You signed in with another tab or window. Reload to refresh your session.You signed out in another tab or window. Reload to refresh your session.You switched accounts on another tab or window. Reload to refresh your session.Dismiss alert
Name: Matt Hall
Age (or age range): 28
What FAC cohort were you? FACN4 Nazareth/ Joined FAC14 at the end
Exactly the same curriculum, did react before student projects.
What did you do before and after the course?
When I was 15, I started doing freelance html and css, then at 17 I started up a website business, and at 18 I went to university. After uni I went to a digital agency called ‘razor fish’, where I did digital/design strategy. Then I went traveling for four months to south america and started up a digital agency doing advertising and traveled around the world. Then I did FAC in July. Took Freelance Clients whilst doing FAC then after went to taiwan Philippines and Hong Kong.
Do you know what type of learner you are? (Visual, Kinaesthetic, Oral, Verbal)
I am a practical learner. I am strongest when applying knowledge which is why I love FAC. As you guys know you do a lot of theory and then at the end you do a project.
Learning Experience & course curriculum on GitHub 🎓 (7 mins)
How did you find accessing the course curriculum on GitHub and what did you find most and least helpful in the information to enhance your learning?
I felt like it was a good way to learn because of how central github is to programming. At first I was a bit like what the hell is this but it is a useful skill. It also makes the curriculum open source to have it on github.
Least helpful thing was how dispersed the course information is. There is no cohesive overview of everything in the course. React and design week fit a bit outside of the normal curricum.
How often have you revisited the curriculum during and after the course?
During the course, everyday, in terms of afterwards probably 2-3 times a week. To give context, when you do FAC in London its intense, but when you do it in nazareth its your life. During the week we were really focused solely on the course. Also what is slightly different from the London course, the Naz course has more international and Arab students - this causes a large gap between the best and the worst users as they often have not done as much coding as the british students. This meant that sometimes you could not complete the whole course during the day as you had to help other students with their problems so sometimes in the evening we would continue working.
Organising and navigating online learning materials 📂 (6 mins)
How do you organise and navigate your general online learning resources?
I am bad at organisation so I do a lot off the whim. Realistically it was a combination of through memory and also through using Evernote. So keeping notes of different things that A) i had missed or B) I hadn’t understood.
What online learning platforms have you used? If so what progress indicators did you like?
I have used Free code camp, Codewars, Code Academy, Edex, Coursera. In my mind they split up into two different groups. Coursera and Edex I liked because there were progress indicators and you had an experience and user journey. Because these courses were quite long that was quite important. It was also nice that the app synced with the internet. I also felt that the quality of the material was quite high with universities names associated.
In terms of FCC and Codewars. I liked that you could programme within the experience, so its more practical. I also liked the gamification and also instant gratification, you know instantly if you’re doing stuff right and they give you good hints.
Monitoring / Tracking of your progress on the Course 📊 (7 mins)
How do you track your progress through FAC workshops at present? If not, why not?
I think i didn’t track my progress other than what I said earlier. Why did i not ? A) because there was so much to do that it was hard to see the bigger picture B) I didn’t feel far behind so I didn’t feel like i needed to as I was doing so much on a day to day basis. There’s also no real good way of doing that either.
Do you think it would have been helpful to monitor progress? If so, what would you have liked to monitor?
For me not necessarily, it wouldn't have changed my FAC experience. That may be because I could keep up, also I had plenty of spare time. I know that if i lived in London it may not have been like this because London takes over. But generally speaking from what I have observed and for some of the students who struggled more It would definitely be useful. With tracking in general: something that shows when have i done this and I have not done this would be useful. A way to note how you found a subject area would also be nice. Traffic lights would be great - it could give you the overview of ‘im really good at this but maybe I should work on that’. Big picture (stretch goal), allowing the course facilitator/ mentors to see how people are feeling about the course would be great. If they could access this information they could use spare FAC time more efficiently. Would also be cool if it suggested additional resources or included additional ramification. notification to say “don't forget about this workshop you didn’t complete”.
Was there any reason that you did not complete all of the workshops/challenges on the curriculum?
Yes completed most of them more or less.
Use of, and features of a potential MVP 📋 (5 mins)
What do you believe an app to track your progress would help you to achieve?
The only thing I would say that not necessarily for me but for FAC in general. It might also help us get around human bias and blindspots.
If you could track your progress, what type of metrics would be useful to you?
I think progress bars more useful than bar charts, generally speaking having different views in terms of weekly view/ daily view and overall view. High, medium, low in terms of measuring things, I like these kinds of measurements to be kept simple. And some gameification is always nice.
How much time would you ideally invest in tracking your progress?
Realistically I would probably use it for the first week and then not again, If the course was done through the app and would then link back to the different courses as needed a bit like the FCC shell, I would be a lot more likely to use it because it would be much easier. In terms of how long I wouldn’t want it to be more than 5/10 minutes
If a progress tracker app would be useful to you, would you want it to work with other resources (e.g. non FAC, non Github.)
