Show Notes

Wins of the Week

• Julian: Staying focused on "the one thing" at PyBites, plus 3D printing a custom cappuccino stencil for his local café
• Kelly: Surviving a muddy, clay-covered hill in North Carolina while on vacation
• Sean: Designing and 3D printing a custom bracket for his screen door using Fusion 360

Holiday Gift Ideas

Julian's Picks

1. Hoverboard with Go-Kart Attachment (~$299 AUD) - Two-wheeled self-balancing boards that can convert to a go-kart with a third wheel attachment. Available at Hoveroo in Australia.

2. Secret Coders Book Series (~$10-20 USD each) - A six-book graphic novel series that wraps coding puzzles and concepts into mystery stories. Recommended by Faye Shaw from the Boston PyLadies community. Great for ages 8-15.

3. 3D Printer (~$200-300 USD) - Entry-level printers like the Bambu Lab A1 Mini or Elegoo Neptune 4 Pro have dropped significantly in price. Look for auto bed leveling as a key feature.

4. Duolingo Chess (~$13/month with subscription) - A new addition to Duolingo that teaches chess tactics, strategy, and formal terminology through structured lessons. Great for building problem-solving skills.

5. Classic Video Games (Zelda, Pokémon) - Story-driven games that build resilience and problem-solving skills, as an alternative to dopamine-heavy platforms like Roblox.

Kelly's Picks

1. Soccer Bot (~$59.99) - An indoor soccer training robot that challenges footwork skills. Works best on hard floors.

2. "The Worlds I See" by Dr. Fei-Fei Li - Memoir of the computer scientist behind ImageNet and modern image recognition, covering her immigrant journey and rise in AI. A must-read for anyone interested in AI.

3. LEGO Retro Radio Building Set (~$99) - A 1970s-style radio that you build, then insert your phone to play music. Features working dials that create authentic radio crackle sounds.

4. Spydroid Loco Hex Robot (classroom investment) - A large spider-shaped robot that codes in Python and block programming. Features LIDAR and AI-based mapping. Seen at ISTE.

5. Richtie Mini from Hugging Face ($299-$449) - An adorable AI desktop companion robot with onboard models. Two versions: one that connects to your computer and one that's self-contained.

Sean's Picks

1. LED Pucks (LED 001 Kit) (~$6-13) - Small USB-powered LED discs perfect for 3D printed projects like planet lamps. Available from Bambu Labs or Amazon. RGB versions include remote controls.

2. Daily Desk Calendar (~$15-20) - A throwback gift that provides daily doses of humor, trivia, or inspiration. Suggestions include The Far Side, "They Can Talk," or "How to Win Friends and Influence People."

3. PyBites Coding Platform (subscription) - Bite-sized Python challenges for sharpening coding skills. Great for teachers, students, and professionals looking for practical coding practice.

4. Digital Calipers (~$40-50) - USB-rechargeable precision measuring tools essential for 3D printing and maker projects. Great for teaching geometry and measurement concepts.

5. Deburring Tool (~$10) - A small tool with a curved swiveling blade for cleaning up 3D prints. A quality-of-life improvement for any maker's toolkit.

Links Mentioned

• PyBites - Python coaching and coding challenges
• Hoveroo - Hoverboards (Australia)
• Bambu Lab - 3D printers and LED pucks
• Printables - 3D printing models
• MakerWorld - 3D printing models
• Hugging Face Richtie Mini - AI companion robot
• Duolingo - Language learning app with chess
• Secret Coders book series - Available on Amazon
• "The Worlds I See" by Dr. Fei-Fei Li - Available at bookstores

Upcoming Events

• PyCon US 2026 - Long Beach, California
• Education Summit - Proposals open after the holidays, deadline around March/April
• Submit proposals when the website opens!

Special Guest: Julian Sequeira.

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The conversation touches on several compelling topics including teaching agile methodology to high school students, the importance of transparency about failure, and how behavioral economics concepts (from thinkers like Daniel Kahneman) inform his approach to helping students understand their own thinking processes. Quincy also shares insights on supporting underserved students, running a successful Girls Who Code chapter, and navigating the integration of AI tools in the classroom. His students' enthusiasm at PyCon 2024 was infectious, and this episode reveals the thoughtful pedagogy behind their success.

Key resources mentioned include CS61A from UC Berkeley, CodeHS, Code.org, Sandra McGuire's book "Teach Students How to Learn," Eric Matthes' Python Crash Course, and Al Sweigart's educational resources including his new Buttonpad library for Tkinter.

Special Guest: Quincy Tennyson.

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The conversation explores crucial concepts like the "Jobs to Be Done" framework, which emphasizes focusing on outcomes rather than getting stuck in existing processes. Pritesh explains how he approaches AI education through playfulness and intuition-building—whether that's getting Batman to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" in ChatGPT or creating AI personalities that debate humans. The discussion touches on the importance of maintaining accountability while delegating responsibility to AI tools, the power of curiosity in adoption, and how reinforcement learning might shape the future of AI integration.

Key resources mentioned:

• Strategyn Jobs to Be Done Framework - Tony Ulwick's innovation methodology
• NotebookLM - Google's AI-powered research tool
• Suno.ai - AI music generation platform
• OpenAI's Real-time API for voice interactions

Special Guest: Pritesh Patel.

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The discussion covers the current landscape of LLMs in coding education, from the benefits of faster iteration cycles to the risks of students losing that crucial "aha moment" when they solve problems independently. Simon shares insights on prompt injection vulnerabilities, the importance of local models for privacy, and why he believes LLMs are much harder to use effectively than most people realize.

Key topics include:

• Educational Strategy: When to introduce AI tools vs. building foundational skills first
• Security Concerns: Prompt injection attacks and their implications for educational tools
• Student Engagement: Maintaining motivation and problem-solving skills in an AI world
  
• Practical Applications: Using LLMs for code review, debugging, and rapid prototyping
• Privacy Issues: Understanding data collection and training practices of major AI companies
• Local Models: Running AI tools privately on personal devices
• The "Jagged Frontier": Why LLMs excel at some tasks while failing at others

Simon brings 20 years of Django experience and deep expertise in both web development and AI tooling to discuss how educators can thoughtfully integrate these powerful but unpredictable tools into their classrooms. The conversation balances excitement about AI's potential with realistic assessments of its limitations and risks.

Whether you're a coding educator trying to navigate the AI revolution or a developer interested in the intersection of education and technology, this episode provides practical insights for working with LLMs responsibly and effectively.

Resources mentioned:

• Simon's blog: simonwillison.net
• Mission Encodable curriculum
• Datasette and LLM tools
• GitHub Codespaces for safe AI experimentation

Special Guest: Simon Willison.

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In this episode, we're thrilled to welcome Sheena O'Connell, an educator and developer from South Africa who has been making waves in the Python education community. Sheena shares her journey from electrical engineering to founding Prelude, where she runs advanced Django learning sprints and teamwork training courses.

We explore the critical importance of soft skills in technical education, diving into Google's Project Aristotle and the five key factors that make teams effective: psychological safety, dependability, structure and clarity, meaning, and impact. Sheena provides fascinating insights into how cultural concepts like Ubuntu ("I am because we are") influence collaborative learning and professional development.

The conversation covers practical strategies for teaching both technical and soft skills to adult learners, the challenges of helping students transition from learning to professional environments, and how to build psychologically safe spaces that promote growth and learning.

We also discuss upcoming events including Django Con Africa in Tanzania and PyCon Africa in Johannesburg, South Africa, which Sheena is chairing.

Whether you're an educator, team leader, or developer interested in fostering better collaborative environments, this episode offers valuable insights into the intersection of technical education, cultural awareness, and team dynamics.

Key Topics Discussed

• Transitioning from technical roles to education
• Building effective coding bootcamps and adult learning programs
• The importance of soft skills in technical careers
• Google's Project Aristotle and team effectiveness
• Psychological safety and stereotype threat
• Cultural influences on learning and teamwork (Ubuntu philosophy)
• Managing the "desperation mindset" in learning environments
• Professional development and career transitions
• PyCon Africa and Django Con Africa
• Cross-cultural team dynamics and communication

Guests

Sheena O'Connell - Founder of Prelude, former educator at Umuzi, and chair of PyCon Africa 2025

Resources Mentioned

• Google's Project Aristotle
• The Culture Map (book on cultural differences in teams)
• Prelude Tech - Sheena's platform for Django courses and teamwork training
• PyCon Africa 2025 (Johannesburg, South Africa)
• Django Con Africa (Arusha, Tanzania)
• Ubuntu philosophy
• Umuzi (South African coding bootcamp)

Connect with Sheena

• Personal blog: sheenaoc.com
• Courses and training: Prelude TV
• PyCon Africa 2025: October, Johannesburg, South Africa

Wins and Fails of the Week

Sheena

• Win: Successfully running a teamwork course for Canonical with an international team
• Fail: All her plants fell onto the couch (and the subsequent cleanup)

Kelly

• Win: Attending ISTE conference in San Antonio, meeting previous podcast guests, and co-hosting a presentation
• Fail: Losing momentum on Anthony Shaw's GitHub course due to summer break

Sean

• Win: Being interviewed by media about AI coding tools and AWS Amazon Q
• Fail: Home server power supply failure during a lightning storm, breaking all home automations

Episode Notes

This episode provides valuable insights for educators at all levels, from K-12 teachers to corporate trainers. The discussion of soft skills, cultural awareness, and team dynamics offers practical strategies that can be applied in classrooms, coding bootcamps, and professional development settings.

