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Google Classroom

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Re: Google Classroom

#51

Post by dublinben »

mncolinlee wrote: post #39
buro9 wrote: post #3

I asked my partner what she thought of this as she is a tenured lecturer at a Russell Group university. Her view is that they would not only not be able to use this (politically they feel the need to have everything in the UK) but that there was a preference to support a universal framework that they had full control over. Specifically her university (Exeter) uses a version of Moodle: https://moodle.org/ That said, I…

Ask teachers. Moodle is dreadful. It's just waiting for a decent competitor to come and disrupt it.

Have you tried Sakai? It's a free software course management system that' been around for several years, and is much better than Blackboard et. al. It's already being used by several hundred schools, like Duke University, several UCs, Rice University, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakai_Project

Re: Google Classroom

#52

Post by kaitai »

VLM wrote: post #19
DodgyEggplant wrote: post #10

Another product without support, without someone to call if things don't work, or worse: your classroom was banned (e.g., a student tried to mess with it). The model were your work, organisation and critical data relies on a no support platform can not work.

"critical data" There is no critical data in a grade school, like my kids school which uses GAE, and presumably will use this workforce automation stuff that appears to live on top of GAE. Even in high school or university, there just isn't "critical data". Also classrooms don't rely on much other than the roof and HVAC. In practice, when the internet is down, the kids just do something else.

This is not just for grade school, though.

If my grade files disappear from the cloud repository in which I've tucked them away, and I failed to make backup copies, then I am in REAL TROUBLE. Have you ever felt the panic that arises when you realized you turned back everyone's assignment and didn't record the grades?! Or maybe your class management system somehow lost all the grades for the semester?

The kids in grade school might do something else, but the freshmen gunning for b-school will tear you limb from limb!

Re: Google Classroom

#53

Post by rahimnathwani »

Already__Taken wrote: post #11
UK-AL wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moodle is used everywhere in the UK, FE Colleges, Sixth Form etc. However students hate it, mainly because its not very good.

Moodle may be ok or it may suck. The problem is many of us in the UK stopped getting updates. Any software without updates is going the completely suck. Lots of schools have been left with 1.9

Isn't Moodle free software? Are you using something which is incompatible with the latest stable release (2.6.2)?

Who would need to decide or take action, in order for you to upgrade?

Re: Google Classroom

#54

Post by Already__Taken »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #53
Already__Taken wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moodle may be ok or it may suck. The problem is many of us in the UK stopped getting updates. Any software without updates is going the completely suck. Lots of schools have been left with 1.9

Isn't Moodle free software? Are you using something which is incompatible with the latest stable release (2.6.2)? Who would need to decide or take action, in order for you to upgrade?

In a nutshell. Our county said you're all getting a moodle with your broadband package. After a bit they got rid of everyone who maintained that install and access to the servers.

Now it's just maintained by the small IT staff (if any) at various schools. These people may have the skills to learn how to deploy their own moodle but they sure as hell don't have the time.

Re: Google Classroom

#55

Post by whytaka »

wehadfun wrote: post #35

I got down voted last time I said this but I will say it again >help teachers create and organize assignments Teachers do not want to create assignments. They just want to use them. Google needs a library of assignments that teachers can use. I created a similar thing for an elementary school and the create assignments thing was not cool with the teachers I demoed to"

This is what our startup is doing. We are developing an online publishing platform for shareable and reusable learning activities where the educator can ask for specific formats in their students' response. Some of which can be auto-graded. The aim is to have a crowdsourced global repository of reusable activities that teachers can curate and push to their class so that their role is less in the introduction of material and more in ironing out the difficulties.

We have plenty of encouraging success stories from our expansion in Quebec and we aim to reproduce the same model in the English world. I'd be very pleased if you would take a look.

http://www.ChallengeU.com - our new brand to revamp ourselves in the English market

http://www.Didacti.org - our current brand

http://www.Didacti.com - our current app. Still very much a beta.

I believe I have seen some people speak of their own startups here before but I've never been clear on the rules about 'self-promotion'. Kindly let me know if I have committed a foul.

