Students of Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology (DAIICT) took group study to an entire new level during one of their recent in semester examinations.
Students were given a random set of questions by the professor and were supposed to find their answers and treat them as the syllabus of the upcoming examination. Everyone was completely clueless. It was all messed up and last minute panic had already kicked in for those who gave a damn.
But necessity is the mother of Jugaad.
One of the students made a document on Google Doc and make it public and editable by everyone. He put all the questions on it and wrote a tiny foreword telling people to fill in answers and links. All questions which were in more probability of being asked in the examination were asked to be +1'ed.
Initially the doc wasn't filled up completely but as the night before the exam began, the doc was being viewed by as many as 70 people and most of them were editing and adding answers.
It was really wonderful seeing such massive collaboration. The document was the single source of information for many of the clueless students.
There were at times when 50 people were editing at the same time and Google didn't allow any further editors on the document. But all of us could read it anyway.
But it was not that smooth and simple. There were many cases of people writing complete bull shit and going completely off topic taking advantage of their anonymity. But any crap written was removed very quickly by other more serious editors. A sense of community.
There were also instances in which people selected the whole text and deleted it and thereby sending many students in panic and giving them tiny heart attacks. These instances increased as soon dawn was breaking, and so were people's hopes about the exam. But thank god for revision history, peace was instilled quickly.
In all, its an wonderful example of who technology can be used for mass collaboration.
Everyone has the same technology, its just about how you use it and make the most of it.
A video about massive collaboration which really amused me in my freshmen year. Its an must watch for everybody. Creativity is endless.
Students were given a random set of questions by the professor and were supposed to find their answers and treat them as the syllabus of the upcoming examination. Everyone was completely clueless. It was all messed up and last minute panic had already kicked in for those who gave a damn.
But necessity is the mother of Jugaad.
One of the students made a document on Google Doc and make it public and editable by everyone. He put all the questions on it and wrote a tiny foreword telling people to fill in answers and links. All questions which were in more probability of being asked in the examination were asked to be +1'ed.
Initially the doc wasn't filled up completely but as the night before the exam began, the doc was being viewed by as many as 70 people and most of them were editing and adding answers.
It was really wonderful seeing such massive collaboration. The document was the single source of information for many of the clueless students.
There were at times when 50 people were editing at the same time and Google didn't allow any further editors on the document. But all of us could read it anyway.
But it was not that smooth and simple. There were many cases of people writing complete bull shit and going completely off topic taking advantage of their anonymity. But any crap written was removed very quickly by other more serious editors. A sense of community.
There were also instances in which people selected the whole text and deleted it and thereby sending many students in panic and giving them tiny heart attacks. These instances increased as soon dawn was breaking, and so were people's hopes about the exam. But thank god for revision history, peace was instilled quickly.
In all, its an wonderful example of who technology can be used for mass collaboration.
Everyone has the same technology, its just about how you use it and make the most of it.
A video about massive collaboration which really amused me in my freshmen year. Its an must watch for everybody. Creativity is endless.
