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 'My Learning' page. You can always get back to this screen at any time by clicking on the Grok logo in the top left corner of the screen.
At the top right of your screen (click on your name), there is some information about your account. Does it have your school name here under 'Institutions'? 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 'My Learning' page.
Think of this like a library catalogue - it displays all courses that you have been assigned by your teacher and you can also 'Browse all Courses' to see what else is available.
If your teacher has assigned you a course or you have already started one, that course will show up here.
Grok also shows your account information and your achievements. How many achievements can you collect?
There are lots of courses on Grok! Make sure you click the 'Browse all Courses' button to see what else you can learn. You can use the Filters or just the Search bar. For example, use the 'Technology' filter to pick a course in a particular language (like HTML, Blockly, SQL etc) or the 'Content Type' button to search for courses or competitions.
Grok is free for all Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand students in 2025. For students in other countries, some courses on Grok are free, and others you will need to pay for. You can see what courses you can access for free in this FAQ.
To participate in the competitions, you will need paid access. Your school might have already paid for 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.
If you would like access to the courses or competitions, you will need to talk to your parent/guardian or teacher about purchasing a Grok subscription. Get them to email us at help@grokacademy.org
If you're an independent learner and want to buy a subscription yourself, click the red "Purchase" button. Once you have purchased and paid for your subscription, you will have access to all Grok courses and competitions. Note: Teachers have free access to all other Grok courses and competitions but need to go through our verification process before teacher access is granted.
You've chosen a course? Fantastic! Click the title to open it, here you can see all the course details.
Now click Start to begin the course. To understand how the interface works, click here. You can begin working through the notes and problems in the course.
The bar on the left hand side shows circle and diamond icons. These are the slides.
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 problem 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! 🎉🎉🎉
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 journey, you could be a coding ninja sooner than you think!
If you have any difficulties at any time:
