[HN Gopher] Repl.it Teams for Education
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Repl.it Teams for Education
Author : dsr12
Score : 60 points
Date : 2021-03-02 17:17 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (repl.it)
(TXT) w3m dump (repl.it)
| amasad wrote:
| Hello HN! Replit CEO and cofounder here. When the pandemic hit
| last year, we start hearing from educators using Replit that
| Multiplayer has been crucial for their student's continued
| education but that it was hard to manage a class full of students
| using it. We sprinted to design and ship a beta of our Teams
| product optimized for distance learning. We wanted to make
| something that delivered on the following:
|
| - Helps teachers teach remotely: Features like "Who's Coding"
| which allows the teachers to see what projects students were
| working on, helped teachers jump in like they would IRL and, on
| top of that, be able to leave inline comments and chat with the
| student.
|
| - Helps students code together: Group projects, Multiplayer, and
| the fun, creative coding features that we have, like support for
| graphics, made project-based distance learning a blast for the
| student.
|
| - Automated and asynchronous workflows. Things like auto-grading
| using I/O and unit tests, in addition to Threads -- our inline
| code comments feature -- allow teachers to manage a large
| classroom and students to get both instant and async feedback on
| their work.
|
| - Mobile support. We started hearing from students worldwide that
| they didn't have computers at home to continue learning, so we
| made our coding environment mobile optimized and it grew 900% in
| 2020. https://blog.repl.it/mobile
|
| Teachers are reporting that it's a "game-changer" and that it
| fundamentally changed how they teach coding, so much so that
| they'll continue to use the same workflow even when they go back
| to classroom
| (https://twitter.com/Felienne/status/1346750239751942145).
|
| But we're not just building for teachers, students are reporting
| that they're enjoying coding more, especially with group
| projects, and that they're having fun learning. We're engaging
| researchers to conduct a small-scale study to see if improved
| outcomes can be borne out in the data.
|
| Happy to answer questions! More info on our blog:
| https://blog.repl.it/teams_release
| trevorishere wrote:
| This is going to be confused with Microsoft Teams for
| Education. It will also be hard to search for, again given
| Microsoft Teams.
| amasad wrote:
| Amazing how Microsoft monopolized a generic word like
| "Teams". Luckily Replit has a good brand name in education,
| it's pretty easy to google for, and it grows mostly by word-
| of-mouth.
| onewhonknocks wrote:
| I also thought this was about Microsoft Teams TBH.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Apple "monopolized" the generic fruit "apple" and no one
| batted an eye (except maybe the Beatles). There's countless
| examples of generic words being trademarked.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| The difference is that "apple" is unrelated to the
| product space, but "teams" is not.
| filoleg wrote:
| I don't think the parent comment meant it as some bad
| evil thing. More like just a factual curiosity, sort of
| as "huh, damn, pretty interesting how they have managed
| to do it."
|
| On a personal level, I think the Apple case is a bit
| different. There is no other technical product that is
| named Apple, and neither it is inherently the word used
| to describe what a product or a company does. While Teams
| definitely falls under the "similar enough" umbrella of
| words related to the function of the product.
|
| Not that it makes any difference, and, in fact, I think
| it was pretty clever of MSFT to manage to make that
| product name work, since I was pretty skeptical of how
| well it was gonna work at first.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| > I don't think the parent comment meant it as some bad
| evil thing. More like just a factual curiosity, sort of
| as "huh, damn, pretty interesting how they have managed
| to do it."
|
| Right. I read it as that too, but I see I may have come
| off too strong. I was agreeing with OP while mentioning
| that others have done it as well.
| watwut wrote:
| Because people like Apple software. Unlike MS Teams which
| I hate with passion.
| trevorishere wrote:
| Without adding "Replit" to my search term, I couldn't find
| your product on the first three page of Bing or Google in a
| private mode browser.
|
| But if you have good in-roads with the edu space, this
| seems like less of an issue.
| monk_e_boy wrote:
| As an educator that uses the free version of your site... A
| debugger for Python is the killer feature you're missing.
|
| Stepping through code, especially loops for beginners is game
| changing.
| amasad wrote:
| Coming this summer!
| comment1231 wrote:
| > Teachers are reporting
|
| FYI, some teachers were unhappy with the shutting down of the
| classroom feature on repl.it and the replacing it with Teams
| for education.
|
| Some were unhappy after having everything setup in classroom,
| then had to migrate to teams. Some were unhappy it wasn't free.
| Some were unhappy it was free only for basically a semester,
| which won't last a full AP CS A course (so if they were in a
| rush to start, they'd be stuck having to pay, or else they'd
| have to switch mid-course, which is hard, and if the school
| refuses to pay because it's not budgeted, then stuck to pay
| means out of own pocket.).
|
| Of course you have to cheerlead your product. That's
| understandable. THought you'd like to know some feedback
| anyway.
| amasad wrote:
| We fixed the migration pathway so if you haven't tried
| recently, give it a shot. If you have budget issues happy to
| give you the new product for free. Email me anytime:
| amjad@repl.it
| nerd_light wrote:
| I've been helping teach high school CS classes for years, and
| even just being able to use some free accounts with students to
| share code and workspaces has been flawlessly simple. I've
| always (even pre-pandemic) been a remote instructor, and
| Repl.it has been one of my best tool experiences. Thanks for
| the great work!
