With Real-Time Collaboration, students and teachers can use the CodeHS Sandbox IDE to work together on the same coding activity live and asynchronously. Any collaborator can save changes to the program. Collaboration is just like a Google Doc! All participants can make changes to the program as well as edit file names and add new files.
Start a Collaboration Session
To start a real-time collaboration session:
Go to the Sandbox program you'd like to collaborate on.
Open the Collaborate tab in the left navigation panel.
Enable Collaboration.
Share the link that is generated with your peers! Anyone with collaboration access will be able to make changes to the program until their access is disabled.
Remember to save as you work!
Use the Disable Collaboration button to no longer collaborate on a program together.
You can also enable collaboration via the share button, located at the top of the Code Editor:
When a collaborator opens the link, they'll be able to code with you on your program:
Disable Collaboration
Anyone with the link will be able to continue making changes to the program at any time until you select the Disable the Collaboration button.
To stop collaborating:
Open the Collaborate tab in the left navigation panel of the Code Editor.
Click Disable Collaboration. You can always re-enable Collaboration later!
Forking a Program
If you'd like to make a copy of a program to work on in your own Sandbox, click Fork:
This will create a new copy of the program in your own Sandbox where you can continue to edit. These edits will not transfer to the original program.
Collaboration with Karel Programs
Note: Collaborating in a Karel program is only available when the original owner keeps the program open.
Once the original program owner logs out or disables the collaboration session in a Karel program, the guest user will see a message at the top of the Code Editor: "The owner of this project has stopped collaborating. Your changes won't be saved. You may have to reload the page."
To begin or restart a collaboration session in a Karel program, click the Share button at the top of the code editor, click on the Collaborate tab, and then share the collaboration link with others.
Collaboration Chat (Beta)
Teachers can enable Collaborate Chat for their students to chat with each other while collaborating in the Sandbox.
Check out this article for more info: Collaboration Chat
Collaboration Troubleshooting
Students unable to email or send links to each other
If students aren't able to directly email or otherwise send links to each other, you can use this sheet to collect and distribute program links - feel free to make a copy for use with your class!
Collaboration Limitations
Collaboration is not available in block coding programs such as Music (Blockly).
The following program types are also limited to synchronous collaboration:
Processing
React Native
Bit Interpreter
SQL
Python 2
Valid Usernames
Students may need to Change their username before using the collaboration feature. Fully valid usernames cannot contain numbers or symbols. This can be done in account settings.
Assignment Collaboration
With Assignment Collaboration, a teacher can launch any of their student's assignments and begin to collaborate in real-time! Learn more about Assignment Collaboration.
Still have questions? Contact our team at hello@codehs.com to learn more!