Keep Calm
and
Coding

What About Badges?

• You are still free to use the badges as the basis for what you work on, but...
• I will NOT be requiring any specific badges nor using them to calculate points for the semester
• Your grade for the semester will be something mutually agreed upon with your instructor after a 1-on-1 meeting, and based on your ability to answer the two questions (see later slides) and back it up with evidence of your accomplishment.

Communication Channels

• Best way to contact Morgan is via Slack
  https://code4yourlife.slack.com
• Please only use email for longer, more-sensitive communications
• Between 10am-2pm MWF I'll be available on WebEx
  https://jmu.webex.com/meet/bentonmc

Slack Channels 

• #general is "announcements only", i.e. only Morgan can post there
• #saying-hi is for socializing, hanging out, whatever you'd like to chat about
• #helpful-resources is a place that anyone and everyone can post links to things that they've found useful for any reason. Please do NOT socialize here to keep the signal-to-noise ratio high.
• #[name-of-language] channels are for specific questions or comments about a specific language, e.g. python, javascript, etc.
• #i-made-this is for showing off stuff that you have done to the rest of the class
• Feel free to create new channels. Please lean towards topics that would be generally useful to everyone, but this is your forum. So please take over.

Slack Features 

• Preferences
  • Please turn on notifications for at least @mentions
  • Skim through the rest of the preferences to set things like themes, and interaction styles
• Please go to the "Details" (upper right corner button) for each channel to set your notifications level
• @mentions will almost always notify the person/people that you mention about whatever your message. Please use them sensitively, i.e. don't spam us constantly with @everyone
• Also, please update your profile with your avatar :)

Ok, Yeah, but What are we supposed to be actually doing???

Two Objectives

I have only two objectives for each member of this class:

• Do you like coding?
• Do you think that you could be good at it?

You should be able to answer these questions definitively by the end of the semester.

You actually have to write some code to find out whether or not this is something you enjoy!

End-of-semester chat

At the end of the semester, Morgan will have a one-on-one chat session with each person in the class. We will talk about how the class went for you, and what the answers to the 2 key questions are for you.

You do NOT have to wait until the end of the semester to chat with me about these questions (or anything at all, really).

Yeah, but what code should I be writing?

• Key point: follow your nose, do what seems interesting at the time
• If you're having trouble coming up with ideas, or if you need guidance on what might be "at your level" please feel free to ping me in Slack or setup a chat session.
• Here are ideas: https://code4your.life/badges/isat-448/do-code-katas/