Free online application development school for Windows 8

Friends, we are pleased to announce that from April 1, together with the National Open University "Intuit", we are launching a free online application development school for Windows 8. If you are not yet able to program under Windows 8, then this is exactly what will help you learn .



Sign up for a training course here: aka.ms/w8school

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The course lasts 6 + 3 weeks and includes lectures, online consultations, laboratory and coursework. Lectures and consultations are conducted by employees of Microsoft Russia (Department of Strategic Technologies).

Theoretical and practical part

The first part begins on April 1 (the beginning of the course) and lasts 6 weeks (up to May 12 inclusive). In the first part of each week:

1. A new block of lectures (video recordings) from Microsoft experts is laid out

2. Issued another assignment for laboratory work.

3. Remote online consultation (Lync) with answers to questions

Lectures

Lectures are short video recordings (no more than 30 minutes) on given topics covering the design and development of applications for Windows 8 using HTML / JS or XAML / C #. Students can independently choose the most convenient programming language, or listen to lectures in both languages ​​at once.



Conventionally, the lectures are divided into 4 tracks:



1. General lectures (introduction to the topic)

2. Design

3. Development on XAML / C #

4. HTML / JS Development

Laboratory works

In the course of laboratory work, each student needs to make a typical application (with the option of customization at his own discretion), working on which will help to understand the key aspects of creating and publishing a WinRT application for Windows 8. To confirm independent work, each student should upload screenshots of the current state weekly applications and to obtain the final standings also put the final version of the application in the Windows Store.



A student who successfully listened to a course of lectures and laid out an application in the Windows Store, receives a virtual diploma on the course and can participate in the second part of the course.

Course Lecturers

The course is read by the staff of the Russian office of Microsoft:

• Dmitry Soshnikov
• Stas Pavlov
• Sergey Pugachev
• Alena Gilevskaya
• Natalya Efimtseva
• Maria Anikina
• Konstantin Kichinsky

Course work

Course work is an independent project of one or several students (no more than 3 people in one group) to create a unique application for Windows 8. Students can independently choose the direction and theme of their course work, hoping that it should be completed during the main course of lectures + 4 weeks (to June 9 inclusive).



After the end of the main course, starting from May 13, for students who successfully passed through the first part, individual consultations on application design and development with Microsoft experts (remotely or internally (Moscow)) will be organized.



At the exit of the course work should be an application published in the Windows Store no later than June 16. Students who successfully pass their coursework receive a virtual diploma on successful completion of an online course and participate with their applications in the student work competition to receive promotion of their applications from Microsoft. Winners of the competition are determined by an expert jury of Microsoft.



ps For us, this is also a great experiment :)