The green dot - feeling connected when we're apart

Most online learning platforms aren't doing enough with social learning

A vitally important key to successful online learning is social learning: the ability to interact, network and feel a social connection with peers and instructors. Unfortunately, many online learning platforms don’t do much to stimulate social interaction, provide real-time visibility of activity on the learning platform, or create a feeling of community.

And this has left many learners feeling isolated, bored, and disconnected, validating how important social learning is in online learning environments. Social learning allows learners:

• to interact with one another
• share knowledge and experience
• develop a sense of community, which enhances learning experience, fosters collaboration, and promotes deeper understanding and retention

Stay connected with the little green dot activity display

With a unique CYPHER Learning feature, the activity display, also known as, the Green Dot, learners can for the first time visually see and receive real-time activity updates from peers and instructors via a green pulsating dot. The activity display serves two purposes:

View activity in a course

When you login and see a green dot flashing on a course tile, this is a notification that there is activity inside of that course. Clicking into the course takes you to a modular level where you might see green dots flashing on several of those modules, indicating that other people are active within those modules.

View activity in a group

Learners can better interact in groups and forum discussions, share ideas, get answers to questions, and gain an understanding of the subject matter on the spot. So for example, if one of your groups is called the blue study team and the green dot is flashing on the group, it means that other people in the blue study group are currently active, online, and interacting.

When learners click into a course or a group, an activity widget, a real-time scrolling display of current activity appears on the upper right-hand side of the screen. An instructor might see that one student just completed the course, another uploaded an assignment, and another student received ten points for properly completing an assignment. The activity indicator can also be customized and names anonymized. Students can view peer progress and as activity and participation increase, the green dot gets bigger and it pulses faster.

Improve your learning environment and connect with the little green dot

Online learning has experienced a lot of rapid change just in the past few years with few signs of that slowing down. Although perhaps not as sophisticated as other features, The green dot is a social interactivity feature that improves visibility, collaboration, and fosters an engaging and effective learning environment.

Things you can do next

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