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _We started hearing from students worldwide that they didn 't
| have computers at home to continue learning, so we made our
| coding environment mobile optimized and it grew 900% in 2020.
| https://blog.repl.it/mobile_
|
| As someone who saw friends struggle to conjure up enough money
| to buy laptops during the pandemic (with looming socio-economic
| uncertainty no less), this is simply priceless; especially
| since it is pretty common for Bay Area companies to be
| insulated away from the realities of a world afar where even
| "cheap" Scaleway / DO compute is deemed expensive. Ironically,
| it is indeed this world afar that is in dire need of realising
| benefits (especially in terms of lower cost) that only
| technology can deliver. Thank you very much!
| amasad wrote:
| Thank you! We pride ourselves on being more in touch. We have
| employees in India and Palestine and other places in the
| world, and some of us use chromebooks as our primary device.
|
| We wrote about our global approach here:
| https://blog.repl.it/global
| MikusR wrote:
| It's not Microsoft Teams.
| somethoughts wrote:
| Is it possible to disable the "Talk" feature for Teams for
| Education accounts? This social media like feature actually makes
| it less interesting to use for a coding clubs for younger kids.
| amasad wrote:
| Yes! See this doc on Privacy:
| https://docs.repl.it/Teams/privacyFAQs
| semitones wrote:
| Although I love the cool features, I'm worried this could
| potentially exacerbate situations where students already feel
| like they're "being watched" while learning remotely (i.e. being
| forced to have their camera on constantly while in class). I
| could imagine some students feeling anxious about having to
| complete assignments on a platform like this, where every step of
| their incompetence (due to their nascent programming skills) is
| available for the teacher to see. Although I firmly believe the
| tech is cool and useful, how helpful it is will come down to
| classroom policies.
| amasad wrote:
| While this sounds plausible, fortunately it doesn't seem to be
| the case. We're hearing is that it's both improving student
| outcomes and making coding more fun and exciting for students,
| so much so that they continue coding after their class. This
| came in recently from a CS teacher in Mexico City:
|
| > I am a CS teacher at a public high school in Mexico City, and
| I am fortunate to use Repl.it since the past October. My remote
| classes have gone so good thanks to Repl.it, my students have
| been learning a lot by working with your platform. They have
| even given me a C language code made in Repl.it as a present on
| my birthday.
|
| We're also working with researchers to conduct a small study to
| see if this can be borne out in outcomes data.
| sodality2 wrote:
| As a high school CS student, I'm sure _some_ students will
| feel the pressure to code and fear of embarrassment,
| especially if the whole class is set to see progress. Perhaps
| an option to anonymize the names to the other students if it
| is a group project?
|
| We use repl.it for students without access to BlueJ and it
| works great. In fact, I will be messaging this to my AP CSA
| teacher with this because this looks absolutely game-
| changing.
| amasad wrote:
| Yeah we have an option to anonymize names:
| https://docs.repl.it/Teams/privacyFAQs
| pseudalopex wrote:
| You can be sure it is the case for some students.
| wdroz wrote:
| We are using nbgrader[0] to handle the labs of our students,
| while we are happy with nbgrader, from the videos, Teams for
| Education look so much nicer to use.
|
| I also agree that using tools centered on coding offer a really
| nice experience for both students and teachers.
|
| [0] -- https://github.com/jupyter/nbgrader
| alexashka wrote:
| Maybe I'm missing something - I did 'team' work by simply sharing
| the screen and letting both people control the cursor and
| keyboard, many years ago.
|
| It had the added benefit of not being confined to a single tool
| but rather a complete desktop experience.
|
| This strikes me as an inferior offering, as does a non-native IDE
| as a whole, in exchange for minor convenience. Thoughts?
| sodality2 wrote:
| For student learning, a full IDE in a browser that has a very
| low barrier to entry is very important. Half of my AP CSA class
| uses chromebooks exclusively and thus have no access to real
| IDE's. since this is for education I think it's very beneficial
| there.
|
| Elsewhere, yeah, a full IDE is probably better. But this
| definitely has a use case IMO.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| comment1231 wrote:
| For student learning, it depends on your philosophy, intent,
| or goals.
