
Google Launches Free Tool To Let You Run Your Own Online Courses - Anon84
http://edudemic.com/2012/09/google-course-builder/
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elchief
I'm a very good programmer. Self taught. Built some popular tools, top
percentile on StackOverflow. My blogs get a few thousand hits a day and some
nice fellow translates them into French. I love self-learning, and dislike
most organized learning.

However, I don't get a lot of replies if I apply for a job. HR ladies don't
care if you're good, only if you check an item on a checklist.

I get by on my own products and on my rep, which is fine, but sometimes I need
a gig to pay the bills.

So, my point is, it's great to have all these online courses, seriously, but
how is this going to help people get jobs? I can see it helping them make
their own job, but some people just want a regular old day job.

If I'm missing something, and there's a good program with some sort of
certification, then please point me that way.

~~~
cristianocd
With all these online courses going on, the recruiting will change. Not now,
but it will.

I'm really into this kind of teaching, and I hope it helps the poor, cause
there's lots of job openings but not enough talent.

This is just one step, a big one, but not the hole solution.

~~~
elchief
I agree, it would be amazing if some forward-thinking recruiting firm went by
your codeacademy score, stanford online course mark and SO rep.

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taroth
Um, what? Here we have a product serving the needs of teachers, built for
"webmasters". How many course-builders out there want to familiarize
themselves with 3 coding languages (HTML, Python, and JavaScript), when a
easily conceivable web UI could accomplish the same goals?

Google is either throwing AppEngine fluff or a pump fake.

~~~
robotresearcher
Quite a lot of CS professors could handle this, and and even higher proportion
of their grad student Research Assistants. Y'know: the people who work at
Google later and the people that train them.

This isn't iMovie; it's a courseware building platform. They didn't claim it
would be useful for everyone.

~~~
mamoswined
Yeah, but are most of us who are capable at code going to want to deal with
Appengine? Definitely not my own first choice.

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svag_work
Just post the link of the course builder <https://code.google.com/p/course-
builder/>

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simoncoggins
I'm surprised that they seem to require course creators to build courses using
HTML and Javascript, when most online learning environments focus on browser
based course builders.

~~~
eslachance
As someone who is currently forced to use Moodle to build courses, I honestly
say I'd rather just build the thing with HTML and Javascript rather than a
web-based interface.

Speaking of which, what tool would you suggest instead of Moodle?

~~~
keithpeter
Why not use your favoured programming tools, then include the appropriate
metadata to talk to the Moodle database if that is what local admin want you
to do?

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oneandoneis2
Do they supply a course in how to use it? :)

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zedshaw
You remember how I've been telling people they need to learn to code? If you
can then you can look at their code and see that they actually don't have much
there, and what they do have is kind of crap:

[https://code.google.com/p/course-
builder/source/browse/#git%...](https://code.google.com/p/course-
builder/source/browse/#git%2Fcoursebuilder)

There's really not much there, and a lot of the code is kind of junk code
meant to get people stuck on GAE. Here's my criticism of it so far:

* Most of the controller code looks slapped together and kind of hacked on rather than designed with any thought. [https://code.google.com/p/course-builder/source/browse/cours...](https://code.google.com/p/course-builder/source/browse/coursebuilder/controllers/lessons.py)

* There's hardly any other services other than a model for Lesson/Unit/Student and controllers that are hardcoded for their own course. For example, their entire Assessment system in lessons.py isn't backed by any model and is just dumped into the Student model, which means students can't be assessed more than once or on multiple courses or lessons? Hopefully I'm reading that wrong.

* The model isn't even really right. There's no Course or Instructor model and all the other things that should be models are just tossed into lessons.py controllers and dumped into memcache.

* Very tied to GAE it seems, and to set this up you'd better be damn good at that and python. There's no way in hell this'd ever be useable by anybody but a programmer.

* The assessment stuff is either going to be useless or a major time sink for them. Instructors are notorious for having batshit crazy assessment systems making it impossible to create a universal one they'll all use. I'd ditch that stuff or hook it into google docs spreadsheet instead.

* Seems to have almost zero Student->Instructor communication, and only a placeholder for the Forums. If they plan on doing the classic Google Supportless Tech Support then they better fix that, or hook it into G+ better. Problem with G+ is they'll need to make it so students can't monopolize instructor time in private.

* They'll very definitely be tying this to all their services, which means it'll only be slightly useful outside of the google ecosystem. If they plan on getting into the K-12 hosting then that'll be a problem for them since many school systems can't host student data on outside computers because of student privacy laws.

It's easy to rip apart code like this, and most likely when I release the code
to my stuff people will do the same (and should). But, if they post a
breathless press release touting it, then I expect it to be much more capable
than this. This to me looks like classic corporate FLOSS white elephant code
where they hope some poor suckers will jump in and make it great for them so
they don't have to work on it anymore.

~~~
dpritchett
I'm surprised to see you of all people nitpicking an initial release like
this. Peter Norvig could fart in a crowded room and it would lead to
breathless press releases - don't hold it against these few developers that
their modest repo has been published early on and already gotten more press
than your newish competing project. I'm sure there will be plenty of room for
both of you in the marketplace.

~~~
skMed
I don't agree that this is entirely nitpicking. Sure, ripping apart some code
in a controller might be considered coming down hard on a brand new project,
but a lot of his criticism is directed towards the foundation/model behind the
system as opposed to "You missed a semi there." Hell, he even mentioned ways
they could integrate existing services (G+) into this project.

Oh well, at least they shipped.

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gtaylor
It's good to see the education space getting so much attention, it sorely
needs it! Within ten years, I think we'll see a big shift towards online
learning, or at least a much heavier lean on it.

Shameless plug, but for those looking for more of a turnkey hosted solution,
check out Pathwright: <http://www.pathwright.com>

~~~
Turing_Machine
Looks interesting, but why do I have to create a username and password even if
I sign in with Facebook? The whole reason for allowing people to sign in with
Facebook is so they don't need to manage yet another login and password, or so
I see it.

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jcampbell1
Google is touting a tool they used to build a course called "Power Searching",
that was supposedly successful. I signed up for the course, only to find it is
not ready/available until Sept 24th. I am completely confused.

~~~
Turing_Machine
That must be the next time they're planning to offer it.

Installing the example code and running it indicates that there was a previous
course that started July 10.

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Turing_Machine
There's way too much nasty FIXME configuration stuff scattered all over the
code (course name, institution home page, etc.) All that should be in (e.g.) a
JSON file that gets read at load time.

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bbayer
without compliance with open standards this kind of tool won't go any further
expect than experiment. It supposed to be integrated learning management
systems easily with
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharable_Content_Object_Referen...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharable_Content_Object_Reference_Model)

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mulya
Nice, just too bad it forces you to be on AppEngine, which has some very
controversial pricing model...

~~~
biot
Controversial? That is an interesting word choice. I've heard some describe it
as expensive, but what is the controversy surrounding how they have modeled
their prices?

~~~
ianpri
I think they're getting at the way Google hiked their prices which resulted in
some peoples bills rising by a factor of 100. GAE has every right to make
money - it was the speed and direction of the change which caused
'controversy'.

