GCU - Classroom Utilities

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  This is the group generation function that shuffles students into sized groups.

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  This is the class/desk layout function. Unpolished, but you can plot desks, and fill them with students from the classroom!

Inspiration

My mom is a primary school teacher. Years ago she asked me if I could make a program that could create random groups for her class for projects, discussions, etc. That was one of the first projects I ever finished. It was a desktop app written in java, that loaded in students from a text file. Java is no longer allowed on her work computer, and I have come a long way in my skills, so I decided to re-do the project in a way that I can scale and distribute to other teachers.

What it does

This extension uses the google classroom API to read class rosters, to formulate groups for projects and for desk/classroom layouts. The groups are random and of varying size, and are just a few clicks away from the classroom page. This makes it blazingly easy to create quick groups for projects.

How I built it

I built it using vanilla html, css, and js, alongside the google classroom API.

Challenges I ran into

Building this as a one-person team was awful. I did not have time to polish the frontend, something I am already bad and slow at, which resulted in a non-optimal appearance, and lacking features that would have made the UX a lot more intuitive and fun. I also did not have time to set up a proper backend to hold preferences and settings, which takes away from the usability at this stage. I really wanted this extension to integrate into the classroom webpage, and just be another tab alongside the others, so it didnt feel like going to another webpage for this application. This was too tedious so I scrapped it for the weekend. I think this would make it feel way more integrated and easy to use. I am also not a teacher on any google classrooms, so that made it quite difficult to test my teacher-oriented tool.

Accomplishments that I am proud of

It was my first hackathon ever, I had no team, and I still submitted something that represented the initial goal.

What I learned

I learned a bit about using APIs and about async programming. Also got better at using the chrome dev tools I also used the canvas element for the first time for the classroom layout, so that was smthn.

What's next for GCU - Classroom Utilities

Primarily I want to integrate it with the google classroom site instead of being in a separate tab, and I want to make the UI/UX more enjoyable. The class layout feature would be a lot cooler if you could customize the classroom with things like coaches and windows, to make it look like a virtual classroom rather than weird glitchy squares, and if your layout got saved to your account for later. I want to publish this tool once it is more polished and functional so teachers can use it. Since the extension is hooked up to the google API, this extension has a lot of potential. It could post images of the layout to the classroom, or make assignments based on the groups or desk layouts.

Built With

• chrome
• css
• googleclassroomapi
• html
• javascript