|
| For APCSA students, especially those who can take more CS
| courses before/after the APCSA exam course... these are high
| school level students. There's no reason why they can't be
| using a real IDE (e.g. Eclipse, or whatever you like),
| learning Java in a terminal, and learn to write real GUIs
| (e.g. Swing, or whatever you like) [1].
|
| Yeah I know... Java, Swing, Eclipse... Look, it's AP CS A.
| Java is the language of instruction. No choice. But we can
| make the best of it. Students can learn using real tools.
|
| In high school wood shop class, they teach what the pros use,
| more or less. Real hammers. Real drill presses.
|
| That's not to say Repl.it is purely a toy tool. Of course you
| can make real things using non-pro tools too, ikea
| screwdrivers, dollar store saws, etc. But it depends on your
| teaching philosophy, goals, and resources. Some high school
| students are a few years away from working, coding, in
| industry --- why not learn real IDEs if it's available?
|
| You're right, there's definitely a use case for Repl.it.
| Chromebooks... I'm sorry for your situation. Even a cheap
| laptop with Windows or Linux nowadays is enough to learn Java
| with Netbeans and the command line. If my class all had
| chromebooks, I'd probably jump on REpl.it too.
|
| But if students have a non-locked-down OS, seems to me
| learning the real deal is better for the student. It's not
| just the IDE and coding in it. It's the entire ecosystem
| students get to be exposed to. Get stuck on something, jump
| in the command line. Learn git in bash. Play with maven. It's
| a rich, real, authentic environment to learn in. Stuck in the
| browser means only getting what the web site provides.
|
| But that's old school thinking. I suspect the world of
| primary and secondary CS education will move more and more
| into REpl.it style web based tools. Here's why:
|
| Everything's getting locked down, and people are busy.
|
| If a student comes and says they have trouble installing Java
| in Windows, it's easier to just say... go to ReplIt.
|
| If a school board is downsizing / rightsizing / cloud-ifying
| their I.T., they might say they won't allow/support/install
| Eclipse on school PCs anymore, because it takes too much
| technician time to support it, or it opens up security issues
| to allow arbitrary code from students to run, or they want to
| replace everything with Chromebooks, or just do it in the
| cloud...whatever. What's a teacher to do? Replit.
|
| Students comes with a Mac, all locked down, has trouble even
| running example or utility programs from the teacher because
| of notarization? Replit.
|
| Student has no desktop/laptop. School does'nt have a
| chromebook to lend out. But probably student still has a
| mobile device! Replit.
|
| As coding education becomes more widespread, like math before
| it, more and more classes will be taught by teachers who are
| not experts in coding, possibly not even by a hobbyist coder,
| maybe not even by someone who likes code. It'll be taught by
| an English / math/ bio / P.E. teacher who needs a class to
| round out their 1.0 FTE. Maybe supported by an expert CS
| teacher, maybe, but at some point everyone's busy. So much
| easier to just use repl.it. Gives students some activities to
| do.
|
| And how's the social teacher who's never seen a terminal
| supposed to help troubleshoot classpath problems in Java on a
| student's computer? or on a school computer they have no
| admin access to because... I.T.? That teacher may be very
| capable, but who has the time anyway? Replit with constrained
| templates and projects will be very very helpful.
|
| Sorry this is so long...
|
| tldr. If students have a non-locked-down OS, seems to me
| learning the real deal is better _for the student_. But due
| to everything getting locked down, economic reasons, and
| teachers /people/technicians being just too busy, the trend
| in primary/secondary CS education will be towards more web
| based platforms... because it's better _for the teachers
| /administrators/I.T./wallet_.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| I joked that schools that are serious about teaching CS
| should just get a rack with *NIX machines properly
| configured and networked together and have everyone serious
| enough ssh/remote to them. For the students that just
| wished ReplIt could let them do that one thing it can't...
|
| With regular back-up so that when a student inevitably mess
| up beyond repair (rogue rm or dd command or something
| modifying his path) he can time-machine like roll back to a
| previous version.
|
| Then you get to enjoy the show. Someone will inevitably
| start pen-testing the school. Why is one machine constantly
| maxed-out? Is that a Quake server they are running? Oh they
| have their own chat client/protocol now, interesting.
| Basically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incompatible_Timesh
| aring_Syste...
| sodality2 wrote:
| > There's no reason why they can't be using a real IDE
| (e.g. Eclipse, or whatever you like), learning Java in a
| terminal, and learn to write real GUIs (e.g. Swing, or
| whatever you like).
|
| BlueJ is incompatible with Chromebooks, unfortunately.
|
| > Some high school students are a few years away from
| working, coding, in industry --- why not learn real IDEs if
| it's available?
|
| Very true, unfortunately BlueJ is mandated by Advanced
| Placement and the tests are on paper (!) but I always
| prefer a full IDE.
|
| >But if students have a non-locked-down OS, seems to me
| learning the real deal is better for the student. It's not
| just the IDE and coding in it. It's the entire ecosystem
| students get to be exposed to. Get stuck on something, jump
| in the command line. Learn git in bash. Play with maven.
| It's a rich, real, authentic environment to learn in. Stuck
| in the browser means only getting what the web site
| provides.
|
| Unfortunately, the trend is becoming online. I hope the
| teachers explain that these tools are good for learning but
| never outside of a learning environment. It's like scratch:
| you'd never teach it to actual CS students but for feeling
| out an interest in CS it's pretty good.
|
| >If a student comes and says they have trouble installing
| Java in Windows, it's easier to just say... go to ReplIt.
|
| If an AP CSA student can't install Java... that doesn't
| bode well for their general computing knowledge. Then again
| AP CSA isn't super high level. We just learned about
| `extends` sub/superclasses in java, and we're pretty far
| into the course.
|
| >As coding education becomes more widespread, like math
| before it, more and more classes will be taught by teachers
| who are not experts in coding, possibly not even by a
| hobbyist coder, maybe not even by someone who likes code.
| It'll be taught by an English / math/ bio / P.E. teacher
| who needs a class to round out their 1.0 FTE.
|
| Agree. My AP CSA teacher is very qualified but I've seen
| that trend in plenty of other lower-level computing classes
| in MS and HS like "computer applications" class and
| "cybersec fundamentals".
|
| >tldr. If students have a non-locked-down OS, seems to me
| learning the real deal is better for the student. But due
| to everything getting locked down, economic reasons, and
| teachers/people/technicians being just too busy, the trend
| in primary/secondary CS education will be towards more web
| based platforms... because it's better for the
| teachers/administrators/I.T./wallet.
|
| Sigh, I just hope this doesn't affect the education
| negatively like it sounds like it will...
| comment1231 wrote:
| > BlueJ is mandated by Advanced Placement
|
| Where did you see that? It's not mandated. My AP students
| use Netbeans or Eclipse or IDEA (their choice). I have an
| AP approved syllabus that I wrote myself based on the
| College Board AP course and exam description. If you use
| the Blue Pellican Java textbook, I recall it teaches
| BlueJ. But other approved textbooks don't.
|
| > If an AP CSA student can't install Java... that doesn't
| bode well for their general computing knowledge
|
| Well, if they use Replit, they'd never know they didn't
| know! And they'd never get a chance to learn to
| troubleshoot. They'd never learn general computing
| knowledge. But that's part of my "ecosystem" point.
|
| > Sigh, I just hope this doesn't affect the education
| negatively like it sounds like it will...
|
| I think you and I are on the same wavelength here. I
| don't know if education will be affected negatively, but
| it'll be more "specialized". Students 10 years ago at my
| school learned Linux, MongoDB (why not? lol), Java,
| Eclipse, bash, git, etc. Because of some of the things I
| noted, they now learn... Java in Eclipse. 10 years from
| now, they'll learn... to code in Replit.
|
| Maybe that's just how it goes. 100 years ago, math
| students learned to make paper and ink (did they? was
| that 500 years ago? I don't know). Now they learn math.
| 100 years from now, they learn math code in coq on Replit
| (lol).
|
| Cheers
| sodality2 wrote:
| >Where did you see that? It's not mandated
|
| My AP teacher mandates the use of BlueJ, I was under the
| impression it was AP. I asked if I could use another full
| IDE because the keybinds in BlueJ suck, he said no
| because the Intellisense/other smart features may make it
| easier and I won't be able to use it on the exam. Which
| is sort of fair I suppose.
|
| >Well, if they use Replit, they'd never know they didn't
| know! And they'd never get a chance to learn to
| troubleshoot. They'd never learn general computing
| knowledge. But that's part of my "ecosystem" point.
|
| Very true.
|
| > Students 10 years ago at my school learned Linux,
| MongoDB (why not? lol), Java, Eclipse, bash, git, etc
|
| That makes me glad that I'm learning with good tools. I
| hope the trend doesn't continue to fully learning college
| courses in a browser. :/
|
| Then again, I'm literally in high school hating on the
| new-fangled tools...
| daltonlp wrote:
| Your tl/dr is spot-on. The critical resource is teachers'
| and students' time.
|
| Keep in mind, we're talking about teaching students in a
| class, with a curriculum.
|
| This is not high-value open ended learning with real tools.
| This is basic skill training exercises.
|
| I speak from the experience of watching a teacher struggle
| with multiple students' python dependencies for the first
| two weeks of class. This was with a set of (supposedly)
| homogenous school-issued laptops. After switching to
| repl.it, all that hassle just disappeared.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Also VSCode (and full Visual Studio) have Live Share
| functionality that works similarly to Google Docs
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