EdLab


EdLab is an education research organization located at Columbia University's Teachers College in New York City. The EdLab attempts to create easier methods of education through communication and advancements in technology, and serves as both a university and community resource center.
Founded in 2004, it started under the leadership of Professor Gary Natriello, Edlab is a unit of the Gottesman Libraries at Teachers College. EdLab houses both library administration and an interdisciplinary team of developers, designers and content creators. Their work is divided into five foundational areas: Reimagining Schooling, Innovations for Online Learning, New Directions for Online Publishing, Efficiencies in Educational Research, and Charting the Future of Libraries. EdLab is organized in small flexible multi-disciplinary teams that collaborate to develop and deliver products and services of distinction.

Projects

Vialogues (2011-present)

Vialogues is a free, online video discussion platform. It was created and developed by a dedicated team of educators, researchers, and engineers from EdLab at Teachers College Columbia University. As well as uploading original content, vialogues allows users to "borrow" content from YouTube & Vimeo in order to create a discussion. Vialogues also allows users to embed video discussion on other websites, and allows videos to be private or public, as well as include interactive features like polls. Research has shown that the use of cognitive words within vialogues discussions contributes positively to user engagement, in addition to the number of views, the number of moderator comments, and the number of time-code clicks, which also correlate positively with user engagement.

New Learning Times

The New Learning Times is an online publication created and hosted by EdLab, centered on developing innovations in the education sector. It publishes articles daily, aiming to provide "coverage of the transformation of learning opportunities in the information age for those shaping the future of education". NLT publishes a number of regular features including:
  • EdLab Review
  • NL Sector
  • Research Digest
  • Seen in NY
  • VisualizED
Between January and March 2019, NLT had 18,770 user visits.

Seen in NY

Seen in NY was a weekly web series produced by EdLab Studios and published as part of the New Learning Times project platform. As a video series, Seen in NY focused on current educational opportunities in New York. The videos were designed as a resource for the education community, and as stand-alone pieces which represented the work of the featured organization or event. They were part of the new learning sector, where the experience of making the videos are part of the pedagogic experience, as video dialogues.
Seen in NY featured a wide array of educational opportunities, experiences and events, from hundreds of different organizations in New York City, and across the entire state. There are approximately 250 episodes spanning multiple demographics and featuring a diverse range of subject matter, from STEM, to arts, and social justice, that are available on the EdLab blog, on EdLab's Vialogues interface, and as embedded content on the subject of the videos' organization websites.

Rhizr

Rhizr is an online learning tool which brings together learners of similar interests and provides a space to share thoughts, work together, and build off of ideas. Users are able to create, remix and share educational resources amongst each other. Rhizr was created in 2017 by a team of researchers, developers, and content creators at the Gottesman Libraries of Teachers College Columbia University. The initiative paved the way for what is now known as Rhizr. The name is a metaphor based on a Rhizome, which is a structure of roots and nodes organized in a random and non-hierarchically structure. "Rhizomatic learning" is based on ideas from Gilles Deleuze. Rhizr utilizes modules so that users can share, organize and save information in a non-linear way with a format that is similar to Trello. In June 2019 a new version of Rhizr was released by EdLab with greater flexibility and faster search.

EdLab Seminar

EdLab hosts seminars at the EdLab space on the 5th Floor of the Gottesman Libraries at Teachers College every Wednesday.

Teachers College Record

EdLab is the publisher of the Teachers College Record, a journal of research, analysis, and commentary in the field of education which has been published continuously since 1900 by Teachers College.

Research

Postdoctoral research scientists at Edlab draw on their prior professional experience to invent, manage, and assess a range of new functions and services as part of the overall research program designed to create a rich environment for self-directed and social learning in the library and beyond.