CompSci teachers panic as Replit pulls the plug on educational IDE
- Reference: 1700551993
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/11/21/comp_sci_panic/
- Source link:
"To focus on improving the Replit experience for all users, we have made the difficult decision to deprecate Teams for Edu ... Teams for Edu will no longer receive new features or bug fixes, and we will suspend the creation of new Teams and Orgs," a statement from Replit, [1]shared with educators and brought to our attention on Monday by Reg readers, declared last week.
The platform provided a collaborative integrated development environment (IDE) tailored toward classrooms. It allowed students to work together on projects at the same time, similar to Google Docs, as well as automating code evaluation to streamline assessments carried out by teachers.
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The decision has [3]sparked frustration among many educators who'd invested heavily in the platform since Replit made the plan available for free in early 2022.
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"Computer science teachers in the last 48 hours have had to scramble to try to find alternatives as soon as possible and it will be the students that suffer," a teacher based in Asia-Pacific told The Register . "Replit was the only organization we are aware of providing online coding with instant assessment and so it was a hugely popular choice with computer science teachers."
In a Xeet last week, CEO Amjad Masad acknowledged the pain the decision to shut down Teams for Education was likely to cause, but said the current system had become economically nonviable.
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"It was a super tough decision but the product was losing a ton of money for the business because it required constant maintenance and support," he [7]said . "It was also compute expensive and was a target for a lot of abuse. Our goal right now is [to] orient the company towards long term sustainability, because otherwise we won't be around to fulfill our mission."
[8]With all eyes on OpenAI, Meta drags its Responsible AI team to the recycle bin
[9]OpenAI staff threaten to leave if ousted CEO Altman is not reinstated
[10]UK won't rush to regulate AI, says first-ever minister for digital brainboxes
[11]You get a Copilot, and you get a Copilot – Microsoft now the Copilot company
Replit noted that it will continue to offer its free plan, but it's not clear at what point existing educational users will be cut off. We suspect the inability to add teams or orgs could present challenges for teachers trying to start classes in the new year.
The organization has said it will work with educators to move away from the service and provide notice when product access would be removed. The Register has asked Replit for comment on its decision and clarification on its timeline – we'll let you know if we hear back.
According to a [12]blog post by Scottish Teachers Advancing Computing Science (STACS), it appears educators have been advised to fork copies of their projects in Replit Teams onto their personal accounts.
Replit's decision to shutter its Teams for Education suite came just as the development startup [13]announced a singular plan, called Replit Core, which it plans to invest in moving forward.
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According to the launch blog, Replit Core is a $220 a year AI-assisted IDE powered by OpenAI's GPT-4 large language model, which it claims can automatically generate and debug code snippets. To us this sounds an awful lot like Microsoft's GitHub Copilot. ®
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[1] https://twitter.com/angryepicbanana/status/1725022939337175514
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/devops&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZVyN09@HyK3gKzyDDDi5tAAAAIA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://ask.replit.com/t/the-end-of-teams-for-education/82771
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/devops&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZVyN09@HyK3gKzyDDDi5tAAAAIA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/devops&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZVyN09@HyK3gKzyDDDi5tAAAAIA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/devops&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZVyN09@HyK3gKzyDDDi5tAAAAIA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://twitter.com/amasad/status/1724562539479281834
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/20/meta_responsible_ai/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/20/openai_staff_threaten_to_leave/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/17/uk_ai_regulation/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/15/microsoft_ignite_copilot/
[12] https://www.stacs.scot/news-database/replit-teams-for-education
[13] https://blog.replit.com/replit-core
[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/devops&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZVyN09@HyK3gKzyDDDi5tAAAAIA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Furthermore ...
' "Replit was the only organization we are aware of providing online coding with instant assessment and so it was a hugely popular choice with computer science teachers." '
Which implies that the teachers aren't required to be able to mark the assignments independently. That jibes perfectly with my experience as a 16+ tutor on UK City & Guilds and Scotvec. The "tutor pack" in both cases included not only all the test questions, but in addition a crib of all the supposedly correct answers. However an electronics unit from c. 1990 was so out of date that it referred to "carbon rod resistors".
On another (but important) note, the ostensible provision for students to "work together on projects at the same time" implies everyone tinkering at the keyboard at once. This is the worst possible way to train competent programmers, as it engenders an acceptance of chaos. Working together as a team should be typified by allocation of defined roles, collaborative thought and discussion, not concurrent typing. Training of this sort goes a long way towards explaining why release code is in general such crap.
Just out of interest, one of the very best programming training tools I've encountered, (and one that continues to be useful for the experienced professional) is [1]Wiz-C . It's a C language IDE for PIC devices that can automate the majority of device configuration and has a large library of useful high level methods but outputs readable assembler listings alongside the user source and executable. Consequently, the beginner can start from "drag and drop" and progressively advance in understanding by examining the resulting code. This is the way to really learn -- by making the connection between what you type and what lands up in the executable. That's the difference between real programming skill and the merely manipulative process of "coding".
Oh, and by the way, learning to program (let alone just learning to "code") is a tiny part of computer science. My impression is that the educationalists can't see any difference and nobody has taken the trouble to find out the truth. After all, "comp sci" sounds grand enough to pass must whatever (if anything) is really being taught. We didn't even get real comp sci at uni -- just a superficial introduction to implementing the senior lecturer's pet algorithms (Oh Lord -- not recursion again!).
[1] http://www.fored.co.uk/index.html
AI Marking, ugh. Taking lecturer laziness to new levels.
I think the bigger problem is that it's really hard (in many school systems) to recruit teachers with much knowledge of the subject, let alone practical experience. And many schools barely have a budget for paper.
If the best we can do is put a random warm body in front of a class dependent on third party freebies for practical resources, we perhaps shouldn't do it at all.
Ah we want it for free
While we charge £9k in tutor fees £9k in living expenses and even more if you an overseas student.
University is a con these days another USA inspired debt manufacturing sausage mill.
Re: Ah we want it for free
It's a good point, but the article refers to teachers rather than lecturers. I think this more applies to schools than universities.
"It was a super tough decision"
Bullshit. That decision had been made the day you planned to launch the product for free.
This has to stop. Nobody is fooled any more. The standard operating mode these days is :
1) launch a free product
2) observe how users flock to it
3) declare the free product unsustainable because "some users are using excess resources"
4) cut the free product and propose a subscription plan
5) profit !
We've seen this outcome a dozen times this year already. Stop pretending that you didn't know how it would end.
Re: 2) observe how users flock to it
What happened to the old bullshit that companies are run for shareholders ?
If I was a shareholder and a company I invested in made the *spectacularly* bad decision to lock into a vendor and got burned then I'd want sackings and compensation for a poorly run company.
Where have all the grown ups gone ?
Why did I spend a chunk of my BSc learning about business processes and the imperative of finding more than one vendor for critical components ?
Using "X" because "everybody else does" isn't a sound *business* strategy.
"Replit was the only organization we are aware of providing online coding with instant assessment and so it was a hugely popular choice with computer science teachers."
It'll be like my university course when we are told long and loud that using AI is cheating, but Oh! you have to hand in assignments digitally so we can use AI marking software.
Well I'm 60, so I hand them in on paper, and pretend I'm too old to use a computer - you can get young people to believe almost anything about old people, it's fab.