprofit organizations out there trying to completely change the paradigm of traditional education.  Change is definitely necessary as the American educational system is extremely inefficient and expensive.  However, with so much established behavior and infrastructure, there is quite a bit of inertia to completely overhauling the entire system.  Moonlyt seeks to supplement the established system so that students can get the help they need at affordable prices.  Private tutoring is a huge market (some studies show 1 in 4 American high school students have a private tutor) but it is also completely fragmented to local markets.  Moonlyt is a global platform that allows tutors to eliminate geographical constraints by teaching over video chat.  We strive to add accountability to tutoring by allowing students to comparison shop tutors based on user reviews and prices.

Moonlyt.com Home Page

3.  What is Moonlyt and how does it work?
Moonlyt is a social learning and online tutoring platform that allows highly qualified individuals to make money teaching online.  We also allow students and parents to find the very best tutor at the very best prices based on past user reviews.  On Moonlyt, tutors set their own prices and schedules and perform all lessons on our video chat platform.

Teachers / Tutors

4. Please provide two or three examples of how Moonlyt has been used (please share jpeg screen shots as well).
Moonlyt just launched a few months ago but already features a diverse set of tutors including guitar, SAT preparation, mathematics, sciences, foreign languages, cooking lessons, and career advice.  I have personally done several sessions giving career advice to college students looking to get into the financial field or entrepreneurship.

Moonlyt.com session

5. Describe plans for future developments in Moonlyt .
We are working hard to further enhance the interaction between tutors and their students.  We think that the Moonlyt platform allows for online tutoring sessions to be as effective as in-person tutoring.  Our goal is to create tools and analytics that allow Moonlyt tutors to be far more effective than in-person tutors.

6.  What is your philosophy of education in a multi-platform BYOD world?
Technology in the classroom has the ability to greatly enhance students' experience and access to information while allowing teachers to leverage their time and scale their audience.  However, we must remember that technology is a supplement to great teachers, not a substitute.  We will always need great teachers to inspire and motivate students.

Creating a Posting

7.  What are two or three books that you'd recommend (do not have to be on elearning ;) )
Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow by Daniel Kahneman - This book gave me a deeper understanding of how we think and interact with each other
The Four Hour Chef by Tim Ferris - A book about the most efficient way to learn any new skill disguised as a cooking book.

******
Texture Press: Free E-Books
(full text available free online)

Writing for Human Relations
E-Learner Survival Guide
E-Learning Success: From Courses to Careers
The Glass Book