Introduction
Welcome to the second lesson of the Introduction course. Hopefully you’ve had a nice start, and started to familiarise yourself with your learning environment. Remember, if you have questions to use Teams and we will be there to help. Be sure to go through everything in the lesson, and then complete the lesson assignment at the end.
Teams
Teams is our LMS (Learning Management Platform) and primary hub for communication. Here you’ll find all the information and resources you need as a student. It will serve as your digital classroom.
The front-end development programme uses Teams as a way for students to chat between students, but also to message tutors for assistance. It’s a really useful tool to get quick feedback and direction.
Classes that are active on Teams tend to produce the best results, and staying active and chatting with fellow students and asking tutors for help is an important part of your studies.
Delivery
When you gain access to a new subject you will receive access to the course assignment on Teams.
Refer to your progression plan for the deadlines. Normally, all assignments and projects are to be delivered before Sundays at 23:59, unless stated otherwise.
Reflective journal
We recommend that students create their own reflective journal which they maintain throughout the course. It is important to be aware that the reflective journal is not for the tutors, but for you as a student and learner. This is very useful when it comes to writing reports, as you won’t need to cast your mind back to the beginning of a process. It’s up to you how you achieve this, but we recommend tools like Obsidian or Notion.
What should it include?
• Points that you found especially interesting in your reading, and would like to follow up in more detail.
• Questions that came up in your mind, because of points made in material you read on this topic.
• Notes from other material you read as a result of the course - whether this was publications cited, or relevant material that you happened to read (such as newspaper articles).
• A record of everything you read in this subject area, while you’re doing the course, with a sentence or two on the main points an article was making and how useful you found it.
• Your reflections on this course, and how well it is meeting your needs.
• How your learning in this course is related to what you’re learning in other ways.
• Thoughts that aren’t yet fully formed, but that you want to refine later. This could include your feelings about the course and your progress in it, and theories that are developing in your mind.
Each time you submit your reflective journal, think back over everything you’ve done since the last time. Which sources did you learn most from? Which did you learn least from, and why was that? Did you know the material already? Write a paragraph or two about the sources of your new learning.
Maintain it
Maintain your journal. Get used to writing every day, for instance after you’ve completed the lesson assignments. Reflect both on the lessons you’ve read, the videos you’ve watched, and the assignments you’ve done. Whenever you come across something interesting and relevant to your current module - or the course as a whole - put it in your journal.
LinkedIn Learning
All students get free access to the entire training library at LinkedIn Learning featuring Lynda videos. From time to time, we will refer to videos that you must watch from this library.
You can only access LinkedIn Learning via student.noroff.no or with the OneLogin browser plugin. Before watching a video please ensure you are logged into student.noroff.no, and click the “LinkedIn Learning” box.
This is an important resource that allows you to learn about subjects outside of the course material in this course. A well rounded developer has a wide knowledge of the field, even if they don’t handle backend concepts on a daily basis.
Progression plans
You’ll always find an updated progression plan in the files tab on your class Team.
This will give you an overview of your current lessons, module assignments, course assignments and projects dates. The modules are divided up in weeks so you can easily know how much time you should spend on each of them.
Please note that the progression plan dates might change slightly, especially for dates that are more than 6 months from the published version. Published dates are always included in the progression plan name. We will always make you aware of these changes if they are necessary.
Lesson task
Extracting from progression plan
• Download your progression plan, and open it.
• Find the deadlines for all Course Assignments and Projects.
• Make a note of the deadlines. You will receive automated reminders. Set a manual reminder the week before the deadline to remind yourself that it’s upcoming.