Teaching Python: Recent Episodes
Sean Tibor and Kelly Paredes
A podcast by Kelly Paredes and Sean Tibor about their adventures teaching middle school computer science, problem-solving, handling failure, frustration, and victory through the lens of the Python programming language. Kelly Paredes has taught all over the world and specializes in curriculum design and development. She currently teaches sixth and seventh-grade computer science at Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This is her fourth year using Python. Sean Tibor has worked in marketing and technical management roles selling toothpaste and toothbrushes, designing chemical inventory and tv media databases, enrolling online nursing students, and founding a digital marketing agency. This is his fourth year teaching Python to seventh and eighth-grade students at Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
In this captivating episode of Teaching Python, Kelly and Sean sit down with the innovative mind behind DroneBlocks.io, Dennis Baldwin. As a child, Dennis was deeply fascinated with remote control cars and airplanes. That childhood passion translated into a profound interest in engineering, as he delved deep into the intricate world of building, wiring, and programming flight controllers for his RC planes and quadcopters. Alongside, Dennis maintained an active presence on YouTube, making sure to share a majority of his research, development, and findings with an eager audience. 2010 marked a pivotal year for Dennis when he discovered the ArduPilot project and was deeply inspired by the dynamic developer community that supported it. This newfound inspiration set him on a journey of countless hours in the garage, experimenting and constructing a myriad of autonomous drones. This includes everything from hexacopters and VTOL aircraft to delta wings and mini quads, leveraging APM and Pixhawk flight controllers. 2014 saw him crossing paths with Marisa at Walnut Springs Elementary School in Dripping Springs, TX. A chance collaboration led to Dennis introducing students to the wonders of quadcopters, which further transitioned to the integration of DJI SDK upon students' intrigue in aerial photography. Fast forward to 2015, Dennis established a groundbreaking concept—melding block programming with the DJI SDK. This innovation birthed DroneBlocks, a platform cherished by students for its intuitive approach to conducting autonomous missions with DJI hardware. Today, DroneBlocks boasts an app, a comprehensive curriculum, and an ever-growing community of users sharing their mission code globally. As a graduate from The Citadel with a BS in Electrical Engineering and with a rich history of co-founding multiple tech ventures, Dennis, along with Marisa, aspires to integrate DroneBlocks into every STEAM classroom across the world. Tune in and soar with us on this incredible journey of passion, innovation, and educational revolution. Special Guest: Dennis Baldwin.
Way back on Episode 13 (https://www.teachingpython.fm/13), we interviewed Josh Lowe, then 15 years old and the creator of EduBlocks (https://edublocks.org/). When Josh was 12, he started a Saturday afternoon project to make a block-based coding IDE that generated Python code. Flash forward seven years and Josh still maintains EduBlocks as a software engineer on behalf of Anaconda (https://www.anaconda.com/). This week, Kelly and Sean caught up with Josh to learn about his educational journey since we last spoke with him, the latest developments on EduBlocks, as well as the new direction enabled by Anaconda's purchase of EduBlocks in May 2023 (https://www.anaconda.com/press/anaconda-acquires-edublocks-to-empower-k-12-data-literacy-and-expand-educational-offerings). Special Guest: Josh Lowe.
This week we are joined by Philip Guo and Sam Lau, researchers at the University of California, San Diego. Philip and Sam have recently published research on how computer science instructors use artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot in their classrooms. Join us to learn more about the data behind how generative AI is changing the way we teach computer science and coding. Special Guests: Philip Guo and Sam Lau.
In this episode, Kelly and Sean meet with Adam Schroeder, community manager at Plotly and author of The Book of Dash. We'll talk about how teachers can use data visualization in the classroom with Dash to bring data to life for their students. If you're not familiar with the Dash and Plotly Python libraries, you can get started here with us! Dash is a library for building web-based dashboards to visualize your Python data. It uses Plotly, a library for making beautiful visualizations of data that are highly interactive. Both libraries are open-source and maintained by the Plotly company, which provides enterprise-grade implementations of Dash and Plotly for business customers. Special Guest: Adam Schroeder.
Episode 111: Exploring Generative AI in Education In Episode 111 of the Teaching Python podcast, join special guest Eric Matthes and your hosts Kelly and Sean as they dive into the intriguing world of generative AI in education. Coming fresh from the Education Summit at PyCon 2023, they provide a comprehensive recap of the event, highlighting the successful speaker topics, the ideal room size, and the engaging breakout sessions that made the summit a resounding success. As an extra resource, Eric Matthes, author of the widely acclaimed "Python Crash Course," joins the discussion, providing valuable insights into the intersection of generative AI and education. For those interested, Eric's book can be found on Amazon (https://amzn.to/3pz7uje). The conversation then delves into the complexities surrounding generative AI, emphasizing that while it holds tremendous potential, it is still in its early stages, leaving us with more questions than answers. To lay the groundwork, the hosts define generative AI and demystify how large language models work, drawing an analogy to refrigerator poetry magnets to aid comprehension. As the discussion unfolds, Kelly, Eric, and Sean raise crucial questions about the role of generative AI, specifically ChatGPT, in education. They explore the optimal level of usage, the necessary policies and governance to support its implementation, and draw parallels to the concept of the "Goldilocks zone" in astronomy, seeking the right balance for effective integration. The episode moves to thought-provoking dialogue regarding the future proficiency levels required for learners in problem-solving scenarios. They examine whether coding proficiency alone will suffice or if learners will need to develop AI literacy, enabling them to harness the power of AI to generate code and solutions. Tune in to Episode 111 of the Teaching Python podcast to gain a deeper understanding of the implications and potential of generative AI in education. As the hosts explore the evolving landscape, they shed light on the importance of finding the right balance and preparing learners for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. Special Guest: Eric Matthes.
Show Notes Introduction Welcome to this week's episode, entirely devoted to CircuitPython. We're excited to have Kattni Rembor from Adafruit as our special guest, who has contributed extensively to the CircuitPython platform, from beginner guides to advanced projects. Kattni's Win of the Week Kattni shares her current project, a guide for creating a keyboard key switch with NeoPixels underneath. Each key press generates a random LED color. Our Wins of the Week Kelly Schuster-Paredes, currently on vacation, shares her achievement of resting for two consecutive minutes. Sean shares his experience using the Marp tool for presentations but admits to time management struggles. CircuitPython Introduction We delve into CircuitPython, a version of Python designed for microcontrollers. Created for beginners and educational purposes, it provides a unique approach to learning Python. CircuitPython Applications Kattni enlightens us on the vast applications of CircuitPython, ranging from environmental sensing to assistive technologies for people with disabilities. CircuitPython Capabilities We discuss how CircuitPython simplifies complex tasks, fostering creativity and making tasks like LED blinking quite straightforward. CircuitPython Boards At the time of recording, there are 413 boards compatible with CircuitPython available at circuitpython.org. We also discuss Adafruit's educational pricing and discounts. Top CircuitPython Boards We list our top five favorite boards for education, ease of use, and fun projects, including Blue fruit and Circuit Playground Express. Getting Started with CircuitPython Starting with CircuitPython can be challenging for beginners. We discuss some common issues and solutions, like copying required libraries immediately after importing. CircuitPython in the Classroom We highlight the immense possibilities of CircuitPython in educational settings and encourage educators to explore its potential. Connect with Kattni Rembor You can follow Kattni Rembor's projects on the Adafruit Learning System and on social media platforms like Mastodon. Live Streaming Announcement Kelly announces the "Summer of Streaming," aiming to live stream every Wednesday at three. Closing Remarks We wrap up the episode with Kattni expressing her enjoyment in discussing CircuitPython and her excitement for future projects. Sean and Kelly sign off, looking forward to the next episode. Special Guest: Kattni Rembor.
The Teaching Python podcast speaks about how the Google Cycle can help support learning in Code. Teaching kids to “embrace the research side of Coding (and become great at this skill)” “Now we aren’t talking about googling for solutions. But smart googling with a big perspective.” → Kelly is starting a Boot camp, the prework module actually says and explains: “If you get stuck, remember that you can usually get help by searching online.” THere are guidelines to how to search and how to read Stack Overflow. “A good rule of thumb is to use code you find as a resource, not a solution.” “While google may have many answers, it’s no replacement for your own mind! Avoid relying on google to find out the programming solutions to the bare fundamentals of your chosen programming language.” This means not being tempted to use your search tools as a replacement for memorising the basics of your programming language. While technically you’ll quickly find the answer for the most basic questions to some programming queries (e.g. how to print to console) you certainly don’t want to be reaching for google every time you need to use this!
The Teaching Python podcast speaks with Elad Inbar, founder of RobotLab and Robots for Education and how to improve student engagement by using robots. Special Guest: Elad Inbar.
Sri Kundurthy, a student and EuroPython speaker joins Kelly and Sean to talk about bringing Python to other subject areas. From physics models to data manipulation to advanced algorithms, we talk about a wide range of applications for computer science outside of the computer science classroom Special Guest: Srivatsa Kundurthy.
Kelly and Sean discuss how grading and learning are often confused with each other. We settle in for a chat about everything from intern projects to class challenges to communicating actual learning through grades. Settle in for an episode with just the co-hosts of Teaching Python!
The Teaching Python podcast speaks with Pete Dring and the tools he has created to manage his workload while teaching computer science and Python. Join us to learn more about these tools and how you can use them to shift your workload from boring to exciting! Special Guest: Peter Dring.
Sean and Kelly speak with Anaconda and their outreach program. Anaconda supports educators and learners with the ability to understand and interpret data. This leads to better decision-making and a world where people are empowered to create positive change. Episode Errata: * The hackday event referenced in the episode was related to Pyscript and more information will come out on that shortly. * The data science competition for high school students referenced in the episode is called Data Science Expo and will be piloted in the 2022-2023 school year. Note: we had to go to the cloud-based recording backup for this episode, so you may notice a few issues with audio quality. Our editor did his best to clean it up, but there are a few rough spots. Special Guests: Albert Defusco and Sophia Yang.
Harry and Anna are high-school students who are passionate about coding, engineering, and design. When they’re not doing their homework, they’re busy writing tutorials, designing website wireframes, and planning the next courses for Mission Encodeable. Special Guests: Anna Wake and Harry Wake.
In this episode, Sean and Kelly talk with Computer Science and STEM teachers about our wins, our failures, and all about teaching Python. We're joined by teachers Dottie Holland, Andre Chmielewski, and Andy Colley to talk about everything from our favorite teaching resources, what it's like to teach after the exams are over, why Python over other languages, and more.
In this episode, we will learn about the new features of this great alpha product for the micro:bit. Its main goals are to make coding with Python per se and Python on the micro:bit more accessible: * An appealing user interface with bright colours * Contextual help and autocomplete * Example snippets of code you can browse and insert, like browsing blocks in MakeCode or Scratch * Simple code structure highlighting to aid understanding about indents in Python * Explanation of features of MicroPython useful in CS teaching, but not covered in device-oriented documentation * Built-in serial console and REPL so you can do more traditional Python coding using your keyboard input and printing to the screen – the micro:bit is your Python runtime! Special Guest: Giles Booth.
We welcome David Cavallo an entrepreneur in using technologies to improve learning and promote social equitable development. Our topic this week is equitable computation learning and the reasons and methods for it. Special Guest: David Cavallo.
Kelly and Sean debrief on PyCon US 2022 on Sunday morning before flying home. From the Education Summit to the Expo Hall to the Talk Track, we cover it all. Most importantly, we cover the best food and coffee to check out for next year in Salt Lake City! Note - this is a live debrief with no editing. Enjoy!
In the 2007 film, Shift Happens, Carl Fisch (later modified by Scott Mcleod) stated that “The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004. We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t exist yet, using technologies that haven’t been invented, in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.” Although the 65% figure has been debunked quite often and the data that was used during the video cannot always be verified, it is safe to say that the jobs of today, have evolved quite a bit since 2004. In addition, a lot of these fields are Global, rely a lot on technology and the use of code, like Python. In this podcast series, we will speak to professionals in the field that have jobs in industries including Fintech 3.0, Cybertechnology, Ethical AI, and Data Science We welcome Xavier De Pauw Founder & co-CEO of lendX, a B2B fintech that is looking to revolutionize the alternative credit sector with its SaaS Enabled Marketplace. Xavier started his career at Merrill Lynch in London as a Fixed income capital markets & structured finance banker. After 10 years, he co-founded a challenger banking group and was CEO of the digital challenger bank in the group. Again 10 years later, Xavier joined a €75bln private bank and asset manager as their head of strategic innovation. In 2020, Xavier went back to entrepreneurship, became a member of the advisory board at several fintechs and launched lendX with two other founders. Special Guest: Xavier De Pauw.
In the 2007 film, Shift Happens, Carl Fisch (later modified by Scott Mcleod) stated that “The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004. We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t exist yet, using technologies that haven’t been invented, in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.” Although the 65% figure has been debunked quite often and the data that was used during the video cannot always be verified, it is safe to say that the jobs of today, have evolved quite a bit since 2004. In addition, a lot of these fields are Global, rely a lot on technology and the use of code, like Python. In this podcast series, we will speak to professionals in the field that have jobs in industries including Fintech 3.0, Cybertechnology, Ethical AI, and Data Science We welcome Michael Galarnyk. Michael currently teaches Python for Data Visualization for LinkedIn Learning, Data Analytics using Python for UCSD Extension, Machine Learning Fundamentals for UCSD Extension, and Machine Learning with Python for Stanford Continuing Studies. I have previously taught Essential Python for Global Knowledge and Data Science (Python) at General Assembly. Special Guest: Michael Galarnyk.
In the 2007 film, Shift Happens, Carl Fisch stated that “The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004. We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t exist yet, using technologies that haven’t been invented, in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.” While the data that was used during the video cannot be completely verifiable, it is safe to say that the jobs of today have evolved quite a bit since 2004. In addition, a lot of these fields are global, rely heavily on technology and the use of code skills like Python programming. In this podcast series, we will speak to professionals in the field that have jobs in industries including Fintech 3.0, Cybertechnology, and Data Science. We welcome Michele Darayanani, Nevena Lazarevic and Joe Farajallah to discuss the basics of Cybersecurity, what it is, what all does it involve, and how Python can be used to secure platforms from cyber attacks. Michele leads the Cyber offerings for Pharmaceutical, Life Sciences, and Medical Device Manufacturing clients. An avid advocate for usable security that drives business value through Cyber; he supports clients as a sounding board for the CISO, CISO coaching, Secure Cloud Transformations, Cyber Due Diligence, and Security Architecture. Nevena is a passionate and proactive Cyber Security consultant with a Software Engineering background. Her focus within this area has been Cyber Defense, Security Transformation and Information Security. Joe is a Cyber Security consultant focusing on ethical hacking and red team testing. He has a background in electrical engineering and networks. Special Guests: Joe Farajallah, Michele Daryanani, and Nevena Lazarevic.
In this episode, Sean and Kelly talk about the future. Looking into the past 20 years+ years of teaching and looking back at how we were taught as children, what has changed? Just as our teachers prepared us for our present, how are we preparing our students? We should no longer try to prepare our students for jobs that may not be there when they enter the workforce. Instead, we should focus our preparation on how they can take advantage of the emerging technologies that are coming into existence. How are we teaching them to look out for the both the dangers and the benefits of Big Data, Machine Learning, social media and robots? What skills are we focusing on that wil lallow them to pivot and prosper in this exponentially changing world? The future is reliant on what our students of today will create.