The conversation highlights how technical education must go beyond coding skills to prepare students for successful careers, emphasizing the importance of communication, collaboration, and cultural competency in today's global technology landscape.

Special Guest: Sheena O'Connell.

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Listeners will hear firsthand accounts from university lecturers, high school teachers, industry professionals, and volunteer mentors. Topics include the impact of AI tools on coding productivity, the challenges of assessing genuine learning in an AI-rich environment, and strategies for teaching critical thinking alongside technical skills. The episode also delves into the tension between embracing AI as an educational aid and ensuring students develop foundational problem-solving abilities.

Whether you’re an educator, developer, or simply curious about the future of learning, this episode offers a nuanced, multi-perspective look at AI’s growing influence in the classroom and beyond.

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The episode also explores the work group's goals, which include:

• Seeking and receiving feedback on Python educational resources
• Consolidating and improving existing Python education materials
• Supporting and expanding the education summit at PyCon US

Additionally, the hosts share personal 'wins of the week,' highlighting the importance of accountability and community in the educational journey. Kelly and Sean discuss their past experiences with the Education Summit and encourage listeners to get involved by submitting talk proposals or joining in interactive sessions. The episode concludes with practical advice on how educators and enthusiasts can engage with the group to further Python education and outreach.

Special Guests: Cheuk Ting Ho and Keith Murray.

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Links:

• PyOhio 2025 — Summer 2025 in Cleveland, OH
• PythonEduWGCharter - PSF Wiki — The Education & Outreach Workgroup's (EOW) purpose is to support the Python Software Foundation’s mission to promote the Python programming language, especially in supporting and enhancing the education of Python. The Education & Outreach Workgroup is a workgroup of the Python Software Foundation’s (PSF).
• - Education Summit - PyCon US 2024 — In 2024, PyCon US held its 12th annual Python Education Summit in person!

Our hosts also highlight their exciting upcoming engagements, including the FETC conference and the Pine Crest Innovation Institute, encouraging listeners to remain adaptable and open to new learning avenues. Furthermore, they discuss the concept of adapting computer science curriculums to reflect real-world applications and evolving job markets, focusing on how to better prepare students for future careers. With a mix of personal anecdotes and professional insights, this episode offers a heartfelt look at the impact of teaching coding and the continuous evolution in education and technology.

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Learn VIM while playing a game - VIM Adventures — Learning VIM while playing a game
• Teaching Python Podcast (@teachingpython.fm) — Bluesky — Teaching Python on Bluesky
• Sean Tibor (@seantibor.com) — Bluesky — Sean's profile on Bluesky
• Kelly Paredes (@kellypared.bsky.social) — Bluesky — Kelly's profile on Bluesky
• Future of Education Technology Conference | FETC 2025
• Pine Crest School's Innovation Institute
• Bett UK: Leading EdTech Event | 22-24 Jan 2025, ExCeL London
• Top announcements of AWS re:Invent 2024 | AWS News Blog

Kudzayi shares his inspiring journey into the world of coding, beginning with his initial exposure to Python and how attending Python conferences like PyCon Namibia have been pivotal in his growth. He emphasizes the importance of community, collaboration, and support in helping budding coders overcome challenges and stay motivated. The discussion also highlights the need for more initiatives and workshops to bridge the gap in tech education across the continent.

The episode concludes with insightful ideas on how to create effective learning environments and the role of educators in nurturing future tech talents. Sean and Kelly, alongside Kudzayi, discuss the significance of making coding accessible and engaging, especially in underrepresented regions. They call on listeners to support initiatives that bring Python education to Africa, encouraging a global collaboration to drive technological progress and innovation.

Special Guest: Kudzayi Bamhare.

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Throughout the episode, Dr. Chapin discusses his recent research on the impact of whiteboarding on student self-efficacy in CS1 classes, as presented at the Association for Computing Machinery's Global Computer Education Conference (CompEd2023). He also shares his experiences conducting professional development workshops for CS teachers across Virginia and his efforts to align CS programs with the evolving needs of the workforce and society. This episode is a must-listen for educators, administrators, and anyone passionate about the future of computer science education, offering actionable ideas and inspiration to enhance their teaching practices and curriculum design.

Special Guest: Dr. John Chapin.

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Links:

• (PDF) CT 2.0
• A Neural Network Playground — Tinker With a Neural Network Right Here in Your Browser. Don’t Worry, You Can’t Break It. We Promise.
• Teach, learn, and make with the Raspberry Pi Foundation — Discover world-leading curricula, resources, and professional development to support the teaching and learning of AI literacy. We bring together original research, industry expertise, and practical classroom experience to help you bring the excitement of AI into your classroom.
• Machine Learning for Kids
• ACM CompEd Home - ACM CompEd
• About The Coalition | Data Science for Everyone
• AI by Hand ✍️ | Tom Yeh | Substack

Topics Covered

• Engaging Middle School Students: Strategies for capturing and maintaining student interest.
• Creativity and Collaboration: How to foster a collaborative environment that inspires creativity.
• Core Computational Concepts: Real-world applications that make these concepts accessible and interesting.
• Data Science Projects: Practical advice on integrating data science into your curriculum.
• Generative AI Ethics: Discussing the ethical use of AI in education.
• Python as a Teaching Tool: Exploring the versatility of Python for various projects.

Key Takeaways

• Integrating Computational Thinking Skills: Tips on how to weave these skills into everyday classroom routines.
• Teamwork and Communication: The importance of teamwork and effective communication in coding projects.
• Engaging Lessons with Python: How Python can be used to create engaging and meaningful projects for students.

About Kelly Powers

Kelly Powers transitioned from the business world to education, bringing a fresh perspective on teaching computational thinking. She offers invaluable insights into making rigorous and joyful learning experiences for middle school students.

Whether you are an experienced teacher or new to the field, this episode is packed with actionable ideas and inspirational moments that will help you create a more engaging and effective learning environment.

Tune in for a lively conversation that celebrates the magic of middle school teaching and the endless possibilities of computer science education.

Listen to the episode: Teaching Python Podcast

Follow us on Social Media:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn ```

Special Guest: Kelly Powers.

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• CodeHS - Teach Coding and Computer Science at Your School | CodeHS — Everything You Need, All In One Spot CodeHS is trusted by thousands of teachers and schools all over the world.
• Overview ‹ Scratch — MIT Media Lab — Scratch is the world's most popular coding community for kids. Millions of kids around the world are using Scratch to program their own interactive stories, games, and animations—and share their creations in an active online community.
• Welcome To Colab - Colab — Colab is an online Jupyter notebook from Google
• Computer Science Teachers Association Connect, Grow, & Share With CS Teachers- — CSTA understands that teaching computer science is hard. That’s why we’re focused on creating a supportive environment for K–12 educators.

Trey shares his experiences with listeners, starting with his recent venture into launching a 10-week Python course called Python High Five. He talks about the excitement and challenges of teaching across different time zones with this unique setup, highlighting the importance of accountability and the fun of learning alongside his students.

Throughout the episode, Sean and Kelly discuss the evolving landscape of AI and its impact on learning. Trey emphasizes the critical skill of asking the right questions, saying, "Knowing how to use that tool is a really valuable thing, but also knowing what to stick into the tool and how to evaluate the output of the tool is a really valuable thing."

The conversation transitions into the heart of Python programming, where Trey, Sean, and Kelly share their favorite features and nuances of Python. They explore the value of looping helpers and marvel at the elegance and simplicity of Python's tools and functions. Sean recalls a memorable teaching moment about Python turtle graphics, reflecting on the joy and discovery that comes with coding: "It was so cool that this sixth grader showed me how to do it."

This episode is not just about technical insights but also about the joy of teaching and learning. Trey, Kelly, and Sean discuss strategies for balancing the basics with advanced learning and the importance of having fun in the process. Join them for a warm, inclusive conversation that invites you to be part of their journey through the wonders of Python programming.

