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General Discussion

Andrew Chalkley
STAFF
Andrew Chalkley
Treehouse Guest Teacher

Build an Alexa Skill Student QA

Hello World :)

Treehouse have teamed up with Amazon to bring you the course Build an Alexa Skill, and is due to be released next Wednesday! We need a group of students to kick in the tires. QA starts tomorrow, Thursday.

The QA process is a time for people to spot any glaring mistakes, spelling mistakes, broken links, mistakes in teachers notes, clarification on code challenge and quiz questioning. And any other feedback.

The course is due to go live next week on Wednesday so QA should be complete by Monday, 3rd.

With QA there's a few other things you should know. Progress isn't recorded on the account so you won't get a check mark. Badges and completion emails won't get sent. You also need to manually go to the next stage in the course. Those are the quirks of QA mode.

Please use my email to provide feedback. Don't talk about the course here on the Community forum until it's officially released - this is to avoid confusion.

Comment bellow to sign up. I'll let you know when the invites have been sent and if you've been selected.

Regards,
Andrew

13 Answers

andren
andren
28,558 Points

What language will be used in this course? Looking at the Getting Started with the Alexa Skills Kit page it seems like various languages are supported, but you don't specify what will be used in the course during your post.

Also does this course require you to have access to an Amazon Alexa equipped device?

Seth Kroger
Seth Kroger
56,413 Points

I guess we'll see the specifics when we get there but there is a web app based Echo that only requires an Amazon account: https://echosim.io/

andren
andren
28,558 Points

Interesting, that's good to know, thanks :smile:. That more or less answer my second question. It would still be nice to know a bit more about what we will be programming in though before signing up for testing of the course.

Andrew Chalkley
Andrew Chalkley
Treehouse Guest Teacher

The course is designed for non-programmers in mind, you'll only be editing a few .json files. The sample code that produces the skill is JavaScript (Node.js) but we never touch the code but feel free to explore it if you're comfortable. You don't require a device - you can test with echosim.io or in the Alexa developer console.

Seth Kroger
Seth Kroger
56,413 Points

Sounds great! Sign me up!

I'm in!!

May I volunteer? :smile:

Thanks :grin:

Happy C0D1NG! :boom: :dizzy: :tada: :dizzy: :boom:

You know I'm in!

I'm in too

Andrew Chalkley
STAFF
Andrew Chalkley
Treehouse Guest Teacher

I've added everyone I could. Students on a Trial cannot be added to QA - the system won't let me.

Thanks for signing me up :)

I'll try to help all I can.

Greetings, I just finished the course. I wish this was around several weeks ago when I was fumbling through Youtube videos and such trying to figure it out. After three tries (and 10 hours) I finally got my Custom Skill certified. I took this just because, as a non-coder, I need things explained to me in more relatable terms. Good job! Will there be any courses added for other more technical types of Custom Skills, such as Flash Briefings or real audio?

Many thanks,

Andrew Chalkley
Andrew Chalkley
Treehouse Guest Teacher

I'm glad you enjoyed it. Only a few cursory mentions of follow up courses have been mentioned right now. But I'll definitely pass on your interest :)

Lisa Cutler
Lisa Cutler
99 Points

Hello, I really enjoyed the course. Can you tell me how to add an image .jpg to an answer?