Most people think of Requests as an intermediate or advanced area of Python, but what happens when we turn it loose on beginner programmers? Spoiler - lots of learning and surprises! Requests is a popular Python library for making HTTP requests in a simplified, elegant way. As the one of the top 10 most downloaded packages on PyPI.org, it's used across Python to interact with web APIs, scrape websites, post webhooks, and more. In this episode, Kelly and Sean talk about different lesson plans, approaches, and examples using the Requests library in a teaching environment.
Continuing on conversations about tech for good, helping our students build global competence, and preparing our children to be successful in an ever increasing digital world, Kelly and Sean speak with Will Richardson, founder of the Big Questions Institute. “Are we preparing students to identify and confront problems they care about, collaborate beyond classroom walls, and overcome the false dichotomy between local versus global? Do we see our work as educators as the work of building a better world?” Special Guest: Will Richardson.
This week, Kelly and Sean look over all that happened in 2021 for Teaching Python and commit to some bigger goals for 2022. What were the highlights according to our co-hosts? From the great guests to the wins in the classroom, Kelly and Sean catch up and kick off the new year together.
We sometimes make assumptions when it comes to students and using technology, that students are savvy tech users. Although coding curriculum lends itself easily to incorporating many digital citizenship (https://www.teachingpython.fm/articles/digital-citizenship) skills, even the best Computer Science course may not focus as much as you think on directly teaching these important skills. Furthermore, it is a lot of pressure for just one class to bear. In this episode of Teaching Python, Kelly and Sean speak with Richard Culatta CEO of International Society for Technology in Education and author of the book, “Digital for Good: Raising Kids to Thrive in an Online World and discuss ways that we can keep kids coding and being “active citizens” in their online and physical world! Special Guest: Richard Culatta.
It's the most wonderful time of the year as Kelly and Sean put together a gift guide for techie kids! From transformable robots to glowing toys to soldering stations, we cover the items on our lists for the holidays. Check the show notes for links that support the podcast!
This week Sean and Kelly are joined by Dr. Becky Smethurst from Oxford to talk about code and science. Dr. Becky is an astrophysicist, author, and science communicator. Each week, she publishes a video on her YouTube channel explaining a bit about space, Special Guest: Becky Smethurst.
This episode is all about working with the data we generate for students, whether it's in the classroom, your school, or your district. Special guest star Rusti Gregory joins us to talk about his transition from the classroom to the data manager role. Special Guest: Rusti Gregory.
Kelly and Sean revisit some of our favorite hardware that we use to teach Python. From the various versions of the BBC micro:bit to the ecosystem of CircuitPython boards, we talk about all the pros and cons! Whether you're just getting started with using Python in hardware or you're a seasoned teacher, this episode should have something for everyone. We use hardware to give tactile and tangible feedback for our students when they write code. Students learn to do everything from make lights blink and shimmer to driving motors to using sensors to measure the environment. Join us on a journey into Python hardware!
Kelly and Sean interview Tom Lauwers, founder and CEO of BirdBrain Technologies (https://www.birdbraintechnologies.com) about the role of robotics in the computer science classroom. We've used the Finch 2.0 robot, which is designed to use the BBC micro:bit as a foundation for coding and computer science. Whether you're in a traditional classroom, teaching after school, or just trying to get people excited about the POWER OF CODING, robots can play a vital role in learning. About BirdBrain Technologies: BirdBrain Technologies’ mission is to inspire deep and joyful learning in all students through creative robotics. Founded at the CREATE Lab (https://www.cmucreatelab.org/home) at Carnegie Mellon University (https://www.cmu.edu) in 2010, BirdBrain is a research-based company that promotes gender equality and diversity in computer science, engineering, and robotics. A large part of our mission is to assist educators interested in bringing computer science and engineering design into any classroom. We work collaboratively to support teachers with free standards-aligned curriculum and professional development. Our products have been used by thousands of teachers around the world to bring creative design and robotics fun into the classroom! Special Guest: Tom Lauwers.
Kelly and Sean discuss their latest experiments in the classroom, including student peer code reviews, testing code for correctness, and creating comfy environments for coding.
A lunchtime livestream with Kelly and Sean talking about setting up learning environments for students, coaching and setting high expectations for students, and the new tools we're using this year for teaching code. Replit Teams for Education Daily Challenges for formative assessment Physical classroom layouts Google Colab Choice Boards High expectations teaching Note: Kelly's audio track has a bit of echo that we can't eliminate. We'll get it fixed for next time.
With the new school year upon us, we're talking about CSTA standards and how they can be applied to the classroom environment. Join Kelly and Sean as they talk through ways to plan, deliver, and assess CS student standards. The Computer Science Teacher Association (CSTA) (https://www.csteachers.org/) provides student standards for learning as well as professional development standards for instructions. For example, there are 23 standards for grades 6-8 (https://www.csteachers.org/page/standards) that cover everything from algorithms & programming to inclusionary culture to networks and internet. How do you go from a published standard to an engaging lesson that raises student learning?
The Teaching Python podcast speaks with Quinten Sheriff from Concordia University , an Instructional Designer, e-learning implementation specialist, and curriculum developer with global experience on four continents. A systems thinker who uses instructional models such as ADDIE, AGILE, SAM, ARCS. In this episode, we will explore topics such as designing curriculum for the next year, and what it means to design for instruction versus designing for content. In this we can also look at designing for inclusivity, diversity and equity. Special Guest: Quinten Sheriff.
It's been a few weeks since we recorded, so this week's episode is all about catching up on listener questions and mail. Highlights include: * the new AWS machine learning course we're taking, * whether we'd rather be teachers or coders * the new Adafruit hardware we're trying * the Deep Composer keyboard * equity and equitable opportunity in and out of the classroom You can also check out the recording of the livestream on our YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL6GRe37eiY)
With summer finally here in the northern hemisphere, Kelly and Sean meet with John Mikton from the Principals Training Center to talk about professional development resources for teachers during these long summer days. From technical resources to pedagogical research to classroom layout ideas, we'll talk about some of the things we're excited to learn this summer. Special Guest: John Mikton.
Continuing our Education IDE series, Kelly and Sean meet with Brigit Murtaugh and Sana Ajani from the VS Code team for education. We'll talk about everything from remote teaching to accelerating the setup of a learning environment with VS Code and development containers. You may have used Visual Studio Code for your own projects or tinkered around with the vast number of settings and extensions. But have you thought about how to use it as a teaching tool? Thankfully, Brigit and Sana are here to talk us through all of the resources and new features being added to VS code for education. Special Guests: Brigit Murtaugh and Sana Ajani.
Continuing our Education IDE series, Kelly and Sean talk with Valentina Kiryushkina, a developer on the PyCharm Edu team to learn all about how JetBrains supports teaching and learning Python. With everything from online courses to creating classroom assignments, we're sure you'll find something to like about PyCharm Edu. Features Free for teachers and learners Online open courses available Create your own courses and assignments Marketplace coming soon Full features of PyCharm, but decluttered for learning Where to Download JetBrains Website (https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm-edu/) EduTools (https://www.jetbrains.com/help/pycharm/pycharm-educational.html) Special Offer JetBrains has offered a free month of JetBrains Academy, a project-based learning platform integrated with JetBrains IDEs, if you register at the platform through the following link: Special Offer (https://www.jetbrains.com/academy/?var=landing&coupon=teachingpython&utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=refferal&utm_campaign=jbacademy_coupons&utm_content=teaching_python_podcast) Special Guest: Valentina Kiryushkina.
This week, Kelly & Sean chat with Barbara Oakley, author of the upcoming books Uncommon Sense Teaching and Learn Like a Pro. Together, we talk about everything from learning Russian to the ways that the brain processes information and how teachers can best help students learn. Barbara Oakley is a professor of engineering, former Russian translater on Soviet fishing trawlers, Antarctic researcher (where she met her husband), author, MOOC creator, and so much more. Kelly and Sean talk to her about the ways that our brain learns and retains knowledge, and how we can use that mechanism to learn how to learn better. Special Guest: Barbara Oakley.
