Depending on how the course has been set up, you will either be using remotely installed sites (e.g. on the GovCMS Lagoon platform), or you’re using a local installation (on your computer). If you’re working locally, we recommend using the GovCMS8 bundled development environment at: https://github.com/govcms/govcms8-scaffold. A complete guide for installation is available at https://github.com/govCMS/govcms8-scaffold/blob/master/README.md
You’ll also need a web browser with an inspection tool (e.g. Firebug or Firefox) - you can download Firebug here: http://getfirebug.com. You can also use Chrome’s “Developer tools” or Safari’s “Develop menu”.
Finally, you’ll need a Lorem Ipsum generator extension such as this one: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dummy-lipsum/. You can add placement text, by right-clicking on the text area. 
This course and manual are for GovCMS8, which contains most of the modules you’ll need to build a typical government website.
You can view the additional GovCMS8 modules in “composer.json file”: https://github.com/govCMS/govCMS8/blob/1.x/composer.json - see the “require” section lists all “drupal/[modulename]” modules?
GovCMS8 comes with a fully-featured base theme:
GovCMS 8 UI-Kit Starter - based on UI-Kit theme - ships with GovCMS core