Special Guest: Trey Hunner.

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Links:

• Python Morsels: Write better Python code — Learning efficiently requires planning a path that repeatedly answers the question what skill should I learn next and how best can I learn it? Instead of wading through blog posts and YouTube videos in search of the next thing to learn, I can guide you. My name is Trey Hunner and I created Python Morsels to give life-long learners a low-stress way to improve their Python skills.
• PEP 636 – Structural Pattern Matching: Tutorial | peps.python.org — As an example to motivate this tutorial, you will be writing a text adventure. That is a form of interactive fiction where the user enters text commands to interact with a fictional world and receives text descriptions of what happens. Commands will be simplified forms of natural language like get sword, attack dragon, go north, enter shop or buy cheese.
• Amazon.com: The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI eBook : Li, Fei-Fei: Kindle Store — The Worlds I See is a story of science in the first person, documenting one of the century’s defining moments from the inside. It provides a riveting story of a scientist at work and a thrillingly clear explanation of what artificial intelligence actually is—and how it came to be. Emotionally raw and intellectually uncompromising, this book is a testament not only to the passion required for even the most technical scholarship but also to the curiosity forever at its heart.
• Blog Archive - Trey Hunner

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• ConnectEd Code
• Renee Noble
• Amazon.com: Python Cheat Sheet Desk Mat for Software Engineers, Hackers and Programmers, Quick Key, Large Anti-Slip Keyboard Pad Mouse Mat KMH : Office Products — Python Cheat Sheet Desk Mats

Special Guest: Brianne Caplan.

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Code Your Dreams | Teaching Inner-City Chicago Kids To Code — Where Every Dream Counts: Embracing Innovation Through Education for a Brighter Future

Pamela dives into her approach to teaching and the unique challenges posed by different educational formats. Drawing from her work at institutions like UC Berkeley and her development of AP Computer Science Principles content for Khan Academy, she highlights the importance of making learning engaging and personalized. Pamela shares insights into the design of interactive and project-based curricula, touching on how tools like Parsons problems can scaffold learning effectively and make complex concepts like recursion more approachable.

The conversation also explores the significance of visualizations in learning programming, as exemplified by Pamela's recursion visualizer tool. The episode concludes with reflections on the breadth of topics covered in AP CSP and the value of exposing students to a wide array of programming experiences. Listeners gain a deeper understanding of the balance between teaching fundamental concepts and encouraging creative expression through code, along with practical tips for educators at all levels.

Special Guest: Pamela Fox.

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Links:

• GitHub - pamelafox/recursive-visualizations: An online tool to visualize recursive JS functions step-by-step as a tree. — A way to visualize the call graph of recursive functions. Uses Pyodide to run rcviz.py and then a WASM PyDot/GraphViz port to build an SVG graph. Finally, some JavaScript adds a slider for stepping through the calls.
• GitHub - pamelafox/faded-parsons-static: A way to run Python Faded Parsons problems entirely in the browser. — This website allows you to run Faded Parsons Problems in the browser. It uses Pyodide for executing Python doctests and localStorage for storing user progress.

The episode tackles key themes around the entrepreneurial mindset, advising both students and educators on how to take calculated risks and break away from conventional norms. Hightower shares his unique insights on how thinking like an entrepreneur can lead to personal and professional growth, and how these principles can be applied even in structured educational environments. His stories about facing and overcoming challenges offer a blueprint for anyone looking to innovate within their current roles.

For educators, Hightower's discussion emphasizes the need to look beyond the standard curriculum and foster an environment where students feel empowered to explore and experiment. The episode is rich with ideas on how to cultivate a nurturing yet challenging atmosphere that encourages students to think independently and embrace failure as a stepping stone to success. Whether you are a teacher, student, or tech enthusiast, this episode provides a wealth of wisdom on nurturing potential and achieving excellence.

Special Guest: Kelsey Hightower.

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Links:

• Kubernetes: Up and Running: Dive into the Future of Infrastructure: Burns, Brendan, Beda, Joe, Hightower, Kelsey, Evenson, Lachlan: 9781098110208: Amazon.com: Books — In just five years, Kubernetes has radically changed the way developers and ops personnel build, deploy, and maintain applications in the cloud. With this book's updated third edition, you'll learn how this popular container orchestrator can help your company achieve new levels of velocity, agility, reliability, and efficiency--whether you're new to distributed systems or have been deploying cloud native apps for some time. Brendan Burns, Joe Beda, Kelsey Hightower, and Lachlan Evenson--who have worked on Kubernetes at Google and beyond--explain how this system fits into the life cycle of a distributed application. Software developers, engineers, and architects will learn ways to use tools and APIs to automate scalable distributed systems for online services, machine learning applications, or even a cluster of Raspberry Pi computers.
• Great Software & Storytelling Is Emotional | Kelsey Hightower (Legendary Developer) | CRAFTED. - YouTube — Kelsey Hightower is a legend. He’s a Kubernetes pioneer and recently retired (at 42!) from Google where he was a distinguished engineer. He still regularly gives live software demos in front of tens of thousands of people, improvising them like it’s jazz. He’s a master storyteller and a master craftsman.
• Kelsey Hightower (@kelseyhightower) / X
• kelseyhightower (Kelsey Hightower) · GitHub

This episode features a conversation with Dr. Chuck Severance about making programming accessible to everyone, the importance of practical applications in learning, and the potential of remote internships in programming education.

Description

In this episode of Teaching Python, hosts Kelly Schuster-Paredes and Sean Tibor chat with Dr. Chuck Severance, widely known as Dr. Chuck, about his innovative approaches to make Python and programming accessible to everyone. They discuss Dr. Chuck's methods for engaging learners of all ages, the critical role of practical application in education, and how creating connections can help students retain complex concepts.

The conversation also delves into the potential for scalable, remote internships and how empowering students with programming skills at a younger age can have far-reaching effects on their future careers. Dr. Chuck shares his experiences, strategies, and vision for the future of programming education, making this episode a must-listen for educators and learners alike.

Sections

• Introduction
• Wins of the Week
• Guest Introduction
• The Making of a Viral Python Course
• Importance of Practical Applications
• Empowering the Future with Python
• Closing Remarks

Special Guest: Dr. Charles Severance aka "Dr. Chuck".

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• PY4E - Python for Everybody — This web site is building a set of free materials, lectures, book and assignments to help students learn how to program in Python. You can take this course and receive a certificate at: Coursera: Python for Everybody Specialization edX: Python for Everybody FreeCodeCamp Free certificates for University of Michigan students and staff CodeKidz
• PY4E - Python for Everybody — The goal of this book is to provide an Informatics-oriented introduction to programming. The primary difference between a computer science approach and the Informatics approach taken in this book is a greater focus on using Python to solve data analysis problems common in the world of Informatics.

Morgan and Wes share their unique journey of incorporating Python into their legal courses, detailing their beginning stages and the progression they've seen in their students. They discuss the challenges and rewards of teaching coding to future lawyers and the significant benefits it provides to their legal studies and careers. Through real-life examples and success stories, listeners gain insight into how Python is not only a tool for software development but also a powerful aid in legal problem-solving and decision-making.

The episode wraps up with a look at the broader implications and future opportunities for law graduates who possess coding skills. Sean and Kelly highlight the feedback from employers and the growing demand for tech-savvy lawyers in the industry. Whether you're a law student, educator, or tech enthusiast, this episode offers a compelling look at how the integration of coding into non-traditional fields can open new avenues for innovation and efficiency.

Special Guests: Morgan Gray and Wes Oliver.

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Links:

• Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University — We educate lawyers to preserve the highest ideals of our profession and to promote equal justice and democratic discourse through leadership, service, and civic engagement. As a student at Duquesne Kline, you will receive a well-rounded legal education full of opportunities to practically apply your coursework—through our clinics, our appellate programs, and innovative offerings, like our Leadership Fellows Program and JD/ MBA program.
• Professors present groundbreaking “Coding for Lawyers” course at Python Education Summit — Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University Professor Wesley Oliver and Adjunct Professor Morgan Gray, L’19, recently presented at the Python Education Summit (PyCon) in Pittsburgh.

Our discussion touches on the critical need for diversity and inclusion within tech communities and companies. Jay elaborates on practical strategies to make tech events and workplaces more welcoming for historically excluded groups. From the importance of having a strong code of conduct to providing logistical support like childcare and travel reimbursements, Jay emphasizes how small actions can make a significant impact in creating a culture where everyone feels they belong.