Kelly and Sean kick off part 1 of their Education IDE series with Nick Tollervey and the Mu Editor, a Python editor for beginners with modes for "pure Python," MicroPython, CircuitPython, PyGame, Flask web apps, and more. About the Education IDE Series The Teaching Python podcast is launching a monthly episode series dedicated to the different IDEs and editors available to teachers. Our goal is to give educators a more detailed view of each editor and the specific features that they can leverage for teaching effectively. In contrast with a developer-focused series, our goal is to focus on how each editor can enhance student learning. Proof that we met Nick at PyCon US 2019 Nick & Sean https://files.fireside.fm/file/fireside-uploads/images/c/c8ea6bdf-0c80-46e7-a00a-639d7dc2be91/QNVNT7OH.JPG Special Guest: Nick Tollervey.
In this episode, Sean and Kelly, share a brainstorming activity on designing projects with Python libraries. We have a special guest Mike Driscoll, author of several books and the blog "The Mouse vs The Python". In this episode we will use the Python Library Pillow to brainstorm some creative ways that Pillow can and has been used to teach students about Python Libraries. Coming up with project ideas that are creative, engaging, and allow students the flexibility to explore is one of the most important activities that Sean and Kelly do daily. We love introducing many different aspects of Python and push the boundaries with our students. We often discuss and brainstorm ideas on how we can incorporate libraries that are new to us in the curriculum. Although we have used Pillow very briefly, with the help of expert Mike Driscoll, Sean and I will explore project ideas for using Pillow from 6th grade to developer. Special Guest: Mike Driscoll.
In this episode, Sean and Kelly discuss their top 5 favorite Python libraries, and how they use these libraries in the classroom to reinforce student learning. From the standard library to teaching how to use pip, learn more about our favorite libraries to share with our students. Our lists: Sean Datetime random Matplotlib bullet Kelly Pillow Math Turtle getpass Regex
That's right: we're digging deep into assessments using rubrics. We know what you're thinking, rubrics are BORING and teacher-y. But rubrics are POWERFUL for learning and you can use them outside of the classroom too! According to ASCD “The word rubric comes from the Latin word for red. The online Merriam-Webster dictionary lists the first meaning of rubric as "an authoritative rule" and the fourth meaning as "a guide listing specific criteria for grading or scoring academic papers, projects, or tests." How did the name for a color come to mean a rule or guide? At least as far back as the Middle Ages, the rules for the conduct of liturgical services—as opposed to the actual spoken words of the liturgy—were often printed in red, so the rules were "the red things" on the page. Benefits of a Rubric “Rubrics are important because they clarify for students the qualities their work should have. This point is often expressed in terms of students understanding the learning target and criteria for success. For this reason, rubrics help teachers teach, they help coordinate instruction and assessment, and they help students learn. “Rubrics are useful tool to help students and teachers: * work towards a shared goal, * Giving students a rubric before they begin working ensures that students and teachers are working towards a shared goal. * facilitate constructive feedback, * assess students’ learning on multiple elements of a project. * Student can analyze their own work * provide consistency in evaluating To allow extension of learning and “WOW” factors: Single Point rubrics-- meets expectations but allows (forces) extensions “Single Point Rubric” in 2000 during a conference presentation by someone named Mary Dietz. Attending that conference was a researcher named Jarene Fluckiger, who published a study on its effectiveness in 2010. (The reference to Dietz is in Fluckiger’s paper, but no one named Dietz has published anything on the topic.) From one of our favorite rubrics at Northeastern University. Percentage for criteria with a built in a 2% “AMAZING” category. That’s reserved for solutions that absolutely blow us away. Doing exactly what’s asked of you does not earn a perfect grade; doing an incredible job with your solution earns a perfect grade. In each assignment, we’ll specify exactly what makes for an amazing solution
In this episode, Sean and Kelly speak with Leon Sandøy, one of the owners of Python Discord (https://www.pythondiscord.com) about making connections and community teaching. With the dynamics of teaching changing, how can Python Discord become a space to further educate the Python community? Also this week, we're excited to announce the launch of the new Teaching Python shop (https://shop.teachingpython.fm/), where you can get fun t-shirts, mugs, hoodie sweatshirts, and even some flip flops to show your support of the show. Use FRIENDS15 (https://shop.teachingpython.fm/discount/FRIENDS15) to get 15% off your first order! Learn more about Python Discord below from Leon. History of Python Discord I’ve been involved since 2017, when we had ~200 users. We worked hard to grow this community, and leveraged some pretty creative marketing strategies to find that growth. These eventually paid off, and as soon as we hit a certain critical mass, it’s been a runaway success story with win after win. The past year has been incredible. We’ve quadrupled in size, worked closely with Discord, with the Python Software Foundation, we’ve restructured the entire organisation from the inside out, launched new community features like the Help-channel system, started producing high-quality original content, and started reaching out beyond the Discord platform. The culture of Python Discord When I was growing up, IRC was a toxic and unwelcoming place where you went to talk to grumpy and jaded old programmers. We want to be the antithesis of this experience, a place of warmth and inclusivity that holds your hand until you find your footing. It’s the wholesomest place on the web. As a leader, I believe that we should be searching for these magical synergies between personal goals and community growth. I look for situations where I can put someone in a situation that will benefit both them and the community, perhaps teaching them a valuable and relevant skill while building us a valuable system. This has really paid off for us. I believe that managing a voluntary organisation requires a strong willingness to spend resources on cultivating motivation. Yes, this sounds like a TED talk. I’m sorry. It plays better as a conversation than as a long paragraph. You’d be surprised how much work goes into our community. I have 4 hours of weekly meetings, one-on-ones with staff members, interviews, programming and code review, and sometimes I record silly parody songs for our YouTube. This eats up literally all my free time, and the free time of everyone in admin team. We don’t do this casually, this is like a second job to us - or a second family. Major community features The help channel system Stay up to date by subscribing to our news channels, where you get Python podcasts, Python mailing lists (especially ideas and announcements), ongoing tech conferences, most popular Reddit r/python posts, and lots of other Python ecosystem info. Topical chat, featuring channels for all the different use cases that are particularly interesting for Python users. Many of these are populated by notable members, like our #async channel has asyncio core devs hanging out, and we people from Kivy, Arcade, Pyglet, Panda3D, and notable PyGame developers hanging out in #game-development. #microcontrollers has a number of Adafruit employees (including some of CircuitPythons key contributors) as frequent guests. Special Guest: Leon Sandøy.
Kelly and Sean take some time to reflect on what has worked well over the past year of teaching, what could be better, and what we hope stays with us once things go back to "The New Normal." Whether it's getting back collaborative whiteboarding, keeping screen sharing over Zoom, or appreciating how much better department meetings can be when we use breakout rooms, join us to talk more about how teaching and coding have jumped ahead during the time of COVID-19. As mentioned by Sean, the wordlist file on Macs can usually be found at /usr/share/dict/words.
Kelly and Sean try to figure out the role of object-oriented programming in teaching. From how much to focus on objects and methods, to whether it makes sense to teach classes, this is a journey through the opinionated topic of object-oriented thinking.
A grab bag of topics this week with Kelly and Sean. From using NLTK to summarize speeches by civil rights leader Martin Luther King to plotting Parler data from the Capitol incident on Jan 6 to WiFi-enabled washing machines. Kelly and Sean spend the afternoon discussing the things that we've been watching and learning about this week. No guests, no specific topic. Just hang out with us and talk about all things Python, teaching, and learning.
Kelly and Sean team up with Bob Belderbos and Julian Sequeira from @PyBites to answer questions about how our students learn Python using the PyBites platform with small code challenges. In this special crossover episode, we cover everything from how students learn to the way they learn Pytest reporting output to the mindset and chemistry of learning something new. Special Guests: Bob Belderbos and Julian Sequeira.
In this episode, Kelly and Sean dive into the topic of teaching kids to “Figure it out,” a phrase we love to use in class. This year, we seek specific skills that help us teach reluctant learners, techniques for figuring things out, and understanding how different teachers support this skill in their classrooms. In this episode, we ask some of our colleagues to share their experiences on how they as adults solve problems and how they teach their students this critical life long skill. Special Guests: Jessica Gilbert and Roslynn Jackson.
We get a lot of questions about what parents should buy for their children for the holidays. In this episode, Kelly and Sean list out some of their favorite gifts for the holidays. Episode highlights: Kelly & Sean celebrate two years of the Teaching Python and 183,000 downloads later. Kelly wins with a student that demonstrates year over year improvement in Computer Science. Sean builds a FastAPI and gets a steep learning curve. Kelly gets a birdbrained robot finch.
In this episode, Kelly and Sean talk with Dale Lane an IBM Event Streams Lead Developer. - IBM awarded Dale, the 2018 IBM Volunteer Excellence Award—the highest form of volunteer recognition given by the company—which also earned a USD 10,000 grant from IBM for Solent Youth Action. “Machine learning systems are all around us. We all use, interact with, or are affected by, machine learning systems every day. If our goal is to help children to understand how the world around them works, then understanding machine learning is an important topic. Also, the impact machine learning systems will have on our lives will only continue to increase. There is a growing need for society to make decisions about how we want such systems to be managed, controlled, and regulated. Understanding machine learning is an essential topic to help the next generation engage in that societal debate.” Dale Lane IBM Interview Special Guest: Dale Lane.
Kelly and Sean flip on the voice recording app and record a random Friday afternoon conversation about teaching approaches for computer science. What makes student learning the most effective?
Sean and Kelly invite Eric Matthes, teacher and author of Python Crash Course to discuss student projects in computer science. Eric was with us on Episode 33 (https://www.teachingpython.fm/33) and we ended the episode with discussions about completing projects and programming with purpose. In this episode we discuss finding a project, separating academic and project success criteria, helping student coders find a project, how to deal with failure, and some examples of great projects for learning. Special Guest: Eric Matthes.
This week's guest is Russell Keith-Magee from the Beeware project. Our conversation this week is about teaching students Python with native desktop applications, mobile, and the web. Plus, why do we have to use the command line? And do coding books from the early 80s hold up in Python? Django core developer and the founder and maintainer of the BeeWare project Former president of the Django Software Foundation BeeWare is a collection of tools and libraries for developing desktop and mobile applications; BeeWare aims to make it easy to write a native application for macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, or Android that you can then distribute to end users as an installable app. BeeWare isn't a single tool or library - it's a collection of projects that can be used to help develop, debug, and launch Python software. Each tool follows the Unix philosophy of doing one thing well. Each tool can be used in isolation, or they can be chained together to provide a rich set of programming tools. Special Guest: Russell Keith-Magee.
Sean and Kelly invite Ali Spittel to talk about how teachers can go beyond their first programming language and help students learn to create more robust projects. If you’ve started with Python, how do you learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to make a front end for a project? Or vice versa? Ali is a Senior Developer Advocate at AWS, the co-host of the Ladybug Podcast, and a frequent tech writer and speaker. She has been employed in the tech industry since 2014, holding multiple software engineering positions at startups and a Distinguished Faculty and Faculty Lead role at General Assembly's Software Engineering Immersive. Special Guest: Ali Spittel.
Sean and Kelly invite Jeff Olson (@jolson_codes) to the show. Let’s take a look at language in the Computer Science classroom and focus on how we can put our students first by engaging them in the “right language for their learning.” Special Guest: Jeff Olson.
This week, Sean & Kelly discuss how they are using Python to teach robotics in middle school, including the hardware and software it takes to get students thinking about how robots sense, process, and move in the world. With coronavirus precautions in place, our traditional approaches to robotics competitions through organizations like FIRST Lego League have been put aside. We're using this as an opportunity to get back to basics and teach students about sensors, servos, Python code, and more.
This week, Kelly and Sean interview Philip Guo, associate professor of cognitive science at UC San Diego. As a grad student in 2010, Philip created Python Tutor (https://pythontutor.com), the most widely-used program visualization tool for education. Using this tool, teachers and students can write Python programs directly in the web browser (without installing any plugins), step forwards and backwards through execution to view the run-time state of data structures, and share their program visualizations on the web. Over ten million people in more than 180 countries have used Python Tutor to visualize over 100 million pieces of code, often as a supplement to textbooks, lectures, and online tutorials. Special Guest: Philip Guo.
Let’s take a look at the tools we’re using in our classroom for the 2020-2021 school year to teach Python for middle school students. From IDEs to flash cards, coding challenges to Colab notebooks, and micro:bits to eBooks, we’ll look at what we’re currently using and how each one contributes to the learning experience of our students. Episode Outline Importance of variety in Lessons Motivation Increase Focus/Keeps classroom live and Active Combat Boredom/Avoids dullness Demonstrating concepts in multiple settings reinforces learning Importance of Lesson Planning Basic Objectives Activities Assessments Time Management Result- oriented Creating Environments for learning:Good Teaching Tools for SEL/21st Century Skills Delivery and sharing of resources LMS Weekly Overview Screenshots Sharing of Colab documents SEL Core Competencies: Self Awareness, Self Management, Social Awareness, Relationship SKills, Responsible decision making. Padlet- reflection and sharing ideas? Focusing Tools: Strick Workflow : block specific sites for 25 minutes by a click of a chrome extension Self Learning Opportunities: “Curiosity is the main driver of learning.” Teaching Techniques/Communication Tools Looking at a lot of code: Screenshare (Currently feature in Zoom) - allow students to share their code and have students look for errors on other student codes/Air server/Cast Use of Videos: Loom/Screencastify- give students short videos that they can use on their own time. Use of Class Time: Time to Talk it out (Think alouds) - give students time to talk about code verbally Pre-Teaching Vocabulary Pause, Ask Questions, Pause, Review Class Challenges Share the tools and how we use them IDE’s (details in episode 25 (https://www.teachingpython.fm/25)) Mu Editor (https://codewith.mu/) Great IDE for beginners and comes packaged with Python Works for pure Python, hardware, web development, games Intentionally limited to encourage students to move beyond In 2020: Kelly & Sean use it for programming micro:bits with sixth grade Best Audience: complete newbies to Python, hardware hackers Available for Mac, Windows, Linux Colab (https://colab.research.google.com/) - Jupyter Notebooks in Google Apps system Pure Python with visualizations, graphing, etc. In 2020: Kelly & Sean use it for Python review sheet & quick demos Showing iterations/versions of code without Git Includes sharing/commenting features of Google Drive (https://colab.research.google.com/github/tensorflow/examples/blob/master/courses/udacity_intro_to_tensorflow_for_deep_learning/l01c01_introduction_to_colab_and_python.ipynb) Best audience: newbies already familiar with Google Docs, more accomplished programmers that want to practice concepts without writing full “software” Repl.it (https://repl.it/) Web-based coding environment for Python Multiplayer mode, assignment submissions with automated testing Classroom environment works well for adult learners In 2020: Kelly & Sean use it for student projects, especially those that run 3rd party packages Best audience: students that want to live code with others and share programs easily with teacher or peers Advance coding Options Used for differentiation with students or advanced applications like EV3 coding We use these ourselves to write software for school use Goal is to have 8th graders ready for these environments Options Visualization Tools Python tutor Python Turtle Mu Debugger Class Challenges versus Codechalleng.es Manipulatives: Robots and Hardware Microbits CircuitPython devices DFRobot Maqueen Plus
Let’s take a deeper look at how we teach students about one of Python’s most venerable data structures: the list. For many learners, the list is the first data structure that they encounter and it can be tricky to understand at first. Episode Outline: Start with clear goals for topic Why are we teaching this? Backwards by design process What do we want the kids to do? What should students know when we’re done? Are the objectives differentiated? Can students demonstrate more advanced understanding according to Bloom’s Taxonomy? Where do they go next? What do students need to know before we start?
Introducing the List Mathes’ : cheat sheet https://t.co/KZdJkdPz7i?amp=1 (https://t.co/KZdJkdPz7i?amp=1) The problem of organizing too many bits of data Programmers use data structures to organize related data Vocabulary Data structure Ordered Mutable Sequence Examples and Demonstrations Real World Grocery List Brainstorming types of lists in the real world Python Grocery List Practical applications List sizes Small lists (choices, menus, limiting options) Medium Lists (class rosters, schedules, phone apps, etc) Large Lists (weather data, sensor measurements, etc) List limits (when not to use a list) Order doesn’t matter Searching by key (use dictionary) List shouldn’t change (use tuple) List indices are confusing at first Zero-indexed Negative index List methods Append & Insert Pop & Remove Sort & Sorted Tools for visualization and understanding Python Tutor Mu Debugger Synthesis Opportunities Using for loops with lists List slicing List of Lists Functions/methods Creativity & Fun Class Schedule Rock Paper Scissors
Kelly and Sean discuss many of the upcoming changes for a school year heavily influenced by COVID, distance learning, hybrid/flexible classrooms, and prioritizing health and safety over content. Episode Contents: Wins of the Week Main Topic: The Upcoming School Year Integrating New Ideas Safely Teaching Physical Computing PyBites / CodeChalleng.es Flipped Classroom Using Reflection Choice Boards Routines and Rituals Teacher Self Care Setting Realistic Expectations Follow @TeachingPython (https://twitter.com/teachingpython) on Twitter. Send us a message at teachingpython.fm (https://teachingpython.fm)
Ever had one of those moments where you thought you did something but then found it unfinished months later? Here's an episode we recorded back in May about how to keep your distance learning fresh and new. We're calling it the Lost Episode. New episodes are coming every Tuesday starting on August 18! In this episode, Kelly and Sean talk about ways they keep their distance learning sessions fresh and engaging for students. From refresher exercises to virtual classroom management, we've got some ideas that can help you teach no matter where you or your students are sitting.
As teachers around the world move into online teaching and learning, we must consider ways to modify our way of teaching. Writing and communicating in an online learning environment, while making connections with your students, is a very important first step. This is the second episode in a two-part series. Video can help students connect with the concepts and provide an opportunity for teachers to engage and add opportunities to connect with their students. How will teachers adapt their teaching in order to communicate and engage learners? What materials will teachers develop to ignite motivation with students? How will connections and community be built via online courses? In this episode, Sean and Kelly talk with Christopher Bailey from Real Python. We will share tips and techniques for developing quality online videos for learners. Ten Tips for Developing Video Content online: 1. Make an outline 1. Use a table of contents 1. Use of slides and code editor 1. Short video lengths 1. Intro, teach, repeat 1. Recreating 1. Display the code -speeding it up 1. Try out a repl that works well (B python for code completion) 1. Remove the jargon make it audience specific 1. Find your pacing "The goal of online communications is the same as the goal in face-to-face communications: to bond; to share information; to be heard, and to be understood. Fostering a sense of community in online classes will make the learning experience more meaningful for online students and help them stay connected during the life of the course." From Humanizing Online Teaching and Learning (https://humanmooc.pressbooks.com/chapter/using-video-to-humanize-online-instruction/) Special Guest: Christopher Bailey.
As teachers around the world move into online teaching and learning, we must consider ways to modify our way of teaching. Writing and communicating in an online learning environment, while making connections with your students, is a very important first step. This is the first episode in a two-part series. How will teachers adapt their online writing in order to communicate and engage learners? What materials will teachers develop to ignite motivation with students? How will connections and community be built via online courses? In this episode, Sean and Kelly talk with David Amos, a writer for Real Python about how he makes connections with his Real Python tutorials and we will share tips and techniques for developing quality online writing for learners. David Amos Real Python https://realpython.com/team/damos/ https://realpython.com/python-gui-tkinter/ https://realpython.com/python-rounding/ Special Guest: David Amos.
“Resilience in teachers is key for creating quality classrooms and schools. The opportunity for becoming resilient originates in how an educator makes sense of irritants, interruptions, and unexpected events, because interpretation dictates actions. By cultivating resilience, teachers can fulfill the intentions that brought them into the teaching profession.” Elena Aguilar In this episode, Kelly and Sean invite Elena Aguilar to our show for a little twist of conversations. Elena Aguilar “Elena has trained thousands of educators across the United States and abroad in transformational coaching. She is the author of four highly acclaimed books: The Art of Coaching, (2013) and The Art of Coaching Teams, (2016) Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators (2018) and the Onward Workbook (2018 and her newest book is being released in August, Coaching for Equity.). She is a regular contributor to Edutopia and ASCD’s Educational Leadership, and she was a blogger for EdWeek Teacher for many years. “ Kelly first met Elena at a workshop she attended in 2016. Special Guest: Elena Aguilar.
Python for Parents or so you want your child to code? Sometimes it just takes a few creative ideas and a short amount of time to make some fun little projects. Sean and Kelly, with the help of Anthony Shaw and his lovely daughters, ‘ Zebra’ and ‘Jaguar’ have a little fun with this topic! The Shaws’ help us to dive into the topic of #pythonicparenting. Together we discuss things that a parent can do to help your child have the same passion for coding as you do. Or at least some interest! Whether you are an experienced coder or just a beginner, you can still find some projects that you can build with your kids at home. We encourage you to have a little fun, enjoy a lot of giggles and make loads of memories with your kids, while learning Python,. Special Guest: Anthony Shaw.
With our campus closed due to COVID-19 and distance learning in full swing, Kelly and Sean discuss the brighter side of all these sudden changes to education. The sudden shift to distance learning for much of the world has introduced more than a few challenges, but many opportunities arise as well. Kelly and Sean talk about the importance of using online tools to capture attention, to shift learning from synchronous to asynchronous delivery, and even how to ask questions of your students that engage their learning. We'll be recording from home, so you may hear quite a bit of background noise as we record amongst our busy families. Thanks for your patience and understanding!
Kelly and Sean stream their show on Twitch as the world moves to quarantines and distance learning. What does this mean for teaching and coding? Learn about the things we took home from our classroom and how we are planning to teach in this new COVID-19 quarantined world.
Trying to find an easier way to get students excited about programming? Feeling stuck with the PyGame library? Paul Craven, maintainer of the Arcade Python library joins us to talk about using game design to teach programming. Arcade is a easy to use Python library that lets you quickly create games using OpenGL and a simple API that's perfect for beginners. Better still, the Arcade library includes a wide variety of sample programs and comprehensive documentation that is written for new programmers. Whether you want to make a platformer, recreate the Asteroids games of your youth, or teach students how to make a roguelike adventure game, the Arcade library may be a great way to start. Paul is the chair of the Computer Science department at Simpson College in Iowa. He started programming in Python more than 10 years ago and has used nearly every game library in Python to teach introductory programming. Special Guest: Paul Craven.
It's not always easy to be a Python teacher. Whether it's trying to find the right words to explain something, handling severe frustration, building perseverance, or losing students while coding together, Python teachers are facing problems beyond just the code. Sean and Kelly discuss five of the things that frequently go wrong in the classroom and how we handle it. Helping the naturally gifted- keeping up; keeping them learning Developing the vocab that allows students to solve problems Losing students during code-alongs Kids stuck in Turtle module Getting past the frustration level - waiting on the “click” As a special bonus, we talk about a few of the new arrivals in our classroom, including the newest LEGO Education Robot, the Spike Prime!
Peter Chan is a 4th grade teacher in Quebec, Canada. In addition to using Python in his classroom, Peter also employs maker techniques, math exploration, and English language skills. Kelly and Sean talk with him about how Python can be used as part of a decentralized teaching style where students are more self-directed and have more agency and control in their learning direction. Special Guest: Peter Chan.
In this episode, Kelly and Sean explore the idea that everyone should learn to code-- not to become a programmer but for so much more! How do we continue to foster an interest in coding for those kids that are not so interested in computer science?
In celebration of the great retail holiday of Black Friday, Kelly and Sean share their holiday buying guide for computer science teachers, including 3d printers, #PythonHardware, and books. Also this week, Bob and Julian from the PyBites website are making their Newbie Bites 40% off, with half of the proceeds going to the Teaching Python podcast! Check it out on their latest newsletter post (https://mailchi.mp/pybit.es/pybites-black-friday-2019)
Kelly and Sean interview Eric Matthes, author of Python Crash Course (https://amzn.to/2Okgzr3), about how he began programming, what led him to teaching, and the important lessons from Python to be learned both inside and outside of the classroom. This episode is sponsored by Real Python. As a special offer for listeners and friends of the show, you can get a free copy of the video course Cool New Things in Python 3.8 (https://www.realpython.com/teachingpython) when you visit realpython.com/teachingpython (https://www.realpython.com/teachingpython). Note: there are a limited number of free copies available for the next few weeks, so get yours now! Special Guest: Eric Matthes.
This week, Kelly and Sean embark on a journey with Twilio Developer Evangelist Kevin Whinnery using TwilioQuest to learn more Python in the classroom. What is TwilioQuest? Learn to code and lead your intrepid crew on a mission to save The Cloud in TwilioQuest (https://www.twilio.com/quest), a PC role-playing game inspired by classics of the 16-bit era. Free forever, and available now for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Players will learn how to code in Python, set up a developer environment, use Git to contrubute to open source projects, and access Twilio APIs to communicate using code.
Can you belive it's only been five years since Alexa launched? Or that identifying birds in photos was considered a hard problem (https://xkcd.com/1425/) for machine learning? In this episode, Kelly and Sean discuss plausible trends in machine learning, artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, and data science that we may see in schools by 2024. We focus on 5 areas from microscale in the classroom to macro across the entire educational system. Trends in the Computer Science classroom Integration into other subjects Reducing Teacher Workload For Student Access to Tools As a School-wide Initiative It's amazing to think that many problems in Machine Learning were considered hard just 5 years ago. What will the next 5 years bring?
In this episode, Kelly and Sean speak to Reuven Lerner about how to teach adult learners and people switching to Python from other languages. Reuven is a corporate trainer of Python and Data Science. He helps developers around the world learn how to code in Python. As fellow teachers, we dive into the similarities and differences of teaching adults versus students. What works? What is new and interesting? Our guest, Reuven Lerner, is a full-time Python trainer. In a given year, he teaches courses at companies in the United States, Europe, Israel, and China — as well as to people around the world, via his online courses. Reuven created one of the first 100 Web sites in the world (https://tech.mit.edu) just after graduating from MIT’s computer science department. He opened Lerner Consulting in 1995, and has been offering training services since 1996. Reuven’s monthly column has appeared in Linux Journal (https://linuxjournal.com/) since 1996, and was a panelist on the Freelancers Show podcast from 2015 - 2019. He is also the CTO of Rent Like a Champion (https://rentlikeachampion.com/), an event-based home-rental company based in Chicago, Illinois. Reuven’s most recent book is “Python Workout (https://www.manning.com/books/python-workout),” a collection of Python exercises with extensive explanations, published by Manning. Reuven’s free, weekly “Better Developers (https://lerner.co.il/newsletter)” newsletter, about Python and software engineering, is read by more than 10,000 developers around the globe. His “Trainer weekly (https://lerner.co.il/trainer-weekly/)” newsletter is similarly popular among people who give corporate training. Reuven has a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering from MIT, and a PhD in learning sciences from Northwestern University. He lives in Modi’in, Israel with his wife and three children.
This week, Kelly and Sean are joined by Brianne Caplan (https://www.briannecaplan.com) from Code Your Dreams (https://www.codeyourdreams.org) and Gabrielle Rabinowitz (https://twitter.com/gabriellerab) from the BridgeUP: STEM Program (https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/bridgeup-stem) at the American Museum of Natural History to discuss K-12 Python Education that happens outside of the classroom. Special Guests: Brianne Caplan and Gabrielle Rabinowitz.
Has it already been a year of learning and teaching Python for Kelly and Sean? In this episode, our co-hosts talk about the things they wish they knew a year ago to make their Python journey even better. 10 Things We Wish We Knew Before We Started Python Don't Be Afraid of the Unknown There's Never Going to be Enough Time Reading Error Codes Simple and Slow beats Complex and "Correct" Read a little. Code a lot. Projects Really Work You Have to Teach To Someone Reach out to the Python Community Don’t Let Imposter Syndrome Get You You Don’t Have to Answer Every Question
Isn't it surprising how much repetition goes into the job of teaching? What if you could use Python to automate that and focus on the work that adds the most value for your students? Or at least eliminate the boring teaching stuff like transferring grades or setting up iPads. With thanks to Al Sweigart and his book, Automate the Boring Stuff With Python (https://automatetheboringstuff.com/), Kelly and Sean look at how teachers can leverage Python to speed up or eliminate the most boring and repetitive aspects of teaching. This episode includes a walkthrough of an example project that Sean built to automate iPad setup at his school using Google Cloud Functions (https://cloud.google.com/functions/), JAMF Server APIs (https://www.jamf.com), and Apple Device Management (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/devicemanagement).
In this episode, Kelly and Sean discuss how their philosophy of teaching helps them to design their daily curriculum for the course.
What are the best editors for teaching in Python? In this episode, Kelly and Sean examine a variety of different environments for students to learn to code Python. Should it be online or local? Paid or free? Simple or full-featured? An editor or an IDE? Here's what made our list: Mu Editor (https://codewith.mu) Visual Studio Code (https://code.visualstudio.com) PyCharm Edu (https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm-edu/) python.microbit.org (https://python.microbit.org) Repl.it (https://repl.it) Jupyter (https://jupyter.org)
Many teachers give advice to parents on how to keep kids engaged during the summer. Sean and Kelly take their own advice and apply it to teachers and professional development. In this episode, we discuss how to avoid the “Summer Slide” and what we are doing to keep on learning.
Kelly and Sean both agree that reflecting on your teaching is vital for our growth as educators and learners. In this episode, they take a few moments to reflect on their year, their lessons, their learning, and their progress. “ Learning without reflection is a waste. Reflection without learning is dangerous.”-Confucius
In this episode, Kelly and Sean talk to freelance educational consultant Meg Ray. She was the founding Teacher in Residence at Cornell Tech (https://tech.cornell.edu/impact/k-12/) where she was responsible for the implementation and design of a coaching program for K-8 CS teachers in New York City schools. An experienced middle and high school computer science teacher and special educator, Meg directed the design of the Codesters (https://www.codesters.com) Python curricula for middle school students and served as a writer for the Computer Science Teachers’ Association K-12 CS Standards and as a special advisor to the K12 CS Framework. She lives in New York. Special Guest: Meg Ray.
In this episode, Sean and Kelly chat with Karen Hildebrand and Teresa Vallotton from FarmFemmes. These two ladies are using technology to inspire the next generation of farmers. By offering one-day tech camps, and hosting international students, Karen and Teresa hope to bring a new life and meaning to an agricultural career. Their hope is to bring their “technical knowledge and a relateable voice to showcase the unique ways women can contribute to agriculture in the 21st century.” Dr. Karen Hildebrand has a PhD in Information Systems specializing in Data Mining, but we just call her Karen. Teresa coached K-12 teachers, taught high school math and was chosen as Sioux Falls, SD Teacher of the Year. Special Guests: Karen Hildebrand and Teresa Vallotton.
In this episode, Sean and Kelly discuss the importance of having a Personal Learning Network or PLN, why we use it, and how to develop one for your computer science teaching with Python.
