New Partnership Aims To Facilitate Online Course Creation for Teachers
A new partnership between two companies is designed to make it
easier for
teachers to create their own online courses, tutorials and homework
assignments
with interactive elements.
Versal,
a company that has offered an interactive publishing
platform for online learning since its founding in 2013, and Wolfram Research,
which creates customizable interactive elements such as timelines,
diagrams and
quizzes, will join forces in three ways:
- Educators will now be able to directly embed content
based on
Wolfram technology into courses they create using Versal
software —
without any coding required;
- Stephen Wolfram, who founded Wolfram Research in
1987, will
join Versal's board of directors; and
- Simultaneously, new "gadgets," the building blocks of
Wolfram's
interactive learning elements, have been released, bringing the number
available to educators to 48.
With the Versal software, teachers are able to build
highly
interactive and customizable learning experiences of various kinds,
including
everything from full courses to short lessons. With the assistance of
Wolfram's
learning elements, they will now be able to embed content in Web sites,
blogs
and learning management systems that can be used for flipped classrooms, blended
learning and
project-based learning.
"Computation-based interactive content should be a
part of
every classroom," said Wolfram Research CEO and Founder Stephen Wolfram.
"With
Versal, there's an amazing opportunity to bring a new level of
interactivity
and computational knowledge to a wide range of educational settings."
Teachers can now drag and drop the Wolfram gadgets
into a
course creation canvas to create almost any kind of instructional
content they
want.
"Videos and slide decks no longer make the grade,"
Versal CEO
and Co-Founder Gregor Freund said. "Online assignments have to be
interactive.
We're inspired by the way teachers are using Versal and can't wait to
see how
they transform learning in the coming years."
In a statement, officials at both Versal and Wolfram
said
further collaborations are in the works.
About the Author
Michael Hart is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal.