Google Classroom: My Tracker + Hidden Deadlines

Classroom's to-do misses deadlines posted in announcements. We find them, show how heavy each week really is, and warn teachers before work piles onto a crowded day.

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Inspiration

In Google Classroom, a deadline only reaches a student's to-do list if the teacher files the work under Classwork. In real life, teachers often post "Submit the report by Friday" as an announcement, and it never reaches the to-do list. On top of that, each teacher assigns work independently, so nobody sees when several deadlines land on the same day. We have both missed deadlines this way.

What it does

Classroom My Tracker with Hidden Deadlines adds a My Tracker page to a Classroom look-alike.

  • Finds hidden deadlines: it scans announcements for an action word plus a date (for example "submit by Friday", "quiz on Thursday", "kal tak submit karo"), shows each one with a confidence level, and lets the student add it or mark it "Not a deadline".
  • Shows the real workload: a progress ring, "Tonight's plan" with time estimates, and a 4-week heatmap of estimated hours. Heavy days get a warning, and days with hidden deadlines are marked with ✦.
  • Helps teachers: when an announcement contains a date, the teacher is nudged to add it to Classwork. A Schedule work screen shows what share of students already have 2 or more deadlines on a day, and suggests a calmer one. Teachers only see counts, never one student's workload.

Before and after

Classroom today With our feature
To-do shows only work filed under Classwork Deadlines found in announcements are surfaced
No view of total workload 4-week heatmap and a heavy-day warning
No help deciding what to do first Tonight's plan with time estimates
Teachers schedule blind Teachers see how busy students already are and get a calmer day suggested

The demo has a Classroom today / With Hidden Deadlines toggle so you can see both sides.

How we built it

  • Plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript in a single file, with no libraries, hosted on GitHub Pages.
  • A look-alike of the Classroom screens (home, class stream, classwork, to-do) built from scratch. It is not Google's code.
  • Deadline detection uses simple rules in the browser, with confidence levels and student confirmation.
  • Effort estimates and the teacher chart use fictional demo data.
  • We used Claude (an AI assistant) to help design and write the code.

Challenges

  • Telling real deadlines from other dates ("class cancelled on 28 Oct" must not count).
  • Handling mixed English and Hindi posts like "kal tak submit karo".
  • Making the teacher side useful without exposing any individual student's workload.
  • Merging two prototype ideas into one project in a short time.

What we learned

Small gaps in an everyday app (a deadline written in the wrong place) cause real problems for students, and showing a before and after makes the problem easy to see.

Limitations

  • All classes, people, posts and numbers are fictional, and no real Classroom data or API is used.
  • Detection is rule-based, and effort estimates are placeholders.

What's next

A language model would replace the rules, read attached documents, and handle more languages, still asking the student to confirm. Google could ship this because Classroom already holds every class's assignments, announcements and due dates, and the teacher nudge could use aggregated counts only.

Team

  • Mitali Devda
  • [Teammate name]

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