About Refcode
Refcode (short for Refugee Code) is a curriculum to introduce beginners to coding. It is put on by the Refugee Career Hub as part of their computer literacy program. After going through this curriculum, students will learn the basics of how to build a website, and students will know a little bit about what working as a professional developer is like.
Code
Students will learn about HTML and CSS, and will get a peek at Javascript and PHP.
Tools
Students will learn to use the tools that professional developers use to create websites. In this course, students will be introduced to Atom (an IDE or code editor), Chrome Inspect tools, GitHub Desktop, Cyberduck (an FTP client), and Freenom.com (a domain registrar).
Professional Skills
In this class we will learn about the strategies, workflows, and tools that professionals use to stay organized, communicate, and manage their time. We will learn about Agile Methodology, stand-up meetings, sprint cycles, kanban boards (with Trello), Slack chat, GitHub, and pair-programming.
Project
Each student will work towards creating a personal website by the end of the class. The student will register their own domain name and upload it to a web hosting server (provided by Refugee Career Hub).
Mentorship
Each class consists of a mix of lecture and workshops. During the workshop time, we have a number of TAs to help guide and tutor each student through the workshop and to answer questions. During the workshops we aim to have one TA in class for each student, to provide complete one-on-one attention.
Students are expected to continue working on their exercises and their project outside of class. To help facilitate this, our goal is to have each student meet one-on-one with a tutor at least once a week. This time can be used to work through exercises, ask questions, and make progress on the project. Additionally, it is a time for the tutor and student to form a friendship that extends beyond just tutoring, but may venture into other areas that the refugee student may need help with, for example cultural or language help, advice on job seeking, sharing social and professional networks, and most important of all, a being a resource that the student knows they can always count on to be there.
All graduates of the course will be matched with a mentor. Mentors are specially trained by the Career Hub and meet with the graduate once a month over a longer period (minimum of 6 months) to give continued support, advice, and friendship.