Tag Archives: georgia tech

Developing an Online Student Response System

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Last week I started my second year at Georgia Tech after taking some humanities and social sciences over the summer. This meant taking an entire new set of classes including the exciting upper-level computer science classes. The new school year also meant something else; Georgia Tech was transitioning to a new personal response system (PRS).

What is a PRS you may ask? I didn’t know too much about them as I have never had to use one in my previous semesters at Georgia Tech. A PRS is a device that allows a presenter (such as a professor) to get feedback from an audience on what they think on a topic or to quiz on their understanding of material. Most PRS’s use a small hardware device for students to send their response, something that costs around $50.

A friend and a fellow teaching assistant of mine, Ryan Ashcraft, thought that it was really neat that you could get live feedback on a class’s understanding of material – something we really thought would be useful for seeing if our recitation understands the material we are discussing. However, we couldn’t force the students in our recitation to go out and spend $50 on a device. We still wanted some way to get feedback from our students during recitation and asking for people to speak up isn’t really cutting it – rarely anyone does it or it is a select few who always speak up.

So what are two computer science majors to do? Build their own system of course. We weren’t going to make an iOS/mobile app or a Java app, though. This system requires a more platform-independent solution – and we are going with a website. I have never worked on a web-based product before, but I’m excited for what it will offer for me as a developer. It’s about the easiest to build, run, and about every device that connects to the internet has a browser that should be able to use our site. And we’re calling it Class Response.

Now you can go out today and do a bit more Googling to find some already-existing personal response systems that use a web app or mobile app. However, almost all of them cost money. We’ve already made a decision that ours will be free. We’re also planning on eventually opening the source on GitHub (because git > subversion).

We realize that our system may not be the best in the world with all the whiz-bang features. We just want something that simple that is targeted specifically for the classroom. We’re hoping it will be a really good, free alternative to Georgia Tech’s expensive PRS.

We’ve still got a ways to go before it will be released. I’ll be posting more updates as our development advances. I’m looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

The Beginning

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Today was the last day of ENGL 1101 class. Yesterday was the last official day of learning new material in MATH 1502 (Calculus II and Linear Algebra). It is “dead week” here at Georgia Tech and finals are next week. My first semester here at Georgia Tech as a Freshman is almost over. Though I am no longer technically classified as a Freshman after this semester is over.

Now, I can think what you are thinking. Why is my post titled “The Beginning” if all I’m talking about the end being near. Now that does not make much sense does it?

In a way, saying it is the beginning does make sense. At the end of my ENGL 1101 class today, my professor made a little speech about how she would miss us, find it interesting to see how would progress in the future, and how her previous students contact her now and then about essay proofreading along with other questions from the class. I can’t quite quote what she said due to my memory, but I think her tweet from earlier today sums it up.

Last day of class is always bittersweet. Always wonder what amazing things these students will do in the future. Now to #grading…

Now I know that most if not all of my teachers from high school and the various others level of education I attended said something similar, but for some reason having my ENGL 1101 professor saying such a thing is different. I’m not sure why. Perhaps because there has been a serious difference in the amount of work required for this English class than the ones in high school. Perhaps because we spent 1.5 hours every Tuesday and Thursday at 8:00 AM for the past few months. Whatever the reason is, I think she is right. Students at Tech will do amazing things.

But how is this the beginning? Well, in order to do amazing things, one must subject themselves to training. The classes. The lectures. The “easy stuff”. Only when these various requirements are met can one take major steps to becoming amazing. Everyone is amazing.

So, by the end of things coming, it really is the beginning. I kind of have to say that for myself it seems more the beginning now of a lot things than it seemed when I first arrived at college. Now things are just so much more… [insert word here]. I can’t think of what it is. Tech is amazing. I knew that before I came to college, but now I feel how it is amazing. That kind of is hard to explain. I have visited the Emory library for an exhibit on the world’s first great digital writer. I have met several amazing people. I have made 60 new friends according to my Facebook “College” list and many more who are not on Facebook. I have done a lot.

What does this bring me to? I am not sure. This is my last official required ENGL 1101 weekly post, though I never really had trouble with writing a post for the class. I will continue to blog here after next week, the official end of my first semester at Georgia Tech, is over.

I cannot think of any quotes that I know of off the top of my head to close this post. Well, that is not entirely true. I can think of one…

“Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.” – John Keating, Dead Poets Society

Workflowy – Reinventing the Outline

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Even though I can’t remember where I found Workflowy, I know I won’t forget what it is like to use it. In short, Workflowy is an outlining application on the web. It is not complex or advanced, but it is awesome. Why is it awesome? Because it mimics the way you think according to the folks over at Workflowy. While I can’t exactly figure how that works, I like how Workflowy works. Workflowy lets me create an outline however deep I need it to be just like any old outlining program. Where the cool part comes in is that I can click on any specific item in the outline and focus on it – all the other content disappears letting me select and focus on one specific part of the outline. Perhaps this video can explain it a bit better.

I played a bit around with Workflowy to organize some small thoughts I had, but I though I could really test out the program by taking notes for a class. So last Friday I took notes for my CS 1331 class on Workflowy rather than using Pages to normally take notes. My initial feeling that Workflowy would be awesome was only confirmed by this test. I love the ability to take notes in a hierarchy of College -> CS 1331 -> Notes -> November 5th, 2010 all without knowing I’m taking notes in such a deep hierarchy. Another of my favorite features is the ability to collapse specific items in case they are too long and interfering with the cleanliness of the outline. The ease of use of the website also makes it a breeze to work with. I could not imagine outlining working anyway.

While Workflowy has a few bugs here and there, it is nothing significant enough to prevent daily usage. I would highly suggest checking Workflowy out if you are into organizing and outlines.

Thumbs up to Workflowy team!