CodePath.org SITE Course Portal Walkthrough

Hi everyone welcome to this tour of CodePath.org summer internship for tech excellence online learning portal this is the primary resource that guides interns through each day of this intensive 10 week full stack web development workshop experience the CodePath course portal is divided into three main areas first a top level menu bar is always located across the very top of the page regardless of which course in the learning portal a user is interacting with the courses menu lists all of the courses a user has access to so your menu will likely look different than the one shown here if the user is enrolled in an upcoming or currently running course their current course will be pre-selected similarly the cohorts menu then lists each of the program cohorts to which the user belongs with the nearest upcoming or currently running cohort pre-selected in my case this menu is showing the summer 2021 cohort that is scheduled to start just a few weeks from when this video is being recorded a quick links menu is also often shown which will include links to commonly used resources leveraged throughout the selected course the contents of this menu are specific to the currently selected course and cohort the CodePath.org instructional team and other staff also have access to additional top-level menus that provide access to various administrative operations the second main area of the learning portal is a navigation bar running along the left the context of which is specific to the course and cohort that is currently selected in the top level menus the instructional team may sometimes refer to this area as side links for the site pre-internship program this navigation area also contains the following set of pages the program overview page provides a high-level description of the 10-week program including the time commitment typical daily schedule program structure various policies you should be familiar with and information on how to get help throughout the program users should familiarize themselves with the contents of this page prior to the start of the program and can refer back to it as needed throughout the program after the program overview there are 10 collapsible sections that correspond to each week of the program in which users can access the core curriculum for any given day we’ll come back and explore this area in more detail in just a moment below the weekly curriculum content the submission guidelines page contains detailed instructions on how users should turn in the weekly assignments that they’ll be developing throughout the first four weeks of the program ideally users should familiarize themselves with the details on this page prior to the start of the program including the resources that are referenced from this page such as the github walkthrough and the utilities that are mentioned for creating gif walkthroughs that are used to demonstrate the applications the program participants are developing weekly assignments are submitted for review and feedback by providing the url to a github repository containing the code for that week’s assignment along with the url of an animated gif that shows the required and stretch application features that were implemented the last two side links in the nav bar contain important information about the capstone project that follows the first four weeks of program instruction the capstone app page provides an overview of the entire capstone project a breakdown of the timeline beginning with the initial planning that starts in the second week of the program and a detailed list of required and stretch features that program participants will be incorporating into their capstone project although not required it’s helpful for program participants to familiarize themselves with the contents of this page before or at the start of the first week of the program doing so will provide helpful context for participants about what they’ll be building later in the program as they work their way through the core curriculum beginning in week one the capstone pods page will be empty at the start of the program but will be used in weeks 2 and 3 to assist with the formation of capstone project teams which are referred to as capstone pods as you’ve already seen the third main area of the learning portal display occupies the majority of the screen below the top level menu and to the right of the navigation bar running along the left hand side of the page this content is specific to the side link that is currently selected in the navigation bar on the left as mentioned site is a 10-week long program with each week being represented in the left-hand navigation bar as a collapsible expandable section that contains entries for each day of that program week whenever a user loads or refreshes their view of the site program within the CodePath.org learning portal the platform will automatically navigate the user to the current day of the program for convenience however users can always navigate to any day of the program as desired when a given day of the program is selected users will see a series of tabs across the top of the central content area the exact set of tabs users see will depend on the agenda that has been planned for that day of the program the overview tab will always be visible throughout the entire program and provides a day-specific overview and agenda as well as a collapsible weekly overview section for convenience a lab tab will be shown on monday tuesday and wednesday of weeks one through four and contain all of the curriculum for a topic lab workshop in which new topics will be introduced and then program participants will have a chance to gain hands-on experience with that technology the topics introduced in these labs are key elements of the weekly assignment for that week a collapsible project details section outlines the goals for the lab a set of required and stretched features participants will be implementing and links to additional resources that will be helpful along the way following the project details section additional collapsible steps contain detailed instructions that guide participants through the lab exercise for this day an assignment tab will be visible on monday through friday of weeks 1-4 and outlines the requirements of the weekly coding assignment although this tab is a key reference throughout the week we recommend briefly reading through this tab at some point prior to the start of the topic lab workshop session each monday during the first four weeks of the program this will provide helpful context to have in mind as we kick off the week with the monday topic lab workshop such as the overall goals of the weekly coding assignment as well as the list of required and stretch features participants will be implementing it’s helpful to have those in mind as participants work through each of the three daily topic lab workshops time is provided every day for working on the assignment although participants will not have all of the conceptual pieces of the puzzle until the third topic lab is completed on wednesday but program participants should be able to get started on the weekly assignment monday afternoon and then make additional progress each day as the instructional team introduces additional concepts for most assignments a collapsible set of hints are provided at the bottom of the page that contain additional details for program participants who are stuck and need a little extra assistance beginning in week two a capstone sprint tab will be displayed and will remain visible for the duration of the program whereas the capstone app side link contains information about the overall goals and objectives of the capstone project the capstone sprint tab will contain week specific guidance on what capstone pods should be working on that week from initial capstone pod formation to the capstone proposal phase and on through the capstone app build out during the last half of the program in addition to the core curriculum of daily topic lab workshops weekly assignments and a multi-week capstone project the site program also includes several 60-90 minute tech taste workshops led by a combination of site instructional team members program partner companies and other industry professionals that are designed to introduce program participants to new topics that are beyond the scope of our core curriculum but very relevant to the field of full stack web application development these tech taste tabs make their first appearance in week two with two tech tastes being offered each of the last five weeks of the program as speakers and topics are confirmed for a given run of the site program the contents of these tabs will be updated that’s it for the main features of the site program within the CodePath.org learning portal but there are two additional things I’d like to call your attention to before we wrap up this tour first if you encounter pages within the site program curriculum that are confusing or broken in some manner please use this little paper airplane icon to let us know this form will automatically submit your feedback with the identity of the page that is currently selected in the left-hand navigation area checking the page needs review button will alert the CodePath.org team that there is a bug on the current page that needs to be addressed as soon as possible you can leave that box unchecked if you just want to provide general feedback including praise if you found a particular lab page or other resource particularly valuable lastly for now at least the check box like list item markers throughout the lab and assignment tabs are just visual cues that represent there is something for you to do here you cannot actually check or uncheck them so this is not a bug that needs to be reported however for each weekly assignment a readme file template will be provided that program participants will submit as part of their assignment for that week these readme files include a section for participants to check off features as they are implemented by simply putting an x within the square brackets associated with a given feature by the end of the week all required features should be checked off in this manner I hope you have found this tour of the summer internship for tech excellence program within the CodePath.org learning portal helpful if you have any issues accessing the portal please email support CodePath.org for assistance and when applicable please include a screenshot showing the issue you’re having if you are about to embark on your own learning journey into full stack web application development by participating in the site program I wish you the best of luck and hope you enjoy the program