This week, Kelly and Sean attended their first ever PyCon in Cleveland, Ohio. Before we flew home, we recorded our thoughts and reflections on this amazing experience. We also interviewed educator attendees from places like the US Coast Guard Academy, Stanford University, and the American Museum of Natural History. Join us as we reflect on all the amazing people we've met and things we've seen at #PyCon2019. Special Guest: Gabrielle Rabinowitz.
Kelly and Sean are headed to their first PyCon next week. In this special mini-episode, they discuss their Top 5 things that they're looking forward to at the conference. Are you going? Want to meet up with us? Send us a tweet!
Kelly and Sean get motivation from Michael Kennedy’s (https://twitter.com/mkennedy) Talk Python to Me (https://talkpython.fm) podcast episode Beginners and Experts (https://talkpython.fm/episodes/show/203/beginners-and-experts-in-software-development). Where Michaels and the panelists discuss, how do you go about attacking a problem? In this episode, Kelly and Sean digest abstraction and analytical thinking in the school setting and how computational thinking plays a part in all this. They discuss the activities that are used to help promote these skills.
Sean and Kelly continue their conversation about the philosophy and ethics of machine learning and artificial intelligence in Python. This episode focuses more on resources and tools for AI learning after last episode's focus on philosophy and ethics.
After a two day workshop on AI and Deep Learning, Kelly and Sean get philosophical about Python. From deep fakes to logical proofs to future non-driving generations that rely on self-driving cars, they'll explore the close relationship between computer science, ethics, and philosophy
With their school's Innovation Institute coming up, Kelly and Sean explore the topic of innovation in education. How do you cultivate it in yourself and others? What skills help you become more innovative? How do you teach it? With more than 35 combined years of experience working or teaching in innovation areas, Kelly and Sean have a lot to share. This week's episode includes resources from innovation thought leaders, tips to become more innovative in your classroom, and a review of critical skills for innovators.
In this episode, Kelly and Sean talk to Joshua Lowe, a Python entrepreneur who invented Edublocks (https://www.edublocks.org) to help bridge the gap from Scratch (https://scratch.mit.edu) to Edublocks and then into Python 3. Joshua started learning Python in 2013 and wanted to find a way to make it easier for others to understand. Special Guest: Josh Lowe.
In this episode, Kelly and Sean meet Bob and Julian from PyBit.es to discuss strategies, and how to seek advice and motivation when learning Python. Bob is a driven Pythonista working as a software developer at Oracle.. Bob is passionate about automation, data, web development, code quality, and mentoring other developers.” Julian is a Data Centre Technician at Amazon Web Services. He started coding a few years ago and codes for fun and to solve everyday projects. Together they founded PyBites, a Python blog featuring code challenges, articles, and news. Special Guests: Bob Belderbos and Julian Sequeira.
How do you know your students are really learning in Computer Science? In this episode, Sean and Kelly dig into developing the learner-centered classroom and some of the pedagogical philosophy of how to look for learning in your teaching.
This week, we're discussing how to use a very old programming tool to teach modern concepts. That's right, it's the return of the Turtle tool! Kelly and Sean will explore why this Python 2-era library based on a 53-year old concept still works so well to teach fundamental programming concepts. Want to learn how we use Turtle in the classroom? Kelly and Sean will go through our best practices, preferred starting points, helpful resources we've used, and desired outcomes for this tool.
This week, we're joined by Peter Kazarinoff (https://pythonforundergradengineers.com/pages/about.html), Professor of Engineering and Engineering Technology at Portland Community College to discuss how adult learners can learn Python, the use of Jupyter notebooks as teaching tools, and some of the common goals of learners of diverse ages, backgrounds, and education levels. Joined by your usual co-hosts, Kelly and Sean, we explore some of the different approaches needed for adult learners, the common traits needed for successful students of all ages, the materials that we've found most useful for teaching and learning, and some best practices for sequencing course material. Special Guest: Peter Kazarinoff.
Persistence is defined as the ability to stick with something. In the educational world it is often used interchangeably with the phrases: Sticktoitiveness, grit or perseverance. In this episode, we will discuss how to develop persistence in programming for all learners. Whether your students already have an innate ability to stick with coding or if you are hoping to instill the “desire” in your students, Sean and Kelly will examine ways that they develop persistence in programming in their classrooms. Note: In this episode, Kelly mixed up Sylvia Duckworth, the creator of Sketchnotes, with Angela Duckworth, the author of Grit. We've linked both of their books below for you, since they're both great reads.
In this week's episode, Kelly and Sean discuss one of the tools that we like to use in class: the BBC micro:bit (https://www.microbit.org). Thanks to the instant feedback and physical/tactile nature of the device, this inexpensive little IoT device makes the process of learning Python more intuitive for students. It's also an easy starting point for those teachers who are new to coding. There are many advantages to using a physical computing device in a school setting and we will walk you through a quick introduction to the micro:bit and our preferred sequence of lessons with Python on this platform. We will also talk about some add-ons that can extend the capabilities of this remarkable little device to allow your students flexibility and creativity with their newfound skills. As with any teaching tool, there are always some best practices to consider to maximise learning and positively impact your students. Kelly and Sean will touch on some tips and tricks to use in your classroom.
Kelly and Sean are back this in this week's episode to talk about the role of coding challenges for student understanding. Coding challenges are teacher-defined coding problems that students tackle individually or in groups with more than one possible solution. The advantages of these challenges compared to passive learning include deeper retention of skills and knowledge, opportunities for social and emotional education, and increased student confidence through subject mastery. What are coding challenges? Coding challenges are teacher-defined coding problems that students tackle individually or in groups with more than one possible solution. Challenges are time-bound, i.e. they must be solved within a set period of time and range in complexity from simple code snippets to complete programs. For example: * A 5-minute challenge to add comments to existing code * A 3-day challenge to create a game in Python * A standing challenge to solve a complex math problem by the end of the course
This week, co-hosts Kelly Schuster-Paredes (https://twitter.com/kellypared) and Sean Tibor (https://twitter.com/smtibor) talk about their preferred methods for building student resilience while learning Python. Every learner reaches a point where they may get frustrated, discouraged, or want to give up. How can you help them get past that moment and rebuild momentum? How do you recognize those moments? What can you do as a coach and mentor to help them? What activities help prevent those moments from happening?
This week, Kelly and Sean review their top Python books for teachers. They cover everything from classics like Automate the Boring Stuff with Python (https://amzn.to/2V7YD47) and Invent Your Own Computer Games (https://amzn.to/2LzsxtS) to the newest books like Impractical Python Projects (https://amzn.to/2EHdpdh) and Coffee Break Python (https://amzn.to/2BwS0PP). If you're looking for a good book for your winter break, there's bound to be one that will suit you here. Brew up a nice cup of tea or coffee and take a paper-based break this week. Your co-hosts this week are middle school computer science teachers Kelly Schuster-Paredes (https://twitter.com/kellypared) and Sean Tibor (https://twitter.com/smtibor). Kelly is an experienced international teacher who's learning coding and Python for the first time. Sean is a technology professional that's teaching middle school for the first time. Each week, they explore resources, approaches, and best practices for teaching Python to beginner students.
We've noticed that many of our students have a moment where everything 'clicks' and they make a leap forward in their knowledge of Python. Kelly and Sean discuss strategies to ensure that this happens, including coding challenges, metacognitive discussion, and formative assessments. Flow states are another phenomenon that indicates deep learning and knowledge acquisition. We've defined that as a state of increased productivity, focus, and absorption.
What does the first week of Python look like for new coders? Where do you start? Is it better to jump right in or give them a softer start? We'll talk about everything from what exercises work best, how to get new Python coders started with an IDE like Mu Editor, and more. In this episode, Kelly and Sean talk about starting the first week of teaching Python. We take a look why we choose to teach Python in our Computer Science Course. We also give a few tips on how we set expectations, establish routine, develop a coding mindset, and choosing the first tool to use in the first week of teaching a computer class.