IT for beginners | IT for non-IT | IT explained simply

Name: IT for beginners | IT for non-IT | IT explained simply
Rating: 4.4 (4767 reviews)

Everything all non-technical professionals in an IT environment should know.

Created byMaaike van Putten

Last updated 12/2025

English

What you'll learn

Have a good understanding of the basics of IT
Improve their communication about IT and software development
Understand how an application is built up
Know the difference between frontend and backend
Know when something is a frontend or a backend issue
Understand databases and have seen some database management systems
Understand cloud and IoT
Know what roles there are in the IT field

Course content

5 sections • 32 lectures • 1h 17m total length

Let me introduce myself + course outline2:04

Introduction to the IT landscape: learning goals and overview0:48
Explore the IT landscape from hardware and networks to software, operating systems, and enterprise applications. Learn how project management and software regulations shape the complete IT picture.
What is IT?1:49
Discover how information technology shapes everyday devices from phones to fire alarms by processing and managing information across hardware, software, operating systems, and infrastructure.
Hardware and network2:58
Software applications and software development3:33
Project management1:11
Security and compliancy1:31
Draw the IT landscape

Introduction to roles in the IT landscape0:58
Developers0:53
Software architects0:46
Testers1:14
UX designers1:01
Business Analysts0:55
Project managers1:07
A project manager guides a software development project from idea to delivery by coordinating planning, budget, quality, execution, risk, and communication.
Scrum master1:18
The scrum master facilitates the scrum development team, organizes daily scrum, retrospectives, and sprint reviews, and resolves impediments to support self-organizing teams during implementation, testing, and documentation.
Product Owner1:14
Represent end users and the business, maximize software value, and keep backlog by prioritizing work and communicating with business, end users, developers, and architects across design, implementation, testing, and deployment.
Security engineer / Cyber security professional0:57
Network engineers0:52
System administrators1:36
Draw the roles in the IT landscape

Introduction to software: learning goals and overview0:44
What is programming?3:42
How are software applications built up?2:24
Explore how everyday apps are built, from the on-screen frontend to the underlying backend logic and storage, and see how user data shapes what you see.
Frontend vs Backend1:42
Is it frontend or backend?
Databases5:35
Database exercise
MySQL demo + solution to database exercise6:08
Create a database schema named exampleTraining, then add tables for customer, product, and order, define primary keys and a foreign key linking orders to customers, and review the generated SQL.
Client-server model2:43
Cloud2:07
IoT (Internet of Things)1:35
What different programming languages are there?11:16
Different stages in developing software3:46
Methodologies/frameworks for developing software: scrum, devops and waterfall7:25
Optional: Build your own game!

Requirements

None, only a laptop, tablet or smartphone

Description

At work they often talk about APIs, frontend, backend, application design and all sorts of technical terms, assuming that you know what this is. And maybe you even do know what this is to manage basic conversations, without truly understanding it (pun intended). Would you like to know more about IT? This course will teach the basic concepts of IT in easy language.

After this course you will:

- Understand the IT landscape

- Know how software is built up

- Have a basic understanding of what code looks like

- Understand the software development process

- Know what roles are common in the software development field

This course if for:

- Anyone with a non-IT background that is working in an IT environment

- Non-technical people that communicate with IT professionals a lot

- Anyone that wants to understand more about the basics of IT

This course is not for:

- People with a lot of IT experience

- People that hope to learn programming in this course (though it is a good course to take before learning how to program)

If there are any topics that you'd like to have discussed as well, or that you want to have more in-depth knowledge of, please let me know and I'd love to add them to this course!

Who this course is for:

People that need to know more about IT, but have a non-technical or non-IT background
People that want to explore whether a career switch to IT is interesting for them

IT for beginners | IT for non-IT | IT explained simply

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Introduction1 lecture • 2min

The IT landscape6 lectures • 12min

Roles / jobs in the IT landscape12 lectures • 13min

Software applications and software development12 lectures • 49min

Quiz and get certified1 lecture • 1min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: