newrow_ Launches Student-Led Study Rooms to Facilitate Collaborative Online Video Learning
NEW YORK, March 11, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, newrow_ launched a new feature of its video classroom platform that allows students for the first time to create and control their own, live video study rooms. The study rooms enhance the collaborative study experience and foster peer-to-peer discussion by making learning more active and allowing students to work together beyond the traditional confines of an online-discussion-board-and-avatar-based learning environment.
According to a recent study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, students who don't have access to active forms of learning, like peer discussions and group work, are 1.5 times more likely to fail. By supporting students' need for active learning through self-organizing and communicating face-to-face, these virtual study groups allow them to improve knowledge retention, group project performance and overall online learning engagement.
"Empowering students to participate in their own education is key to a successful online curriculum," said Rony Zarom, founder and CEO of newrow_. "Our new breakout learning rooms provide a pure, interactive learning environment that makes it simple for anyone to collaborate in groups to better meet their individual education needs."
The new breakout room feature of newrow_ supports both student-created and instructor-led interactive video group discussions by:
- Allowing students to create after-class study groups - The feature supports an advanced way for students to self-organize and initiate their own learning conversations. This includes the ability to create persistent study groups throughout the course of a semester. Similar to traditional study group meetups in a library, study rooms mimic the collaborative aspects of face-to-face collaboration with live video, text chat functions and real-time resource sharing. A student can easily start a study room, invite peers and collaborate as if they were all physically together.
- Enabling instructors to create on-the-spot, in-class group video discussions - During online lectures, this feature allows instructors to create timed, live face-to-face breakout discussion groups of up to 10 students each. These instructor-prompted sessions can be recorded and housed in the online learning library for future reference by students and faculty. Course organizers can also use this feature for term-long group project management.
"Our goal is to remove learning barriers for students by giving them a seamless way to facilitate the discussions they want and need to have with peers," said Zarom. "This ensures that the most effective type of learning - peer learning - becomes a natural part of how students become educated online."
For more information on the newrow_ for education breakout session feature, visit http://www.newrow.com/solutions/education/.
About newrow_
newrow_ provides an interactive video platform purpose-built to engage large groups of people online. The company's advanced collaboration and multi-streaming video technology is trusted by the world's top online classrooms, corporate training programs, brands and governments. newrow_ allows large groups to interact face-to-face from anywhere, on any device. newrow_ (formerly known as Watchitoo) is a privately held company based in New York City. For more information, visit http://www.newrow.com.
Media contact: Denise Bertrand
SHIFT Communications
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617.779.1889
SOURCE newrow_
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