We also dive into the often overlooked challenges that Black tech professionals face, such as negotiating salaries and finding mentors who look like them. Jay offers invaluable insights on why visibility and representation matter, sharing personal anecdotes and practical advice for both aspiring developers and established leaders. Whether you're an educator, a tech professional, or someone interested in creating more inclusive communities, this episode is packed with thought-provoking discussions and actionable takeaways.

Special Guest: Jay Miller.

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Links:

• Black Python Devs | About Us — Black Python Devs was created by its founder Jay Miller after seeing a trend of the same handful of Black developers speaking at major conferences, taking leadership positions, and dealing with the same challenges towards burnout.
• Aiven - Your Trusted Data & AI Platform — Aiven is a versatile platform empowering you with AI-driven workload optimization and control over your data. Deploy widely adopted technologies across multiple clouds with just a few clicks to stream, store, and serve your data.
• FastAPI — FastAPI is a modern, fast (high-performance), web framework for building APIs with Python based on standard Python type hints.
• Talk: Nina Zakharenko - Goodbye Print, Hello Debugger! - YouTube — Still debugging your code with print? Learn how to level up your ability to troubleshoot complex code situations by using the power of a fully-featured debugger in this talk aimed at all levels of programming ability. Debuggers allow you to examine your program state, watch as the values of important variables change, and even modify the content of variables on the fly. Once I gave up using print to debug, my productivity as a programmer increased, and yours can too!
• Django Girls - start your journey with programming — Django Girls is a non-profit organization and a community that empowers and helps women to organize free, one-day programming workshops by providing tools, resources and support. We are a volunteer run organization with hundreds of people contributing to bring more amazing women into the world of technology. We are making technology more approachable by creating resources designed with empathy.
• PyCon US 2024 - PyCon US 2024 — After two years of PyCon US in Salt Lake City, we are so excited to welcome our community to our new host city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania! Mark your calendars and be sure to read the About PyCon US page for all the details. We can’t wait to see you all at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center!

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This episode sheds light on the importance of coding in today’s education and the crucial role of creativity and cross-curricular connections in engaging students. Hear firsthand accounts of teachers and educators who, despite having no coding background, have successfully integrated coding into their curriculum, making it a valuable tool for enhancing cognitive skills and preparing students for the future. Explore the transformative power of coding education and how it’s shaping the educators of tomorrow.

Whether you are a seasoned coding professional or a curious newcomer to the field of education technology, this episode offers valuable insights into making coding accessible and fun for everyone. Through real-world examples and engaging discussions, discover how coding is not just about learning a new language but about building a foundation for critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity in the digital age.

Special Guests: Chelsea Clagg and Dora Palfi.

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Listeners will gain valuable strategies for employing Lightning Talks as a pedagogical tool, with emphasis on their simplicity, the encouragement of critical thinking, and the promotion of a more inclusive and engaging learning environment. The episode is rich with anecdotes and experiences, highlighting how these brief, impromptu presentations can ease the anxiety associated with public speaking, inspire creativity, and facilitate a deeper connection with subject matter. Furthermore, the conversation also touches on the adaptability of Lightning Talks across different educational contexts, offering listeners a comprehensive view on integrating this format into their teaching repertoire to ignite enthusiasm and foster a vibrant learning culture.

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Joining the discussion, we have Michael Kennedy from the Talk Python To Me podcast, known for his expertise in Python and its applications across various domains. Next, Blake Rayfield, a professor at Northern Arizona University, shares his perspective on the role of AI in higher education and research. The episode is rounded out with Brian Okken, host of the Python Test podcast, who provides a critical look at how AI is influencing software testing and development practices.

Together, this panel navigates the complex terrain of AI's role in coding and education, sparking insightful debates and offering viewpoints that reflect the diverse spectrum of thought in the tech community.

Special Guests: Blake Rayfield, Brian Okken, and Michael Kennedy.

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Today's Topics:

• Making Coding Engaging
• Personal Coding Stories and Teachings
• Tools and Strategies for Coding Education

Special Guest: Charlie Meyer.

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Pickcode | The coding platform for education — Pickcode's online editor is the easiest way to teach and learn programming

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Sean and Kelly discuss how portfolios can give young coders a competitive edge when it comes to college admissions and job applications. They emphasize the significance of going beyond traditional academic achievements, such as grades and test scores, and highlight the value of tangible evidence of their coding prowess. By curating a collection of their projects, students not only provide a window into their technical abilities but also provide important context about their inspirations, intentions, and the thought process behind each project.

Moreover, the hosts discuss the benefits of contributing to open-source projects and sharing code on platforms like GitHub. They acknowledge the initial discomfort, but encourage young coders to take the leap and submit contributions, highlighting how these experiences can enhance their portfolios and provide valuable talking points in interviews. Additionally, they discuss the emerging trend of universities and employers conducting online background checks, making a well-crafted online presence, including portfolios and LinkedIn profiles, essential for young coders.

In this insightful episode, Sean and Kelly provide practical advice, personal anecdotes, and valuable insights, helping young coders understand the significance of projects and portfolios in their educational and professional journeys. Tune in to gain valuable tips on standing out, showcasing your skills, and navigating the world of coding portfolios and projects!

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00:00 Introduction to the Podcast
00:11 Exploring the Concept of Micro Learning
01:02 Understanding Macro Learning
01:11 The Evolution of Education
04:46 The Role of Micro Learning in Professional Development
05:56 The Methodology of Micro Learning
06:12 Micro Learning in the Classroom
08:49 The Benefits of Micro Learning
21:00 The Importance of Feedback in Micro Learning
28:30 The Role of Gamification in Micro Learning
33:40 Conclusion: The Future of Micro Learning

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Special Guest: Cecilia Celeste Danesi.

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Links:

• The Empire of Algorithms — In today's world, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is playing an increasingly central role in our lives.
• Abstract, ubiquitous and opaque: The challenges of AI regulation — Prof Cecilia Danesi discusses the ethical governance of AI and the difficulty of balance in AI regulation.
• El imperio de los algoritmos | Cecilia Danesi
• Inteligencia Artificial y Derecho | Cecilia Danesi

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Online Python Tutor - visualize, debug, get AI help for Python, Java, C, C++, and JavaScript — Python Tutor helps you do programming homework assignments in Python, Java, C, C++, and JavaScript. It contains a unique step-by-step visual debugger and AI tutor to help you understand and debug code.
• Welcome - Barbara Oakley

In this episode of the Teaching Python podcast, co-hosts Sean Tibor and Kelly Schuster Paredes discuss the significance of failure in learning. They assert that failure is a crucial part of development and growth, providing an opportunity to be resilient and persistent when things don't go to plan. Sean shares a personal experience where he turned a coding failure into a learning opportunity, evolving better testing principles. Also, they discuss the need for a secure environment to allow for failure and learning. They conclude by introducing their community partnership with Python Tutor, a tool that helps in visualizing Python code execution.

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Support Teaching Python

Note: This is a shorter episode format that focuses on one specific topic, limited to 15-20 minutes.

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Teams for Education - Replit — Tests and autograding Save time on grading. Free yourself up for more individual attention and increase student persistence by letting them test code before turning it in.
• PyBites Platform | Real World Python Exercises — Overwhelmed by tutorials? Stop consuming books and courses! The only way to really learn to code is to write a lot of relevant code. Our platform makes you a confident programmer fast.

During our conversation, we talk about everything from making learning open and accessible, to the role that teachers and mentors play in our learning, as well as the ability to write and publish what we learn to improve our own understanding. We even sprinkle in a bit of Club Penguin.

Join us to learn about how to go from basic to intermediate Python and so much more.

Special Guest: Yasoob Khalid.

