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Fresh perspectives, proven strategies, and stories from real Yellowdig classrooms.
Featured
When Vulnerability Leads to Engagement : A Yellowdig Story

Dr Heather Young University of Florida   Challenge: In large online courses, students often feel like just a “face on a screen” or a number. Traditional discussion boards often result in “compliance” posts, posting once and replying twice just to check a box,which lack originality and real connection. The human moment Dr. Young shared a […]
Burnout Isn’t Just Workload… It’s Emotional Load : A Yellowdig Story

LaToya Devezin Penn West University Challenge: Faculty burnout is no longer just about time. It’s the pressure of large classes, constant grading, and trying to support every student—often all at once. The human moment LaToya described what burnout actually feels like behind the scenes. It’s not just the volume of work; it’s the expectation to […]
Why Discussions Don’t Feel Like Conversations : A Yellowdig Story

Jill AndersonNC State University   Challenge: Online course discussions lack real conversation. Students participate out of obligation, and faculty must grade every interaction. Engagement becomes routine, not meaningful. The human moment Jill described a frustration many instructors recognize immediately. Discussion boards, meant for interaction, often fail. Instead of real dialogue, students simply complete assignments. As […]
Latest at Yellowdig
Instructor Stories
Teaching a Women’s History Course — Thoughts about Yellowdig From a Professor on the Deaf Spectrum

Speakers: Gayle Fischer and Bob Ertischek Building a community for students to learn and listen to each other is an effective approach to teaching. Gayle Fischer, history professor at Salem State University, sat down with Yellowdig in April 2021 to talk about how she uses our virtual classroom platform for her Women’s History Class. Prior […]
A Student Perspective, Yellowdig
In-Person vs. Online Learning — Can They Compare?

Online vs. In-Person Class for Learning — What is Best? Many may believe with the changes in the way students are being taught that there is one medium of teaching that is better than the other. As technology has developed, we’ve been able to connect with people all over the world through apps like WhatsApp, […]
Product Updates
New Update: Anonymous Posting, Feed Redesign, Search Improvements, and More!

For those who couldn’t find a way to get the summer off to spend more time cooling off in a pool, we’re hoping this makes your summer in the classroom feel a bit cooler! We plan to start releasing this set of changes on May 3rd, after which you will start noticing the changes in […]
Co-Curricular Uses, Instructor Stories, Student Success
Driving Virtual Participation in a Career Exploration Program

Yellowdig had the honor of hosting a guest webinar with DePaul University, a school that has been integrating Yellowdig’s services for “Future Forward” program. We had notable key speakers from our team and DePaul’s team to talk about the ways Yellowdig is used. What is the Future Forward Career Education Program? It is a co-curricular […]
Guest Feature
5 Questions for MIT's Vice President for Open Learning, Sanjay Sarma

Sanjay Sarma is the Vice President for Open Learning at MIT, and the co-author of Grasp: The Science Transforming How We Learn. Along with Luke Yoquinto. Their book is a fantastic resource for teachers, professors looking for cutting-edge learning research, and parents evaluating educational opportunities. “Grasp takes readers across multiple frontiers, from fundamental neuroscience to […]
Instructor Stories
Spring Clean Your Classroom: Clear Out These 8 Myths About Online Communities

Talking to instructors who are new to Yellowdig, we often find there are a number of misconceptions around student participation and the role of the instructor. We have compiled a list of 8 myths and debunked them with the reality we have seen across our company partners below! Myth #1 – Students need prompts to […]
Product Updates
The New Horizon of Opportunity with Yellowdig’s Group Update

Before: When groups were enabled, you could only work in groups. When they were public, students in other groups could interact with your posts, but all original posts had to go to a group. Now: So many more options to configure your Community! In addition to the system being configurable as it always has been, […]
Co-Curricular Uses, Product Updates
Yellowdig's Freeform Points: Breaking Free to Enable Co-Curricular Activities

Although Yellowdig is mostly used to build community and engagement in the classroom setting, we have seen a number of uses that were fantastic outside of the classroom. Student clubs, alumni groups, courses with rolling enrollment, and special events are just as critical to the complete student experience as typical courses. This is why we […]
Product Updates, Yellowdig
Yellowdig's New and Improved Instructor Certification Course

At Yellowdig, we don’t claim for our technology to be magic. The real magic happens when you combine our technology with our data-backed pedagogical approach. We are an education company first, and we believe in the power of humans to power learning, with the enablement of thoughtfully designed technology. Our Instructor Certification Course is designed […]
Yellowdig
The Topic is Topics

In my face-to-face classes, I’d look around the classroom and try to intuit whether or not my students “got” what I was talking about by asking pointed questions, listening to the responses of the one or two students I had time to call on, and then looking for glimmers of recognition in the eyes of […]
A Student Perspective, Student Success, Yellowdig
Yellowdig Student and Instructor Fall 2020 Survey Results

