Collaborative Learning Tools in IT Education: GitHub Classroom

GitHub Classroom was created to assist instructors in managing and assigning coding tasks to pupils more effectively. It is connected with GitHub, a widely-used version control system, so students can train in live software engineering. The system allows teachers to create repositories of assignments, track the work of the students, and provide feedback to them. This model mimics real-world industry and prepares the students with skills they would require in a team programming atmosphere later in their professional lives: Collaborative Learning Tools in IT Education: GitHub Classroom.

Benefits of GitHub Classroom

Real-World Industry Experience

Teaching IT with GitHub Classroom gives students an opportunity to get authentic experience with the processes and the tools that the software development world is utilizing. GitHub allows students to be introduced to Git, a version control system that is important in both individual and group software development projects.

Modern software development would be nothing without version control, which enables many developers to work on the same codebase without stepping on each other toes. The practice of training students to utilize GitHub to handle assignments is, therefore, explicitly equipping them with professional practices (Angulo & Aktunc, 2019).

Collaboration and Teamwork

Students are able to create a fork of each other within one repository as a part of the features of GitHub Classroom. The students are given a chance to fork a repository, make contributions to the forked repository, and finally make a pull request to merge the work. This reflects the real-world situation of most software development firms where many programmers have to maintain a single codebase.

In IT education, teamwork on joint coding projects is an important skill to have since teamwork is a significant part of the professional environment. Furthermore, merging and branching allow students to find a solution in various ways without disrupting the main code and, therefore, promote creative and analytical thinking (Zagalsky et al., 2015).

Automated Feedback and Tracking Progress

Providing automated feedback is also possible using GitHub Classroom, and that is another benefit. By using automated assessment systems, CI tools, and automated testers, teachers can provide immediate feedback on the work of the students. This is actually a positive feature since it simplifies the life of work of the instructor and gives students the possibility to continuously refine their work rather than wait to receive feedback.

Automated systems can give improvement suggestions and find errors like bad syntax or failing tests on the fly. This fosters students to do better and come up with iterations of their work, which fosters a practice environment (Bennedsen et al., 2022).

Drawbacks of GitHub Classroom

Learning Curve

GitHub Classroom is particularly challenging for novice students who have no prior exposure to Git and version control systems. Navigating through GitHub’s cli and web interface can be quite difficult for the uninitiated, which means dealing with repositories, commits, and pull requests.

While Git is part of the curriculum for most learners, those who have no prior exposure are likely to find it daunting at first. This means that educators will have to spend time teaching the basic workflows and commands, which, in turn, can shift the focus away from the main course content (Angulo & Aktunc, 2019).

Technical Issues and Integration Challenges

Integration of GitHub Classroom with other LMS systems may work seamlessly; however, some persistent issues can come up from time to time. These include assignment delays due to syncing problems between the classroom and the LMS system. Instructors face hurdles while trying to automate grading processes that use external testing applications that do not work well with GitHub. While these issues may not be frequent, they do have the potential to disrupt classes and negatively impact learners.

Internet Dependency

Like many educational technologies, GitHub Classroom has a particular dependence on internet access. Students with spotty or no internet access may struggle to retrieve course content, submit their work, or interact with other students. This reliance on the internet can be particularly challenging for students located in regions with low connectivity.

Furthermore, students are expected to possess the appropriate devices that run the required software, such as Git clients. In some educational contexts, these access barriers could pose a problem of equity (Bennedsen et al., 2022).

The addition of collaborative components such as GitHub Classroom into education not only improves the learning process but also prepares learners for critical competencies required in the workplace. Despite some of the challenges that may be associated with it, encouraging collaboration as well as providing exposure to practical experience offers tremendous advantages. If integrated appropriately, educators stand the chance of providing an active and impactful learning experience—similar to that in the industry.

References

Angulo, M. A., & Aktunc, O. (2019). Using GitHub as a teaching tool for programming courses. In 2018 Gulf Southwest Section Conference. https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2-370.620-31594

Bennedsen, J., Böttjer, T., & Tola, D. (2022). Using GitHub Classroom in teaching programming. In Proceedings of the 18th International CDIO Conference, Reykjavik University, Reykjavik, Iceland, June 13-15 2022 (pp. 690–702). https://www.cdio.org/knowledge-library/documents/using-github-classroom-teaching-programming

Zagalsky, A., Feliciano, J., Storey, M., Zhao, Y., & Wang, W. (2015). The emergence of GitHub as a collaborative platform for education. In Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (pp. 1906–1917). https://doi.org/10.1145/2675133.2675284

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Week 7 Discussion: Other Collaborative Methods and Tools for IT Education
So far in this course, you have only looked at discussion as a means for learners to collaborate. There are, however, many ways to promote collaborative learning, including group projects, virtual teams, team papers, group presentations, and role-play activities.

Collaborative Learning Tools in IT Education: GitHub Classroom