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Links:

• Yasoob Khalid — I am Yasoob! You might know me from Practical Python Projects or the Intermediate Python book. Welcome to my personal blog which is going to be the new home for all of my old and new articles.
• Practical Python Projects Book - Yasoob Khalid — The Practical Python Projects book demonstrates how to combine different libraries and frameworks to build amazing things.
• Club Penguin - Wikipedia — Club Penguin was a massively multiplayer online game (MMO), involving a virtual world that contained a range of online games and activities. It was created by New Horizon Interactive (now known as Disney Canada Inc.). Players used cartoon penguin-avatars and played in an Antarctic-themed open world. After beta-testing, Club Penguin was made available to the general public on October 24, 2005, and expanded into a large online community, such that by late 2007, it was claimed Club Penguin had over 30 million user accounts. In July 2013, Club Penguin had over 200 million registered user accounts.[1]
• Applesoft BASIC - Wikipedia — Applesoft BASIC is a dialect of Microsoft BASIC, developed by Marc McDonald and Ric Weiland, supplied with the Apple II series of computers. It supersedes Integer BASIC and is the BASIC in ROM in all Apple II series computers after the original Apple II model. It is also referred to as FP BASIC (from floating point) because of the Apple DOS command used to invoke it, instead of INT for Integer BASIC.
• Intermediate Python — Python Tips 0.1 documentation — Python is an amazing language with a strong and friendly community of programmers. However, there is a lack of documentation on what to learn after getting the basics of Python down your throat. Through this book I aim to solve this problem. I would give you bits of information about some interesting topics which you can further explore.
• CMU School of Computer Science — Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science is widely recognized as one of the first and best computer science programs in the world. Our programs train the next generation of innovators to solve real-world problems and improve the way people live and work.
• Logic & Proofs – Course from Professor Sieg — An introductory logic course, designed for students from a broad range of disciplines, from mathematics and computer science to drama and creative writing. It is also designed to reflect aspects of the logical tradition (going back to Aristotle) as well as the practical applicability (for example for the construction of Boolean circuits). Below one finds a detailed description of the course with many of its special features.
• Talks - Brett Cannon: Python's syntactic sugar - YouTube — Did you know that it only takes 11 pieces of syntax and some special functions to implement all the rest of the syntax of Python 3.8? It turns out you can take something like + and unravel it into Python code, letting you implement what Python does for a certain piece of syntax all on your own!

Special Guest: Ines Montani.

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Links:

• ines.io — Hi, I’m Ines. I’m a software developer working on Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing technologies, and the co-founder and CEO of Explosion. We’re the makers of spaCy, one of the leading open-source libraries for Natural Language Processing in Python, and Prodigy, a modern annotation tool for creating training data for machine learning models.
• Explosion — Company co-founded by Ines, specializing in AI and NLP developer tools.
• spaCy · Industrial-strength Natural Language Processing in Python — A leading Python library for NLP, designed to help process and understand large amounts of textual data.
• Prodigy · Prodigy · An annotation tool for AI, Machine Learning & NLP — An interactive annotation tool for AI and machine learning, mentioned extensively in the conversation.
• MagicMirror² — The open source modular smart mirror platform
• Our Patreon — The Patreon page where listeners can financially support the podcast.

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.

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Links:

• DroneBlocks App & Curriculum - Learn to Code with Drones! — DroneBlocks teaches STEM and the real-world application of drones, robots, and sensor technology through our apps, drone coding curriculum, simulator, and professional development.
• DroneBlocks Robo-Dog GO1 - Classroom Bundle — DroneBlocks — The DroneBlocks GO1 EDU+ bundle comes pre-equipped with two onboard Jetson Nanos and one onboard Jetson NX, this increased processing power gives you the capability of adding Lidar units in the future.
• ArduPilot - Versatile, Trusted, Open — ArduPilot is a trusted, versatile, and open source autopilot system supporting many vehicle types: multi-copters, traditional helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, boats, submarines, rovers and more. The source code is developed by a large community of professionals and enthusiasts.
• Dennis Baldwin - YouTube — I'm Dennis Baldwin, an electrical engineer by degree but fell in love with software engineering many years ago. I started building RC cars with my dad as a kid and now build UAVs (aka drones). I'm fascinated by the autonomous aspect of UAVs and spend a lot of time tinkering with Pixhawk and the APM code. Hopefully you learn something from my channel and hopefully I learn something from you as well. Thanks for tuning in.
• DroneBlocks Curriculum — Check out the full set of Droneblocks courses online

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.

Special Guest: Josh Lowe.

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Links:

• Edublocks — EduBlocks is a free tool by Anaconda that helps anyone learn how to code with text-based languages like Python or HTML using a familiar drag-and-drop blocks system
• Anaconda
• Anaconda Press Release Announcing Purchase of EduBlocks — Anaconda Inc., provider of the world’s most popular data science platform, today announced the acquisition of EduBlocks, a free, web-based, drag-and-drop coding platform built to help K-12 students learn fundamental skills. With EduBlocks, Anaconda expands its reach and offerings for K-12 schools as well as for beginner-level professionals.

Special Guests: Philip Guo and Sam Lau.

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Links:

• sam lau
• AI Code Generation Tools Study — From "Ban It Till We Understand It" to "Resistance is Futile": How University Programming Instructors Plan to Adapt as More Students Use AI Code Generation and Explanation Tools such as ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot
• Pandas Tutor: Using Pyodide to Teach Data Science at Scale | Pyodide blog — Hi, we’re Sam Lau and Philip Guo, and we teach data science classes at UC San Diego. In this guest post we’ll tell you about our free educational tool, Pandas Tutor, that helps students learn data science using the popular pandas library. The above screenshot shows how you can use it to write Python and pandas code in a web-based editor and see visualizations of what your code does step-by-step.
• Pandas Tutor - visualize Python pandas code — Pandas Tutor lets you write Python pandas code in your browser and see how it transforms your data step-by-step. (If you use R, try Tidy Data Tutor. To visualize general Python, Java, C, C++, and JavaScript code, try Python Tutor.)
• Teaching Programming in the Age of ChatGPT — How computing instructors plan to adapt to ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, and other AI coding assistants (ICER 2023 paper)
• Real-Real-World Programming with ChatGPT — Taking AI Far Beyond Small Self-Contained Coding Tasks

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.

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Links:

• Dash in 20 Minutes Tutorial | Dash for Python Documentation | Plotly — By the end of this tutorial, you will understand the basic building blocks of Dash and you will know how to build this app.
• Plotly Blog - What Scientists, Engineers, Teachers, &... — Making graphs and analyzing data are essential skills for science, engineering, journalism, and data analysis of all types. Collaborating online with our team means we can work better and faster. The status quo tools–pencil and paper, desktop software, and graphing calculators–present problems.
• Plotly: Low-Code Data App Development — Dash Enterprise is the premier platform for building, scaling, and deploying data apps in Python.
• The Book of Dash | No Starch Press — A swift and practical introduction to building interactive data visualization apps in Python, known as dashboards. You’ve seen dashboards before; think election result visualizations you can update in real time, or population maps you can filter by demographic. With the Python Dash library you’ll create analytic dashboards that present data in effective, usable, elegant ways in just a few lines of code.
• Charming Data - YouTube
• Minecraft EDU Digital Citizenship — Minecraft is an open-world game full of possibilities, where players can create and build, solve problems together, and explore amazing worlds. Learn how Minecraft is transforming education. Minecraft is working on a series of digital literacy/cyber safety worlds and lessons.

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.

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.

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Links:

• Python Crash Course, 3rd Edition: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming: Matthes, Eric: 9781718502703: Amazon.com: Books — Python Crash Course is the world’s best-selling guide to the Python programming language. This fast-paced, thorough introduction will have you writing programs, solving problems, and developing functioning applications in no time.
• Python Flash Cards: Syntax, Concepts, and Examples: Matthes, Eric: 9781593278960: Amazon.com: Books — Keep your coding skills sharp on the go! Python Flash Cards take a tried-and-tested method and give it a programming makeover. Eric Matthes, author of the best-selling Python Crash Course, distills essential Python programming knowledge into this 101-card deck you can use anywhere.
• - Education Summit - PyCon US 2023 — The Summit is a gathering of teachers and educators focused on bringing coding literacy, through Python, to as many learners as possible. We invite educators from all venues to join the discussion, share insights, learn new techniques and tools, and share their passion for education. We are inviting educators from many venues: authors; PK-12 schools; colleges and universities; community-based workshops; online programs; and government. In addition to a wide array of engaging speakers, we will also create collaboration opportunities and hands-on learning sessions.

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.

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1. Personal Updates
   • Sean Tibor shares his excitement about meeting his overseas team members for the first time.
   • He also expresses pride at watching his first batch of students graduate and choose to study in computer science and related fields.
2. Future Learning Journeys
   • Kelly Schuster-Paredes reflects on the exciting learning opportunities the students will undertake.
   • She expresses hope that these students will return to share their experiences and insights (Teaching Python website).
3. Inviting Past Students on the Podcast
   • Both hosts discuss the possibility of inviting former students to the podcast as guests.
4. Current Students Excelling
   • Kelly shares an anecdote about a 6th grader surpassing her knowledge in Python's Turtle module.
5. Plans for the Podcast
   • Return in June with the first guest speaker of the year.
   • Considering a summer sabbatical to prepare for the upcoming school year.
   • Plans to enhance their Patreon community with exclusive benefits.
6. Reach Out!
   • Sean invites listeners to reach out via social platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
   • He also encourages feedback on potential topics or guests for future podcast episodes through their website contact form.
7. Signing Off
   • The hosts sign off, promising more Python learning insights and experiences in the next episodes.

