ada jean

Fundamental computing concepts -- from multiple perspectives.

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Inspiration

Computer science enrollments are rising across the country -- and at our own schools. As professors struggle to meet the needs of their bigger classes, we want to make sure no one, of any learning style, is left behind.

You can always look up a vocab term, but often, CS education resources only present a concept in one way. Students are familiar with the process of surfing a dozen different websites to understand a single concept. We put it all together. ada jean explains each fundamental in four ways.

Two of our three team members aren't programmers. We were building an app for beginners, and it was key that beginners built it. We decided on the best way to teach linked lists by spending our first hour teaching linked lists to our beginning members!

What it does

ada jean is a one-stop website for understanding computing concepts. We "teach" each foundational piece through motivation, analogy, diagram, and code.

How we built it

We used HTML/CSS and the bootstrap framework to build a multi-page, functional website. It also displays equally well on mobile phones. We hosted the website on Github pages so it can be accessed from any device.

Challenges we ran into

None of us had solid experience with front-end development (and only one of us had coding experience). Every step, from setting up the project to adding a single button, took a very long time. We ended up scaling back our project to a single concept and static pages.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We started the hackathon with two programmers and two newbies. One of our programmers had a conflict and had to leave, so we built the project with a majority-beginner team. That was a challenge but also gave us a perspective we needed!

We built a functioning mobile and web app!

What we learned

We have a much better foundation in HTML/CSS and Bootstrap. We also got a better handle on project scope and management.

What's next for ada jean

Ideally, we would expand the site with more content. Contributors could also provide their own perspectives. We would like to add interactive features like quizzes, build your own data structure, etc.

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