Introduction


Learning

A learning challenge typically consists of multiple units. Each unit will cover a particular big data tool. In this week’s in-class introductory learning challenge, there is only one unit. The tool this unit covers is D3, a super popular data visulization framework based on JavaScript.

D3 Learning Unit

Journal

As you are going through the tutorial article, we want you to document your learning process by keeping a simple journal. You will use the Markdown text formatting syntax to write this journal and submit it along with other materials (e.g., images, links) as a git repository to Github.

But for the purpose of this exercise, we will use Gist instead. A journal template has already been created for you as a gist, listed below.

Here is the direct link to the gist submission template.

Fork this gist. The simplest method is to create a blank gist and then copy and paste the content of the template gist into your new gist. Then, you can start editing the gist, entering your name, email address, answers…etc. An advanced method is to create a fork of the template gist. You may find this tool useful.

Screenshots

How can screenshots be submitted? Typically, you will simply add them to your submission git repository. But for the purpose of this introductory exercise, use Imgur. Upload the two checkpoint screenshots to Imgur, a free and simple image sharer. After uploading, you will get an URL to each uploaded image (e.g., http://imgur.com/NVuxUdt). you can easily infer the absolute URL to this image (e.g., http://i.imgur.com/NVuxUdt.png). Then, you can enter this URL to your journal markdown template.

Submission

After you have filled out your journal, how are you going to submit it? Normally, you will use a Github repository to handle all of your submissions. You will first fork a Gist repository containing the journal template of the week. After you are done, you will make a pull request.

Since we are using Gist for now, we will use a different method to collect your submisison. We will use a Google Sheet.

  Submission Spreadsheet

Follow this link to this collection spreadsheet. We will also take this opportunity to take your contact information too. Please enter your name, email address, Github account id (create an account now if you don’t have one already), and the URL to your gist.