git is a version control system, especially for software code, and other things too such as data.
GitHub is an online service, which provides git service. GitHub has also other features, such as bug tracking and also website for projects. Both git and GitHub are very popular among software developers and other kinds of developers too.
On Navigating Complexity we use git and GitHub simply to download exercise sheets. You are encouraged to learn to use them for coordinating your group work too.
Some of the Thursday exercises are distributed via GitHub. Once you have git installed, get them on your computer by running the following command once on the command line, at the beginning of the course.
git clone https://github.com/ituethoslab/navcom-2017.git
The above will create a directory called navcom-2017. Afterwards, when you run the following two commands on the command line once a week at the beginning of the exercises, you will receive updates
cd navcom-2017
git pull
Do that every Thursday when we work with exercises which are delivered via GitHub.