Welcome to React Development

Overview This lesson serves as the kick-off for your React Development course. Whether you’re delivering this course online or in person, in a 1-week, accelerated or 10-week, part-time format, take the first hour or so of your time together to start things off on the right foot.

This lesson is designed to introduce yourself and GA and get the students comfortable and excited to learn. After that, there’s a brief review of the pre-work.

Learning Objectives In this lesson, students will:
Define class expectations and norms.
Understand key concepts introduced in the pre-work.
Duration 60 minutes
Before Class: Preparation
Update the following slides with specific information about you, your class, your city, and your local support team.
Take some time to consider your expectations for learners, and be prepared to talk about them.
Choose an “ice breaker” to run that will allow learners to get to know one another in a fun, informal, low-stakes way. We have a list of activities here for you to choose from (as well as other good slides to copy). If you have some good ones, feel free to share your ideas with us!
Before class, review completion data to understand how far your learners have progressed through the myGA pre-work. – If most of your learners have completed the pre-work, you should be able to breeze through this lesson very quickly. – If most of your learners have not completed all of the pre-work, you might want to spend more time on this lesson and reduce your timings for the rest of the lessons in Unit 1.
In Class: Materials
Projector
Internet connection

Agenda

Here’s what we’ll cover:

Instructional team and classmate introductions.
About General Assembly.
Course structure.
The final project.
Key concepts from the myGA pre-work.

Meet Your Instructor

{Insert your name}

{Insert your email address.}
{Insert key facts about yourself and your career.}
{Insert your current role.}
{Insert cool companies/brands you’ve worked with.}
{Insert one fun fact about you.}

Meet Your Support Team

{Insert IA’s name}

{Insert IA’s email address.}
{Insert key facts about IA and IA’s career.}
{Insert cool companies/brands IA hopes to work with.}
{Insert one fun fact about IA.}

Front Lines

Have a question about:

The campus?
Lost and found?
Loaner equipment?
Free coffee and snacks?

Come here to talk to Front Lines and they will help you out.

{Picture of the local Front Lines desk.}

More Great People

{Bulleted list of names and roles}

Classroom Culture

Let’s all agree to:

Treat each other with respect.
Avoid bringing distractions into class.
{Add more…}

More Great People: You! Meet Your Classmates

Please share:

Your name.
Why you’re taking this course.
Your favorite website or app.
Three things that were on your bedroom wall when you were a teenager.

Ice Breaker

Create Your Own Web Warrior

You have five minutes to create your coder alter ego: https://www.marvelhq.com/create-your-own-super-hero.
When you are finished, share your avatar with a partner. Why did you make your particular choices? What is your superpower when it comes to web development? What is your Kryptonite?

What Is General Assembly?

More than 20 global campuses across 6 countries.
A thriving alumni community of 50,000+ full- and part-time graduates.
Corporate training with 350+ companies, including more than 40 of the Fortune 100.
500,000+ attendees at bootcamps, workshops, and events.

What Is General Assembly’s Mission?

“GA was founded on the principle of empowering people to pursue the work they love. Since we opened our first campus in 2011, we have had the privilege of working with students, governments, and the world’s largest companies to create opportunities to radically transform careers and economic prospects.”

— Jake Schwartz, Founder + CEO, General Assembly

Student Experience

Come work on campus!

We’re open:

{8am - 10pm, Monday to Friday}
{10am - 6pm, Saturday and Sunday}

Map of the Campus

{If possible; otherwise, remove this slide.}

Snack Calendar

There’s a lot of work ahead, and you’re going to need fuel.

{Link to snack calendar.}

Moving On to Course Specifics…

OK, we know that GA is cool!

And your classmates are cool.

Now, let’s talk about the course.

Computer Setup

In this course, you’ll need:

A Mac, PC, or Linux machine.
Access to the internet.
Slack.

WiFi: GA-GUEST pw: yellowpencil

Office Hours

Help us help you!

{Mondays / Wednesdays}: {5:30pm - 6:30pm}

How to Get a Certificate of Completion

Complete 80% of the homework.
Don’t miss more than three classes.
Complete the final project.

Course Materials

Lecture decks and activity prompts can be downloaded as PDFs. However, you are encouraged to take your own notes throughout the course.

Homework

Homework isn’t graded but serves as good practice.
We will review assignments in class the day they’re due.

Your Final Project

Each day, you’ll build skills in React and understand different ways in which you can use it to build applications.
At the end of {Day 4 or the ninth week}, you’ll choose a final project focus.
On {Day 5 or the 10th week}, you’ll build an application in React in class based on your project focus area.
At the end of {Day 5 or the 10th week}, you’ll demo your project for the class.

When to Use React

If your project involves many components with different, often-changing states (e.g., active/inactive navigation items, accordion sections expanded/collapsed, dynamic inputs, buttons active/disabled, user login and access permissions).

When NOT to Use React

Other programming languages exist; React isn’t great for everything! Avoid using React with:

Devices with limited hardware capabilities.
Webpage widgets such as Botsplash Chat that are installed on third-party websites.

Q&A and Summary

What other questions do you have?