It's been two weeks since Epicodus has gone fully remote in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and we've been pleasantly surprised at how well our online program has turned out. In our weekly anonymous feedback survey, one student said "I really never expected working remotely to feel so positive and social! It's terrific!" While we're looking forward to seeing our students and colleagues in-person again, we're also excited to keep offering our online program regardless of when social distancing is relaxed.
You can now sign up for our May 26th full-time online classes. Of course, if you're in Portland or Seattle, you can continue to take our classes in-person as soon as we're able, but students from anywhere in the world are welcome to join our online program (provided you can be online from 9am-5pm Pacific) with the security of knowing we'll continue to offer it regardless of stay-at-home orders.
We've carried over much of what makes the Epicodus classroom unique into our online format. We start each day at 8am Pacific time with an all-class video call, and then students pair program for the rest of the day. Since we can't physically share computers, students use Visual Studio Code's Live Share extension, which lets two people write code together in the same file at the same time (much like Google Docs). Pairs talk in a "voice channel" on a Discord chat server. Teachers drop into each pairing channel throughout the day to check on the students, and also monitor a Discord "text channel" where students can write questions. Teachers also have one-on-one meetings with students by video. At the end of each day, we have another all-class meeting to wrap up.
All of our part-time and full-time classes are now available online for our next start date on May 26. You can sign up for our online classes here. On April 25 from 11am-3pm, we have a free online information session and workshop that will use a similar format to our online class. You can sign up for the workshop and information session here.