For more details, visit the Teaching Python Podcast website.

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In this interview, we'll cover everything from the shortage of computer science teachers to smart doorbells to going beyond Kahoot! to tools that help teachers assess student learning progress.

Special Guest: Ryan Dehmoubed.

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Links:

• Python Smart Doorbell - JuiceMind — Learn the fundamentals of Python by building a REAL product – a Smart Doorbell that sends text messages and emails!
• Ping Pong Launcher - JuiceMind — Strengthen your Python skills and learn the fundamentals of robotics by building a Ping Pong Launcher that can fire a ping pong ball 20 feet!
• JuiceMind Quizzes

Dr. Talagala starts by explaining how she started teaching her then 9-year old daughter about AI and quickly realized that there were a lot of gaps in the available AI materials for teaching. She started assembling resources and organizing the content in a way that worked well for kids while providing them with room to grow their knowledge and skills. This quickly turned into a book project, The Fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence, Volume 1 with her co-author Dr. Sindhu Ghanta.

Next, the conversation shifts to teaching the ethics of AI and the potential risks and benefits of AI for society. Dr. Talagala explains how students need projects that they can relate to and easily adapt to answer the questions they generate. She suggests that middle school students can play a role in shaping the future of AI by learning about these issues, questioning the status quo, and advocating for responsible AI practices. The episode ends with resources and recommendations for teachers who want to learn more about AI and ML.

Special Guest: Nisha Talagala.

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Links:

• Amazon.com: Fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence: Volume 1 (Introduction to Artificial Intelligence) eBook : Talagala, Nisha, Ghanta, Sindhu: Kindle Store — This book is for K12 students who want to learn AI, for teachers who want to teach AI and bring AI into the classroom, and for any individual who wants to understand AI in a simple and effective way.
• AIClub - AI for Kids, Coding, IOT, Apps for Kids | AIClub — Artificial Intelligence is the Future. Are Your Kids Ready?
• The Three E’s Of Problem Solving: Core Skills In The Age Of ChatGPT — I have written articles (like this one) on how technologies like ChatGPT, while massively disruptive, are not necessarily the first ones that upended our understanding of what core workplace skills need to look like. In the presence of ever-increasing automation - I would argue the core skills that remain are problem-solving skills - which can be measured by three Es - Effective, Efficient, and Ethical

Join us as we talk about everything from our favorite teaching examples, the process of book writing, fostering cats, and more.

Special Guest: Al Sweigart.

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Links:

• Invent with Python — Learning to program makes you a smarter and more capable human being. Rocket science uses programming, but programming isn't rocket science. Whether you're a student preparing for a software career, an office worker buried under spreadsheet files, or a hobbyist who wants to make video games, the Python programming language is an excellent start in the world of programming. Get started for free with the online copies of Al's books!
• The Recursive Book of Recursion: Ace the Coding Interview with Python and JavaScript: Sweigart, Al: 9781718502024: Amazon.com: Books — An accessible yet rigorous crash course on recursive programming using Python and JavaScript examples. Recursion has an intimidating reputation: it’s considered to be an advanced computer science topic frequently brought up in coding interviews. But there’s nothing magical about recursion.
• Automate the Boring Stuff with Python, 2nd Edition: Practical Programming for Total Beginners: Sweigart, Al: 9781593279929: Amazon.com: Books — Learn how to code while you write programs that effortlessly perform useful feats of automation! The second edition of this international fan favorite includes a brand-new chapter on input validation, Gmail and Google Sheets automations, tips for updating CSV files, and more.
• Python Programming Exercises, Gently Explained , Sweigart, Al, eBook - Amazon.com — Many books and websites have aggressive programming challenges for top coders. However, this book is for the rest of us. We want challenges that improve our coding skills, not leave us confused and discouraged. Other tutorials and books have taught you the basics of Python, but the 42 programming exercises in this book let you practice what you've learned. Selected for their simplicity, these programming problems include gentle explanations of the problem, the prerequisite coding concepts you’ll need to understand the solution, and helpful templates to put together the programs if you have trouble starting from scratch.
• Amazon.com: The Big Book of Small Python Projects: 81 Easy Practice Programs eBook : Sweigart, Al: Kindle Store — If you’ve mastered basic Python syntax and you’re ready to start writing programs, you’ll find The Big Book of Small Python Projects both enlightening and fun. This collection of 81 Python projects will have you making digital art, games, animations, counting pro- grams, and more right away. Once you see how the code works, you’ll practice re-creating the programs and experiment by adding your own custom touches.
• Beyond the Basic Stuff with Python: Best Practices for Writing Clean Code: Sweigart, Al: 9781593279660: Amazon.com: Books — BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN NOVICE AND PROFESSIONAL You've completed a basic Python programming tutorial or finished Al Sweigart's bestseller, Automate the Boring Stuff with Python. What's the next step toward becoming a capable, confident software developer?
• Cracking Codes with Python: An Introduction to Building and Breaking Ciphers: Sweigart, Al: 9781593278229: Amazon.com: Books — Learn how to program in Python while making and breaking ciphers—algorithms used to create and send secret messages! 
• Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python, 4th Edition: Sweigart, Al: 9781593277956: Amazon.com: Books — Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python will teach you how to make computer games using the popular Python programming language—even if you’ve never programmed before!

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Welcome to PyCon US 2023 - PyCon US 2023 — Presenting PyCon US 2023 a 20th Year Anniversary Celebration! Salt Lake City, Utah - April 19, 2023 - April 27, 2023 Tutorials - April 19-20, 2023 Main Conference and Online - April 21-23, 2023 Job Fair - April 23, 2023 Sprints - April 24-27, 202

One of the recommended books is "The Missing ReadMe" which is a guide for new engineers to understand and navigate open-source projects. Another book recommended is "Fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence" which is a comprehensive introduction to the field of artificial intelligence and its underlying algorithms and techniques. They also recommend "Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps" which is a practical guide with industry data about the benefits of DevOps. "Fluent Python" is another book they recommend which is a guide to writing better and more idiomatic Python code. Finally, they recommend the new edition of "Python Crash Course" by Eric Matthes which is a fast-paced, thorough introduction to Python programming for beginners.

It's a great episode for anyone who is interested in learning more about the Python programming language, and the PyCon Education Summit, as well as reading some great books on the topic. The episode is available on the Teaching Python podcast website, and the links to the books can also be found there.

