Header image

 


 

Dear Go-Lab teachers,

With this email you are receiving the final Go-Lab newsletter. This summer, Go-Lab as you know it will come to an end. Our underlying technology approaches the end of its life cycle and cannot be maintained anymore. But there is also good news! The EPFL team has developed a fully new and technologically up-to-date version of Graasp (graasp.org) and you could adapt your existing ILS to this new version. You will also be able to create new ILSs or any other learning activities based on pedagogical scenario templates (inquiry learning, design thinking, computational thinking, …) and share them worldwide under creative commons licenses with the new Graasp built-in library. However, not all apps that were available in Go-Lab can be used in the new Graasp. You can find the apps that are converted to the new Graasp here. In this newsletter we will explain how to save your work and transfer it to the new Graasp and also how to build new ILSs (or other interactive learning spaces). Be aware that the old graasp.eu platform will be shut down in the Fall of 2023, after a summer transition period during which you could still export your resources but not create new ones.

 


 

Backing up and transferring your ILS to the new Graasp

In graasp.eu, you can save your ILSs as zip archives (use the “Download as zip” option in the popup menu next to the name of your ILS). Use this feature to get personal backups of your digital resources. To facilitate the export and import actions and to avoid errors, archive one ILS at a time. These archives can also be imported in graasp.org for adaptation and use. The order of the items in your ILS are not saved in the archive and you will have to recreate it manually in graasp.org. Saving a PNG image of the standalone view is a good way to get a visual backup of the order of the items (click on the “Export to cloud” icon next to your name and select “PNG image”).

To import your zip archive in the new Graasp, sign up and log in to graasp.org, click on “+ NEW ITEM”, select IMPORT ZIP and voilà. Old apps will have to be replaced manually with their new versions if they are available and also configurations of existing apps have to be redone.

Diana Dikke

 

Creating interactive learning spaces in the new Graasp

 

Working with Graasp

In graasp.org you can also create new learning spaces following a series of pedagogical templates. Tutorials for graasp.org are available online (https://go.epfl.ch/graasp-help). They are updated from time to time to reflect the regular improvements. Templates, apps, and labs are now located in the new Graasp library (https://library.graasp.org) and can be copied from there into your personal activities digitally materialized as folders and sub folders.

 


 

Stand alone view

 

Lab in Graasp

The former standalone view for students or the preview for teachers are unified under the Player service (see the figure below) and can be accessed using the 3rd icon in the cartouche or by copying its URL in the sharing dialog. There is no more limit in the number of sub folder levels you can create in activities. Just make sure you open the Player or copy the URL at the right level as this view is now available everywhere.

The typical access rights (read for viewers, write for editors, and admin for owners) and sharing preferences (private, public, or pseudonymized as the equivalent of the former account-free standalone scheme) are still available and can be set using the sharing dialog.

Denis Gillet

 

The future of Golabz

Together with the old Graasp also Golabz will come to an end. We are in touch with a Dutch initiative (Wikiwijs) to save all (still working) labs from Golabz and possibly a series of ILSs. Our Go-Lab voyage started in 2012 with the EU funded Go-Lab project Over the years we have developed Go-Lab and Graasp with the support of EU (Next-Lab and GO-GA) and several national projects. There have been many teacher workshops and meetings, scientific conferences, internal project meetings, PhD projects, and conference and journal publications. We ended with more than 1000 labs online and close to 1700 ILSs published but many many more being created and used in actual classrooms all over the world. But overall, a large and warm community of people interested in quality education and dedicated to the development and well-being of their students has emerged. This is the biggest outcome of all efforts and there is nothing more valuable than that.

Ton de Jong

 

Diana Dikke, Denis Gillet, and Ton de Jong

Go-Lab coordinating team


 

Go-Lab Consortium

 

Newsletter footer

 

Friday, 21. Aprili 2023