NEAR and Far from Any Coding

# Welcome to the Course!

Anyone with a computer and internet connection can take this course.

If you are interested in making sense of Web3, but you don't know how to read or write code, then you are in the right place 😉

You might even be considering attending a NEAR certification course, but already feel lost. Don't worry. This course is a great first step for you.

# Learning Objectives

# a novice to Web3 will be able to:

• confidently describe the idea of the open web
• confidently describe broad blockchain concepts
• identify core features of any smart contract (view function, change function, etc.) ❤️
• confidently reason about a dApp
• learn to ask good questions
• reduce anxiety about taking a certification course
• understand the difference between testnet and mainnet
• identify and navigate to core primitives in the NEAR ecosystem
• describe why NEAR is carbon neutral and Bitcoin is not
• discuss identity, governance, and ownership in Web3

# Course Overview 🧑‍🏫

1. You and your Computer 💻

• Today computers take many different forms beyond laptops, tablets, and phones. The microchip to track your pet if they get lost? That’s a computer. Your AirPods are actually two computers, but they behave as one. These tiny computers are inside so many things we touch, but what are they? How can we learn to see them clearly?

1. You and the Internet 💻 📞 💻

• We often use the internet and web interchangeably, but in fact these are different things.

  • "The internet" refers to the infrastructure
    • a network of networks with rules for communicating, which keeps the web accessible at all times.

• The web, the pages we browse when we're online, is built on top of the internet.

1. You and Web2.0 🕸️

• Once we start talking about browsers and web pages, we are in the domain of the modern web.

• You've heard of servers, but when we talk about using those servers to access and share information, we can start to see the differences between infrastructure and how it's used:

  • the internet (infrastructure) = highway
  • the web (information) = rush hour, and billboards, and buses - oh my!

1. You and Web3.0 ❓ 🕸️❓

• Now that we understand that visiting a web site(Web2.0) is different than the WiFi(Internet) that brought it to your device(computer), we can start to imagine other ways to connect to each other. That's exactly what Web3.0, or Web3, is doing. It's re-imagining the web!

• When we talk about the “open web” we are talking about a system in which users have both freedom and transparency. As opposed to the "closed" systems used by certain governments to limit free access to information, the open web is designed to be a cooperative effort among a community of users and builders

• Why is Web3 so powerful and important? Because it has the ability to side-step centralized power structures that govern the internet. Web3 is all about open access to information with a level of privacy not attainable previously. Getting around Big Brother is a pretty big deal, isn’t it?

• Why is it called Web3? Today, Web3 generally refers to a type of network consisting of many smaller networks that is still accessed through the existing internet, but with very different rules. Until Web3 fully breaks away from centralization, we can think of it and its infrastructure as another type of highway (like web2.0), but one where the toll roads pay YOU!

1. You and NEAR Protocol 🚀

• It's an exciting time for Web3. By now you've seen dozens of ads that mention cryptocurrency. You may have scratched your head at whatever an NFT is, or perhaps gawked at the idea of pixel art selling for millions of dollars in “imaginary” money with silly names like Dogecoin, Ethereum, or even NEAR.

• It can feel a bit overwhelming at first, but at it's core, Web3 is simply a decentralized network consisting of smaller decentralized networks

• Decentralized networks can pretty much make up their own rules of engagement, so long as the outside world can access the information passing through them.

• That's why Web3 can appear reliant on Web2, because it is! Pretty much everything in Web3 can be accessed through a modern browser.

• NEAR Protocol is no different - it's a system of distributed networks with its own rules, or protocol, for communicating, but it's accessible to anyone through any modern browser.

• If you are eager to learn more about all this, then click the "Start Course" button below to get started!