Re: Google Classroom

#56

Post by whytaka »

Karunamon wrote: post #28

I wonder if they have any plan on releasing this toolset to non-academic users? I can see this being really useful in the enterprise for training and such.

Hi. I made a post in another branch of this thread about our startup.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7711628

You might be interested to know that we have pilot projects with enterprise clients to introduce informal learning, training, and tacit knowledge collection to the workplace with our app. I'd love to answer any questions you may have.

Re: Google Classroom

#57

Post by ivansavz »

whytaka wrote: post #55
wehadfun wrote: post #35

I got down voted last time I said this but I will say it again >help teachers create and organize assignments Teachers do not want to create assignments. They just want to use them. Google needs a library of assignments that teachers can use. I created a similar thing for an elementary school and the create assignments thing was not cool with the teachers I demoed to"

This is what our startup is doing. We are developing an online publishing platform for shareable and reusable learning activities where the educator can ask for specific formats in their students' response. Some of which can be auto-graded. The aim is to have a crowdsourced global repository of reusable activities that teachers can curate and push to their class so that their role is less in the introduction of mater…

Hi yutaka, good to meet you again on the Interwebs (we met at pycon).

Can you tell us more about the "learning activities" are like? Is it all interactive demos and quiz questions or are lessons? Are the lessons specifically aligned to some standard (e.g. CCSS, see http://www.nctm.org/canadiancorrelations/ for Canadian equivalents).

And about the company, do students pay? Do teachers who have produced the activities get paid?

RE self promotion, from my experience, slef.plug()s are OK on HN, especially if they are on topic (like yours).

Re: Google Classroom

#58

Post by VLM »

kaitai wrote: post #52
VLM wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"critical data" There is no critical data in a grade school, like my kids school which uses GAE, and presumably will use this workforce automation stuff that appears to live on top of GAE. Even in high school or university, there just isn't "critical data". Also classrooms don't rely on much other than the roof and HVAC. In practice, when the internet is down, the kids just do something else.

This is not just for grade school, though. If my grade files disappear from the cloud repository in which I've tucked them away, and I failed to make backup copies, then I am in REAL TROUBLE. Have you ever felt the panic that arises when you realized you turned back everyone's assignment and didn't record the grades?! Or maybe your class management system somehow lost all the grades for the semester? The kids in grad…

"grade files disappear from the cloud repository"

The marketing materials are highly marketing oriented, so its impossible to tell what it does. However, it appears to be something like workforce automation for the "share" feature in google drive.

Nothing to do with grade files or health room records or financial aid applications or whatever the nay sayers are going after.

My kids attend a school using GAfE, no problems ever reported, will probably be using this, whatever it is, soon.

Re: Google Classroom

#59

Post by mncolinlee »

jestinjoy1 wrote: post #43
mncolinlee wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask teachers. Moodle is dreadful. It's just waiting for a decent competitor to come and disrupt it.

I use Moodle. I dont think "Moodle is dreadful". The features provided by Moodle is unmatched. For some time I used Google course builder. For me it was a total failure. Google product means everything in Googles hand. Moodle provides power to the people. Once learned, Moodle is easy to use.

> Once learned, Moodle is easy to use.

I think you hit the nail on the head. There is nothing discoverable about Moodle's interface. Teachers complain that their students become lost immediately and give up. It's not just one or two teachers. I was just at an Edutech event where all the teachers were complaining about Moodle. Moodle could be great if they really took on the design challenge and their usability issues.

How about a little UX in here?

Re: Google Classroom

#60

Post by RogerL »

jgautsch wrote: post #33

I think this is a brilliant move by Google. I think it's hardly about the teachers, and more about the students. Three things come to my mind watching this video: 1. Adobe software like Photoshop being easy to pirate made it easy for design students to use it exclusively, helping it become the de facto software used in industry 2. A while ago Microsoft was able to have Word/PowerPoint become part of the computing edu…

I am sitting in front of a Chromebook and have Microsoft Word and Powerpoint open in it. It's free to use[1].

[1]http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/online/office-online-colla...

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