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Amazon.com: Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals eBook : Knaflic, Cole Nussbaumer: Kindle Store — Storytelling with Data teaches you the fundamentals of data visualization and how to communicate effectively with data. You'll discover the power of storytelling and the way to make data a pivotal point in your story.
• How Charts Lie: Getting Smarter about Visual Information , Cairo, Alberto - Amazon.com — Today, public conversations are increasingly driven by numbers. While charts, infographics, and diagrams can make us smarter, they can also deceive—intentionally or unintentionally. To be informed citizens, we must all be able to decode and use the visual information that politicians, journalists, and even our employers present us with each day. Demystifying an essential new literacy for our data-driven world, How Charts Lie examines contemporary examples ranging from election result infographics to global GDP maps and box office record charts, as well as an updated afterword on the graphics of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Amazon.com: Truthful Art, The: Data, Charts, and Maps for Communication (Voices That Matter) eBook : Cairo, Alberto: Books — Every day, at work, home, and school, we are bombarded with vast amounts of free data collected and shared by everyone and everything from our co-workers to our calorie counters. In this highly anticipated follow-up to The Functional Art—Alberto Cairo’s foundational guide to understanding information graphics and visualization—the respected data visualization professor explains in clear terms how to work with data, discover the stories hidden within, and share those stories with the world in the form of charts, maps, and infographics. 
• Functional Art, The: An introduction to information graphics and visualization (Voices That Matter) 1, Cairo, Alberto, eBook - Amazon.com — Unlike any time before in our lives, we have access to vast amounts of free information. With the right tools, we can start to make sense of all this data to see patterns and trends that would otherwise be invisible to us. By transforming numbers into graphical shapes, we allow readers to understand the stories those numbers hide. In this practical introduction to understanding and using information graphics, you’ll learn how to use data visualizations as tools to see beyond lists of numbers and variables and achieve new insights into the complex world around us.
• The Missing README: A Guide for the New Software Engineer , Riccomini, Chris, Ryaboy, Dmitriy, eBook - Amazon.com — Key concepts and best practices for new software engineers — stuff critical to your workplace success that you weren’t taught in school.
• Amazon.com: Fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence: Volume 1 (Introduction to Artificial Intelligence) eBook : Talagala, Nisha, Ghanta, Sindhu: Kindle Store — This book is for K12 students who want to learn AI, for teachers who want to teach AI and bring AI into the classroom, and for any individual who wants to understand AI in a simple and effective way.
• Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations 1, Forsgren PhD, Nicole, Humble, Jez, Kim, Gene, eBook - Amazon.com — How can we apply technology to drive business value? For years, we've been told that the performance of software delivery teams doesn't matter―that it can't provide a competitive advantage to our companies. Through four years of groundbreaking research to include data collected from the State of DevOps reports conducted with Puppet, Dr. Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim set out to find a way to measure software delivery performance―and what drives it―using rigorous statistical methods. This book presents both the findings and the science behind that research, making the information accessible for readers to apply in their own organizations.
• Amazon.com: Leading with AI and Analytics: Build Your Data Science IQ to Drive Business Value eBook : Anderson, Eric, Zettelmeyer, Florian: Kindle Store — Data. It’s the benchmark that informs corporate projections, decision-making, and analysis. But, why do many organizations that see themselves as data-driven fail to thrive? In Leading with AI and Analytics, two renowned experts from the Kellogg School of Management show business leaders how to transform their organization to become evidence-driven, which leads to real, measurable changes that can help propel their companies to the top of their industries.
• Fluent Python 2, Ramalho, Luciano, eBook - Amazon.com — Don't waste time bending Python to fit patterns you've learned in other languages. Python's simplicity lets you become productive quickly, but often this means you aren't using everything the language has to offer. With the updated edition of this hands-on guide, you'll learn how to write effective, modern Python 3 code by leveraging its best ideas.
• Amazon.com: Limitless: Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, and Unlock Your Exceptional Life eBook : Kwik, Jim: Kindle Store — JIM KWIK, the world's #1 brain coach, has written the owner's manual for mental expansion and brain fitness. Limitless gives people the ability to accomplish more--more productivity, more transformation, more personal success, and business achievement, by changing their Mindset, Motivation, and Methods.
• Python Crash Course, 3rd Edition: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming , Matthes, Eric, eBook - Amazon.com — Python Crash Course is the world’s best-selling guide to the Python programming language. This fast-paced, thorough introduction will have you writing programs, solving problems, and developing functioning applications in no time.
• The Book of Dash: Build Dashboards with Python and Plotly , Schroeder, Adam, Mayer, Christian, Ward, Ann Marie, eBook - Amazon.com — A swift and practical introduction to building interactive data visualization apps in Python, known as dashboards. You’ve seen dashboards before; think election result visualizations you can update in real time, or population maps you can filter by demographic. With the Python Dash library you’ll create analytic dashboards that present data in effective, usable, elegant ways in just a few lines of code.

In this episode of the Teaching Python podcast, Kelly and Sean delve into the topic of ChatGPT and its potential impact on computer science education. ChatGPT is a new artificial intelligence tool developed by OpenAI that has generated a lot of buzz in the tech industry. The hosts consider both the potential benefits and drawbacks of using ChatGPT in the classroom, and discuss how it could be used to enhance the learning experience.

One of the key points they address is the question of whether ChatGPT will be a helpful or harmful addition to computer science education. On the one hand, ChatGPT has the potential to be a powerful teaching aid, providing students with a unique and engaging way to learn. On the other hand, there are concerns that the use of ChatGPT could lead to a reduction in critical thinking skills, as students may rely too heavily on the tool for solutions.

Ultimately, Kelly and Sean argue that ChatGPT has the potential to be a valuable resource for educators, but it is important to use it in a balanced and mindful way. They suggest that incorporating ChatGPT into the curriculum in combination with other teaching methods could be an effective way to maximize its benefits and minimize any negative effects. If you are interested in learning more about ChatGPT and its potential applications in education, be sure to check out the linked resources.

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Links:

• ChatGPT: Optimizing Language Models for Dialogue — We’ve trained a model called ChatGPT which interacts in a conversational way. The dialogue format makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer followup questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests. ChatGPT is a sibling model to InstructGPT, which is trained to follow an instruction in a prompt and provide a detailed response.
• Aligning Language Models to Follow Instructions — We’ve trained language models that are much better at following user intentions than GPT-3 while also making them more truthful and less toxic, using techniques developed through our alignment research. These InstructGPT models, which are trained with humans in the loop, are now deployed as the default language models on our API.
• Proximal Policy Optimization — We’re releasing a new class of reinforcement learning algorithms, Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO), which perform comparably or better than state-of-the-art approaches while being much simpler to implement and tune. PPO has become the default reinforcement learning algorithm at OpenAI because of its ease of use and good performance.
• ChatGPT Equivalent Is Open-Source, But it Is of No Use to Developers — It seems like the first open-source ChatGPT equivalent has emerged. It is an application of RLHF (Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback) built on top of Google’s PaLM architecture, which has 540 billion parameters. PaLM + RLHF, ChatGPT Equivalent is open-source now, it is a text-generating model that acts similarly to ChatGPT, was provided by the developer in charge of reverse engineering closed-sourced AI systems like Meta’s Make-A-Video. It is characterized as a work in progress.
• How AI Is Changing The Way Students Learn — In the education landscape, technology is rapidly changing. AI and machine learning, in particular, are now impacting the education sector in numerous ways. In fact, despite some commonly held beliefs, the use of AI in education goes beyond grading student assessments, and this technology can greatly benefit both educators and students.
• Brian Bourque on Twitter: — "ChatGPT will revolutionize how non-technical folks build products. Here's an example (I put this together in 2 min, so yeah, it's crappy):" / Twitter
• Can Anti-Plagiarism Tools Detect When AI Chatbots Write Student Essays? | EdSurge News — After its launch last month, ChatGPT, the latest chatbot released by OpenAI, made the rounds online. Alex, a sophomore at a university in Pittsburgh, started toying with the chatbot about a week after it was released, after finding out about it on Twitter. Within a couple of days, he got really excited by the quality of the writing it produced. The chatbot was good, he says—really good. (“Alex” is the name that this person provided to EdSurge. He only agreed to speak anonymously, for fear of repercussions for admitting to academic dishonesty.)
• Will ChatGPT Kill the Student Essay? - The Atlantic — Nobody is prepared for how AI will transform academia.
• ChatGPT for Google - Chrome Web Store — Display ChatGPT response alongside Google Search results This is an open-source extension that show response from ChatGPT alongside Google and other search engines
• ZohaibAhmed/chatgpt-api: This repo is unofficial ChatGPT api. It is based on Daniel Gross's WhatsApp GPT — It uses playwright and chromium to open browser and parse html. It is an unoffical api for development purpose only.
• lencx/ChatGPT: 🔮 ChatGPT Desktop Application (Mac, Windows and Linux) — This is a major and exciting update. It works like a Telegram bot command and helps you quickly populate custom models to make chatgpt work the way you want it to. This project has taken a lot of my spare time, so if it helps you, please help spread the word or star it would be a great encouragement to me. I hope I can keep updating it and adding more interesting features.
• ChatGPT Tutorial - A Crash Course on Chat GPT for Beginners - YouTube — This ChatGPT Tutorial is a Crash Course on Chat GPT for Beginners. With the increase in popularity, ChatGPT is still unknown to many people. In this video, I will provide a crash course on different ways to use ChatGPT.

One key point discussed in the podcast is that students learn at different times and at different rates, and it is important for teachers to recognize and accommodate this variability. The old theory of learning styles, which suggests that individuals have a preferred style of learning and that teaching should be tailored to these preferences, has been debunked as a myth. Instead, research suggests that the most effective way to teach is to use a variety of methods and approaches, and to allow students to engage with the material in different ways.

In addition to incorporating teaching strategies such as scaffolding, differentiation, and formative assessment, it is also important for teachers to consider the various learning factors that may impact their students. This includes designing for students who may be at the margins, such as those who are struggling or those who are advanced. It also involves designing with context in mind, taking into account the unique experiences and background of each student. This can include cultural factors, language barriers, and any prior knowledge or skills that may be relevant to the material being taught.

Designing with the whole child in mind involves considering not just the cognitive aspects of learning, but also the social and emotional aspects. This may involve creating a positive and supportive learning environment, and being attuned to the needs and well-being of each student. Finally, designing for powerful experiences involves creating engaging and meaningful learning activities that are likely to have a lasting impact on students. By considering these various learning factors, teachers can create more effective and inclusive learning experiences for their students.

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Links:

• Learner Variability Teacher Guide.pdf - Google Drive — The Learner Variability Project In the Field: A Guide to Understanding and Addressing Learner Variability
• Learner Variability Navigator | Learner Variability Project — Learners thrive when their experience is personal and meaningful. This free tool helps you find research-based strategies that support the whole learner so you can create better learning experiences today.
• Homepage - Digital Promise — Digital Promise shapes the future of learning and advances equitable education systems by bringing together solutions across research, practice, and technology.