Factor in pre-application stuff and how it could support applicants, then they can get used to it before they start the course. My organisation was not so good and because the pre-requrs were quite scattered doing them could feel quite disjointed at times. In terms of after the course it’s difficult because everyone’s plans are so different it would be hard to please most people.
Would it be useful to see your peers progress with workshops?
If they haven’t done it because they are lazy it might help motivate them. However the more common case might be that they are struggling or they don’t get it. There is the potential that something like that could make them even worse. You could have a feature that alerts the mentor or pastoral career instead though. Could be a dashboard that the carer could access. From my experience for some of the students it could have demotivated them even more if they could see it.
The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered:
Interview Questions ❓
About the Interviewee ( 3 mins) 👩 👨
When I was 15, I started doing freelance html and css, then at 17 I started up a website business, and at 18 I went to university. After uni I went to a digital agency called ‘razor fish’, where I did digital/design strategy. Then I went traveling for four months to south america and started up a digital agency doing advertising and traveled around the world. Then I did FAC in July. Took Freelance Clients whilst doing FAC then after went to taiwan Philippines and Hong Kong.
I am a practical learner. I am strongest when applying knowledge which is why I love FAC. As you guys know you do a lot of theory and then at the end you do a project.
Learning Experience & course curriculum on GitHub 🎓 (7 mins)
I felt like it was a good way to learn because of how central github is to programming. At first I was a bit like what the hell is this but it is a useful skill. It also makes the curriculum open source to have it on github.
Least helpful thing was how dispersed the course information is. There is no cohesive overview of everything in the course. React and design week fit a bit outside of the normal curricum.
During the course, everyday, in terms of afterwards probably 2-3 times a week. To give context, when you do FAC in London its intense, but when you do it in nazareth its your life. During the week we were really focused solely on the course. Also what is slightly different from the London course, the Naz course has more international and Arab students - this causes a large gap between the best and the worst users as they often have not done as much coding as the british students. This meant that sometimes you could not complete the whole course during the day as you had to help other students with their problems so sometimes in the evening we would continue working.
Organising and navigating online learning materials 📂 (6 mins)
I am bad at organisation so I do a lot off the whim. Realistically it was a combination of through memory and also through using Evernote. So keeping notes of different things that A) i had missed or B) I hadn’t understood.
I have used Free code camp, Codewars, Code Academy, Edex, Coursera. In my mind they split up into two different groups. Coursera and Edex I liked because there were progress indicators and you had an experience and user journey. Because these courses were quite long that was quite important. It was also nice that the app synced with the internet. I also felt that the quality of the material was quite high with universities names associated.
In terms of FCC and Codewars. I liked that you could programme within the experience, so its more practical. I also liked the gamification and also instant gratification, you know instantly if you’re doing stuff right and they give you good hints.
Monitoring / Tracking of your progress on the Course 📊 (7 mins)
For me not necessarily, it wouldn't have changed my FAC experience. That may be because I could keep up, also I had plenty of spare time. I know that if i lived in London it may not have been like this because London takes over. But generally speaking from what I have observed and for some of the students who struggled more It would definitely be useful. With tracking in general: something that shows when have i done this and I have not done this would be useful. A way to note how you found a subject area would also be nice. Traffic lights would be great - it could give you the overview of ‘im really good at this but maybe I should work on that’. Big picture (stretch goal), allowing the course facilitator/ mentors to see how people are feeling about the course would be great. If they could access this information they could use spare FAC time more efficiently. Would also be cool if it suggested additional resources or included additional ramification. notification to say “don't forget about this workshop you didn’t complete”.
Yes completed most of them more or less.
Use of, and features of a potential MVP 📋 (5 mins)
The only thing I would say that not necessarily for me but for FAC in general. It might also help us get around human bias and blindspots.
I think progress bars more useful than bar charts, generally speaking having different views in terms of weekly view/ daily view and overall view. High, medium, low in terms of measuring things, I like these kinds of measurements to be kept simple. And some gameification is always nice.
Realistically I would probably use it for the first week and then not again, If the course was done through the app and would then link back to the different courses as needed a bit like the FCC shell, I would be a lot more likely to use it because it would be much easier. In terms of how long I wouldn’t want it to be more than 5/10 minutes
Factor in pre-application stuff and how it could support applicants, then they can get used to it before they start the course. My organisation was not so good and because the pre-requrs were quite scattered doing them could feel quite disjointed at times. In terms of after the course it’s difficult because everyone’s plans are so different it would be hard to please most people.
If they haven’t done it because they are lazy it might help motivate them. However the more common case might be that they are struggling or they don’t get it. There is the potential that something like that could make them even worse. You could have a feature that alerts the mentor or pastoral career instead though. Could be a dashboard that the carer could access. From my experience for some of the students it could have demotivated them even more if they could see it.
The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered: