Are you a student that's recently signed up to Grok? A massive Grok welcome to you!
You're probably wondering where to start. Never fear! Here is our ultimate Student Guide to Grokking like a pro.
It's best if you add your school to your account on Grok. Sometimes we can't give you access to the course you need until we know which school you're at. Depending on how your account was created, your Grok account might already have your school details. Let's check!
When you log in to Grok, you land on the Launchpad. You can always get back to the Launchpad by clicking on the Grok monkey in the top left corner of the screen.
At the top right of the Launchpad there is some information about your account. Does it have your school name here? If it does, then you can go straight to the next step! If it doesn't, let's add your school now. Follow these instructions. You don't need to be using Grok as part of your schoolwork to add your school.
When you log in to Grok, you land on the Launchpad. You can always get back to the Launchpad by clicking on the Grok monkey in the top left corner of the screen.
Think of the Launchpad like a library catalogue - it displays all courses that you can access, including those you have been assigned by your teacher.
At the top of the Launchpad it says "Hi, here's what you're working on". This shows you the course that Grok thinks you should be working on. If your teacher has assigned you a course, that course will show up here. Or if you've already started a course recently, then that course will show up here.
Grok also shows your account information and your achievements on the Launchpad. How many achievements can you collect?
There are lots of courses on Grok! To help you find something you want to try, you can use the Quick Buttons, Filters, or Search. For example, use the Language filter to pick a course in a particular language (like HTML), or use the Quick Button to find all our "Newbies" courses.
Grok is free for all Australian students. For students in other countries, some courses on Grok are free for you to access, and others need paid access. You can see what courses you can access for free in this FAQ.
To participate in the paid Grok courses & competition, you will need paid access. Your school might have already bought paid access - let's check! Go to the subscriptions section of your account. If you have a subscription listed, and it's ticked as "Active", then you already have a subscription.
The pricing for the two different kinds of subscriptions is shown on the pricing page. If you would like to do one of the paid courses or competitions, you will need to talk to your parent/guardian or teacher about purchasing a Grok subscription.
If you're an independent learner and want to buy a subscription yourself, click the red "Purchase" button on your Launchpad. Once you have purchased and paid for your subscription, you will have access to all the public Grok content. Note: Teachers have free access to all other Grok courses and competitions.
You've chosen a course from the Launchpad? Fantastic! Click the title to open the course. Here you can see all the course details.
Now click Start to begin the course. This is the Learning Interface. You can begin working through the notes and problems in the course.
The bar on the left hand side shows circle and diamond icons.
When you are ready to go on to the next slide, click on the arrow button or press the arrow key on your keyboard.
To solve a problem, write your program in the editor then click Run to test that your program works.
If you're ready, click Mark to see if your program is correct. The Submissions tab will show you feedback on your program. If your program isn't quite right yet, you will see some hints on how to fix it.
You can Mark as many times as you like (though in a competition, you should be careful as this can affect your points!). But you can only Mark if you have changed something in your code and run it again. Grok won't let you mark the same thing twice, and Grok also won't let you mark your code if you haven't run it first.
You will notice that the problems diamonds begin as white, and then will turn orange or green. The colours show you how you are going with this problem. Here is what the colours mean. In some courses, the circles will also turn green after you have finished the interactive examples on that slide.
You can complete a course by solving all of the problems. Once you've completed a course, you can download a certificate.
Not sure if you've completed all the problems? Let's check! Find the course and open it. You should see a list of all the modules with diamonds next to them. Remember, the diamond icons are Problems. If all the diamonds are green, then you've completed the course. Congratulations! 🎉🎉🎉
We also put the latest assigned course right up the top under "Here's what you're working on", so students will see it straight away.
This is the part where you shine! Which course 🤔 are you going to try next? How about a competition 🏆 with other students around the world? Even if you're at the very beginning of your coding journey, you could be a coding ninja sooner than you think!
If you have any difficulties at any time:
