There are so many things I like about Yellowdig. It begins with their team of experts who are dedicated to student learning and continual improvement. They genuinely listen and reach out to their clients. As for the tool, I love its versatility and how it puts students in control of their learning. Students can use it to comment/connect with each other and to help each other as well as use the social media reactions they know from various social media platforms. This sets Yellowdig apart from traditional discussion board platforms. Yellowdig allows students to extend the content with external links and images or journal their specific progress on their research project. As an instructor, I like that it breaks the age-old, week-long discussion paradigm and extends these discussions throughout the term--more organically--as discussions should be. As an instructor (user), I can pair Yellowdig with any course at any level in any modality (face-to-face, blended, online, HyFlex). Most importantly, I like that Yellowdig frees me from the tedious grading of discussion boards, gives my students instanteous feedback, and allows me to spend my time helping students and extending the learning.

Yellowdig has tranformed how students in my in-person and online courses learn about the biology of plants. The set-up as a semester-long discussion rather than weekly discussions has allowed the students to engage in deeper, more meaningful conversations than the traditional discussion platforms I have used in the past. On the educator-side it has been much more enjoyable to be an active participant on-the-side and to not have to grade initial posts and responses that are a rephrasing of the same information for all students.

Yellowdig truly embraces and facilitates the concept of more purposeful social interactions amongst students to foster a collaborative learning experience. Students appreciate the "social media-like" feel of the platform where they can engage with one another and not feel confined by traditional discussion board prompts. As a result, students have more meaningful connections with one another and can share their experiences and not feel as isolated. It has allowed our students to diseminate evidence-informed practice techniques while also sharing their own successes and challenges. The setup of Yellowdig also allows me as an instructor to be hands-off. Although I can monitor the conversations, it frees up a lot of time that would otherwise be spent "grading" discussion board posts and comments. The grading system is effective and allows me to give accolades that recognize student achievement, but is not cumbersome.