Inspiration
While PeerWise provides a great concept for collaborative learning, its interface is rather unintuitive, and it lacks essential functionality for both students and educators. We saw the opportunity to build on the concept by introducing advanced analytics and richer question options to better support learning, and critical thinking. PeerSphere was created to build on PeerWise to bring a more efficient and effective learning experience.
What it does
PeerSphere is a collaborative learning platform designed to enhance knowledge sharing. Students can create and explore questions, while advanced analytics for teachers provide valuable insights to track progress and identify knowledge gaps. It makes learning interactive, personalized and data-driven, empowering users to improve and grow together.
How we built it
We used:
- React.js for a responsive and interactive user interface, allowing us to build a seamless front-end experience for both students and teachers.
- Node.js to handle the local server, ensuring fast and easy testing on the back end.
- We aimed to integrate Firebase for database storage and authentication, but due to deployment constraints, we opted for a local database solution using Node.js
Challenges we ran into
- Firebase Integration: Initially, we planned to integrate Firebase for its authentication and cloud storage capabilities, intending to purely use Google Accounts for login. However, deploying with GitHub Pages limited our ability to host a multi-page website, making us unable to fully utilize Firebase’s features. After an hour or two of testing, we decided to opt for a local solution to develop the actual application.
- Local Database Creation: To work around GitHub constraints, we set up a local database in Node.js. As we had no experience doing this, it required rapid learning and problem-solving to implement file-based storage that could still mimic an interactive, database-like experience without cloud integration.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
- Functional Prototype: We are proud of creating a working, interactive prototype that showcases the main features of PeerSphere. Despite limited time and technical challenges, we delivered a platform that supports collaborative question creation and analysis.
- Workaround Solutions: Successfully setting up a local database in Node.js showed our ability to adapt quickly and work around unforeseen technical limitations.
What we learned
- Local Database setup: Learning to host a separate local database setup when Firebase integration proved unfeasible taught us a new coding concept.
- Frontend-Backend Coordination: Coordinating between React.js for the frontend and Node.js for backend services deepened our understanding of full-stack development.
What's next for PeerSphere
- Firebase Integration: We plan to fully integrate Firebase or another cloud-based service to enable secure accounts, database storage, and Google login support.
- Expanded Question Options: We plan to add more types of questions such as multi-select, short answer and fill-in-the-blank questions as well as allow multimedia in questions.
- Mobile Optimization: We planto optimize PeerSphere for mobile devices, making it accessible on smartphones and tablets to increase usability.
- Gamification: We plan to add features like badges and experience levels tohelp motivate students and enhance engagement.
- AI integration: We plan to implement AI in feedback for free response questions to provide instantaneous feedback upon creation and answering of questions.
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