New Module: Writing Assignment

Hi everyone. I've been working for several months now on a new social learning module for Drupal called “Writing Assignment.” This module will make it simple for a teacher to assign students to write on a topic and then for the writing to be read, commented on, and rated by other students. I think the code is to a point where I can show it to other people and not feel too embarrassed :>

I'm writing this module as part of a research project I'm involved with at Brigham Young University. We are studying the effect of using web2.0 type technologies in the classroom.

This semester we are using Drupal for two sections of a class as a trial run for us. You can see the site here: http://isyscore.byu.edu/drupal We decided not to use the DrupalED distribution (sorry Bill!) as it wasn't quite what we wanted but many of the features we included we're inspired by DrupalED.

Onto the module:

The core principle in our research and in creating this module is that students learn best if they teach what they learn. This module is an easy way to make students teacher/learners.

The basic workflow for this module is as follows:

1. Teacher creates writing assignment
2. Students create writing which is associated with the writing assignment
3. Students comment on and rate fellow students writing
4. All writings are copied to each student's blog where they become part of the classroom knowledge base
5. Teacher use comments and ratings for grading.

See also the attached screenshots for a visual walk through.

Some sample use cases the module supports (or will support):

1. Teacher x wants to assign students to write a 500 word essay due every week on Friday at 8pm. At the beginning of the semester she creates a writing assignment node for every week of the semester. As the semester goes on, assignments are automatically activated and ended.
2. Teacher p wants his students to turn in a rough draft a week before the final paper is due. He also wants each student to comment on other papers and rank the rough drafts according to a rubric he's created. He creates a writing assignment with a starting and ending date, a grading rubric, and sets the number of reviews per student to 3 and sets the type of review to “Students rate and comment on writing.”
3. Teacher y wants his students at the beginning of class to write a review of last nights readings. He creates a writing assignment with his questions, a grading rubric, and assigns students to grade 4 assignments using the rubric. After the class has begun, he clicks “start assignment” on the Writing Assignment admin page. Once he's seen that every student has submitted an assignment, he initiates the private message telling the students which writing nodes to grade. Once the students are done grading, he ends the assignment. Later he copies the average grade given for each student to his grading sheet.

Existing Features

• completely integrated with organic groups
• sophisticated access control based on state of the assignment: active, reviewing, ended
• e.g. if assignment = active, students can create/edit an assignment, but only view their assignment. if assignment = reviewing, students can only view the writings assigned to them to review but can't view/edit their writing. And so forth
• Writing assignments are copied to student's blog at completion of the assignment.
• Assignments are organized by taxonomy

Future Features

• Start and end assignments automatically
• Teacher can set a required word count – e.g. Assignment must have 500 words
• Simplified user interface for teacher/student
• Teachers can create scoring rubric for student to use while grading content
• Report page for each writing assignment listing average rating for each student
• Create default views for displaying finished assignments
• Choose between using regular email or the Drupal's internal private messaging system.
• (way out in the future) – Create inline commenting module like the one Jack Slocum built for Wordpress -- I think a system like that would be brilliant for commenting on papers such as use case #2 above.

Feedback Please

I'd love to hear feedback the module. What other use cases would you like it to support? What other features does it need? Is there anyone who could help review/write code? (This my first time writing in PHP / Drupal so I'm sure my code is sub-par in places)

Also, this module is part of a research project. If you use this module in a classroom, we'd love to hear back about your experiences.

Download the module from its project page.

Module work is sponsored by the Kevin and Debra Rollins Center for Ebusiness