At the end of the Fall 2020 semester we asked Yellowdig instructors to share a survey with their students, as well as fill one out for themselves. These analyses are based on over 200 student responses and 30 instructor responses. 88.9% of students were completely remote, 10.5% were hybrid, and less than 1% were in-person. […]
A Student Perspective, STEM
A Student Perspective of Yellowdig

At the center of Yellowdig is community and at the center of community are the learners. We value the experience and insights from students very highly, which is why we have put a lot of effort into making sure their voices are heard. Recently in our student panel webinar, we had the opportunity to hear […]
Latest at Yellowdig
Product Updates
This Fall Brings Large Point System and Grade Passback Improvements

Recent Improvements to Our Points System Feedback we have heard made it clear that there was potential confusion around two aspects of our points system: 1. Points fill one big bucket for the semester 2. There is a buffer that allows users to earn points beyond their current week’s requirement to get ahead This October […]
Product Updates
Yellowdig’s Patented Gamification Approach Improves Student Outcomes

Gamification is a bit of a buzzword in education these days. We can debate the educational value of all the digital games out there, but no one can dismiss the impact (good or bad) of gaming on the formative minds of future generations. I believe game-based learning, when designed with the right motives in mind, […]
Co-Curricular Uses, Instructor Stories
Enhance Your New Student Orientation with Yellowdig

Orientation is a make-or-break experience for incoming students. COVID-19 has left many universities to reinvent different elements of the student lifecycle, and orientation is no exception. At University of Nebraska-Lincoln, orientation leaders were halfway through training when the pandemic hit. Their in-person event was all about community building and making connections to help the new […]
Instructor Stories, Student Success
Improving Course Success and Retention with Yellowdig

Think back to when the world was in the early stages of COVID-19— it was predicted that the virus would have such massive impact. Universities were caught totally unprepared. Instead of having a plan in place, they were forced to scramble and cobble together different programs overnight to try and keep class in session. Change […]
News
Online Ed Demand Boom Leads Robin Hood Ventures to Invest in Yellowdig

(Philadelphia, August 24, 2020) – Yellowdig is excited to announce that it has attracted investment from angel-investment group Robin Hood Ventures (RHV). Yellowdig is a community-building platform that enables a learning institution’s entire ecosystem—from students and faculty to administrators and alumni—to connect, learn, and engage. Built from the ground up, the platform empowers lifelong learning […]
Product Updates
Yellowdig Engage Product Release 8/17

Features New capability to paste a community template link into the community creation form to import settings and content New network graph data visualization page (BETA). Reach out to [email protected] if you’d like to try this feature New and improved post interface style, which visually nests comments underneath posts and displays a stronger separation between […]
Yellowdig
Is BigTech About to Take Over Higher Education?

Whether you are a student, faculty member, or parent, the future of higher education is uncertain. The entire college experience has been condensed into a series of web conferences and online assignments. It is convenient to be able to join a live classroom with a few clicks, or watch recorded sessions later, but what is […]
Co-Curricular Uses, Student Success
What Makes Yellowdig More Engaging Than Your LMS Discussion?

“I found that the Yellowdig discussions were far more personable than any other LMS discussion boards I have partaken in. The flexibility of content and responses made it more engaging and exciting… I definitely found that people were more active and excited about posting and responding to others’ posts. Previous blackboard discussions have felt somewhat […]
Product Updates
Yellowdig Engage Product Update 7/13

Features Notifications and settings for direct messages. Support for all global timezones. Accessibility improvements for direct messages. Network/Community Report improvements. Bug Fixes Added special handling for Safari version > 13 to circumvent new iFrame and cookie restrictions imposed by Apple. (Requires opening Yellowdig in new tab when using Safari.) Fixed a bug related to pinned […]
Product Updates
Yellowdig Engage Product Update 6/29

Features Detailed community- and student-level CSV reports can now be downloaded on demand from /organization/admin/reports and /community/[community id]/reports. Redesigned Periods view in Point Setup Wizard. Reduced payload when groups are enabled. Introduced basic SSO (beta). Bug Fixes Copy Content From dropdown component in LTI board creation modal no longer returns error when list is empty. […]
Product Updates
Yellowdig Engage Product Update 6/2

Multimedia posting and commenting: Updated mobile/tablet layout New user creation flow for those logging into Yellowdig from their LMS for the first time. Email verification flow for users with multiple LMS accounts. (Security measure.) Bug Fixes Fix for certain timeout requests Better handling of unfurled links Questions? Reach out to us at [email protected]. Brian Hurlow […]
Corporate Learning
How Yellowdig Fuels Corporate Learning

Underwhelmed by corporate learning programs? You’re not alone. Both managers and employees report low satisfaction, with only 25% crediting their program with improved job performance.[1][2] And yet, companies still spend billions on programs that yield disappointing or unclear ROIs.[3] Both the real costs and opportunity costs of just a single day of training are sobering.[5] […]

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