Show HN: I built better Breakout Rooms

by revalo • 6 years ago

4 2 6 years ago

revalo• 6 years ago

Hey HN! I am a TA for a large undergraduate class at MIT. Teaching virtually definitely comes with its challenges, but the biggest challenge for me was holding office hours.

We used to have a queue system, with hundreds of students trying to get the first spot, with me (along with the other TAs) trying our hardest to keep the queue moving quickly, but algorithmic discussions need time and frequent pauses to think.

I experimented with lots of alternatives, but none of them scaled to hundreds of students (inexpensively) or had strong permission systems. We wanted a clear separation of permissions between the Instructors, TAs, and Students. Having a multiplayer code editor is a nice extra feature that has been useful to help students debug their code.

If you're in a similar position, or just want better breakout rooms, feel free to use the system. The default cap is 100 users to prevent abuse, but I can happily raise it if you reach out.

Would love any feedback!

shadowbeast2• 6 years ago

We use this for our class, and it has been a breath of fresh air through this year. Sometimes though, I want individual help, and it's hard to get that with such a system.

Show HN: I built better Breakout Rooms

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