C1. Claude basics

Outcome: you can use Claude to study and plan IT work, and you check what it tells you.

Skills: clear prompts (goal, context, format), Projects with your own files and instructions, follow-up questions, what AI can and can't do, spotting wrong or made-up answers, removing names, addresses and secrets before you ask.

Courses: Claude 101, AI Fluency: Framework and foundations, AI capabilities and limitations.

Labs

1. Set up: create a Claude Project called "Home lab". In its instructions, give your track, your hours per week and the rule to check every answer. Add this kit's SPRINTS.md and LAB-ENVIRONMENT.md as project files.
2. Study partner: ask Claude to explain one topic from your next sprint three ways (plain words, an example, numbered steps). Then write it in your own words in your notes.
3. Check the answer: ask for a setting you can look up, for example how to set a static IP address on Windows 11. Find the official docs page and mark what matched, what was out of date and what was wrong.
4. Find the edge: ask about something very recent, very narrow, or made up (an exam code that doesn't exist). Write down how Claude answered and how you could tell.
5. Safe use: take a sample config or log, replace every name, address and secret with placeholders, then ask Claude to explain it. Keep the list of what you removed.
6. Plan: ask Claude to turn your track's sprint list into a weekly plan for your hours. Compare it with the calendar on this site and fix the differences.

Prove it: your Project instructions, a one-page check log from labs 3 and 4 (claim, source, verdict) and the list of what you removed in lab 5.

Certs: none. Claude Academy courses give completion certificates, not exams.