Whether you're a teacher looking for some inspiration for your holiday wishlist, or a student looking for a gift for your favorite computer science teacher, this episode has you covered. From practical tools like an online course about Python, to fun gadgets like a Lego rollercoaster or desktop robot, there's something for everyone on this list.

So join Kelly and Sean as they share their top 10 gift ideas for computer science teachers and learners. And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, be sure to send us an email at info@teachingpython.fm. Happy holiday season and happy coding!

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• EMO GO HOME - LivingAi — The EMO GO HOME version is expected to be shipped by Christmas, but we cannot guarantee that you will receive it by Christmas. So if you want to receive EMO earlier, you can buy the standard version of EMO first, and buy the separate Home Station later (another new order).
• Loop Coaster 10303 | LEGO® Icons | Buy online at the Official LEGO® Shop US — When we released our first roller-coaster set, we had no idea that it would become so popular. It turns out, though, that people really love roller-coasters! So, when it came to designing our newest roller-coaster set, our designers wanted to do something that we’ve never done before and create a set that they were certain would appeal to roller-coaster fans around the world.
• Amazon.com: Beginners crochet kit, DIY Crochet Kit For Beginners, Cute Animal Kit Fox Starter Pack With Yarn Balls, Crochet Hooks, knitting stitch markers, Needles, Instruction, Accessories Kit for Beginners — All in One Crochet Kit: Our beginners crochet kit contains 3pcs yarn balls, 1pc crochet hook, 5pcs knitting stitch markers, 1pc yarn needle, 4 plastic eyes, stuffing, paper and video instruction. Easy to follow and happy to start your crochet diy journey.
• Evo Entry Kit (White) – Ozobot — The Evo Entry Kit prepares educators and parents to bring coding and creativity to the home and classroom, no coding experience required. Code Ozobot Evo two ways: online with Ozobot Blockly and screen-free with Color Code markers. Ozobot Blockly has five skill levels from beginner to master coding.
• Amazon.com: YDDSABER Jedi Sith LED Light Saber, Force FX Heavy Dueling, Rechargeable Lightsaber, Loud Sound High Light with FOC, Metal Hilt, Blaster, (Red) : Toys & Games — Our Advantage: The lightsaber has Blaster sound and flash on clash, support dueling. Let you cross into the real movie and become the last jedi Sith of wars . Smooth Aluminum Hilt+Removable Blade: Handle is made of aluminum alloy. Blade material is high quality poly carbonate. Total length about 95 cm after assembly.
• Python Crash Course, 3rd Edition: Matthes, Eric: 9781718502703: Amazon.com: Books — This third edition is completely revised to reflect the latest in Python code. New and updated coverage includes VS Code for text editing, the pathlib module for file handling, pytest for testing your code, as well as the latest features of Matplotlib, Plotly, and Django. If you’ve been thinking about digging into programming, Python Crash Course will provide you with the skills to write real programs fast. Why wait any longer? Start your engines and code!
• (Get it now) Python Crash Course, 3rd Edition | No Starch Press — Python Crash Course is the world’s best-selling guide to the Python programming language. This fast-paced, thorough introduction will have you writing programs, solving problems, and developing functioning applications in no time.
• Products | ovobot — Xtron Pro is a programmable handheld game console that is ideal for running MakeCode Arcade & NES games and creating DIY projects from electronics to mobile robots, Xtron Pro can also be transformed into a wearable device with customized interfaces and functions by visual programming.
• Membership – Real Python — Become a Python Expert Level up your career with hands-on courses, learning paths, code quizzes, and 24/7 access to a community of experts
• Bundle: The Everything Bundle (2022 Q4) - [Talk Python Training] — Lifetime access to every course currently in our library or launched before October 2023, period
• Buy Exercise Credits — Buy a redemption code for exercise credits and premium screencast access You can use this form to purchase a Python Morsels redemption code redeemable for exercise credits and access to premium Python Morsels screencasts. You can send this redemption code to friend or you can apply it to your own account (it can only be used once though).
• Become a Member of the PSF | Python Software Foundation — Become a Member of the PSF By becoming a member, you tell us and the world that you are a part of the PSF and support our work, and as one of the classes of voting members, you add your voice to the future direction of the Foundation. We're so happy to have you!

We're joined by Michael Kennedy and [Brian Okken](twitter.com/brianokken) from the Python Bytes podcast to talk about the ways we stay motivated.

Listen in for tips and strategies from a variety of sources. How do you stay motivated?

Special Guests: Brian Okken and Michael Kennedy.

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Links:

• Python Bytes Podcast — Python Bytes is a weekly podcast hosted by Michael Kennedy and Brian Okken.
• Talk Python To Me Podcast — Talk Python To Me A podcast on Python and related technologies
• Test & Code in Python — ABOUT THE SHOW Topics include automated testing, testing strategy, software engineering practices, packaging, Python, pytest, data science, TDD, continuous integration, and software methodologies. Also anything I think helps make the daily life of a software developer more fun and rewarding. Hosted by Brian Okken
• Python Testing with pytest: Simple, Rapid, Effective, and Scalable: Okken, Brian: 9781680508604: Amazon.com: Books — Test applications, packages, and libraries large and small with pytest, Python's most powerful testing framework. pytest helps you write tests quickly and keep them readable and maintainable. In this fully revised edition, explore pytest's superpowers - simple asserts, fixtures, parametrization, markers, and plugins - while creating simple tests and test suites against a small database application. Using a robust yet simple fixture model, it's just as easy to write small tests with pytest as it is to scale up to complex functional testing. This book shows you how.

“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!

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Special Guest: Elad Inbar.

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Links:

• RobotLAB Group - Robotics Solution Integrator — We are "The Robot Guys". the only company you will ever need for your turn-key robotics solution. No matter how small or large your project is, we can do the heavy lifting for you!
• NAO Robot Power V6 Educator Pack — The latest version of NAO with 10 major areas of improvement is here! Bring STEM and Coding to life with the NAO Robot. Hands-on learning platform to teach core subjects: Reading, Writing, Math, pre-algebra, geometry, algebra, trigonometry, calculus and programming.

Special Guest: Srivatsa Kundurthy.

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Links:

• Revolutionizing Education: How Python is Essential Beyond Computer Science - Srivatsa Kundurthy - EuroPython 2022 | July 11th-17th 2022 | Dublin Ireland & Remote — Python has had a transformational effect on countless fields so far, but its permeation can be accelerated through the integration of Python into non-computing coursework. Currently, Python’s presence within secondary and post-secondary schools varies greatly between different institutions, but the continuity in the lack of interdisciplinary coursework is a key limiting factor in the widespread growth of computing education.
• The Missing README: A Guide for the New Software Engineer: Riccomini, Chris, Ryaboy, Dmitriy: 9781718501836: Amazon.com: Books — Key concepts and best practices for new software engineers — stuff critical to your workplace success that you weren’t taught in school.
• srivatsa-kundurthy (Srivatsa Kundurthy)
• Teaching Python: Overview | LinkedIn — Our new Teaching Python LinkedIn Page!

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Links:

• Modern APIs with FastAPI and Python Online Course - [Talk Python Training] — Getting started course with FastAPI from TalkPython Training by Michael Kennedy
• The Missing README: A Guide for the New Software Engineer: Riccomini, Chris, Ryaboy, Dmitriy: 9781718501836: Amazon.com: Books — Key concepts and best practices for new software engineers — stuff critical to your workplace success that you weren’t taught in school.
• Amazon.com: Think Like a Programmer: An Introduction to Creative Problem Solving: 9781593274245: Spraul, V. Anton: Books — The real challenge of programming isn't learning a language's syntax—it's learning to creatively solve problems so you can build something great. In this one-of-a-kind text, author V. Anton Spraul breaks down the ways that programmers solve problems and teaches you what other introductory books often ignore: how to Think Like a Programmer. Each chapter tackles a single programming concept, like classes, pointers, and recursion, and open-ended exercises throughout challenge you to apply your knowledge.
• Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy - Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy - Carnegie Mellon University — Use educational affordances of robotics to create CS-STEM opportunities for all learners

Special Guest: Peter Dring.

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Links:

• Create with code — Write python code in the browser!
• Write, run and debug python code in your browser — Welcome to blog.withcode.uk! This site is designed to provide free teaching and learning resources for teachers and students of Computer Science. You can find out more here.
• Amazon.com: Learn Like a Pro: Science-Based Tools to Become Better at Anything eBook : PhD, Barbara Oakley, Schewe, Olav: Kindle Store — Do you spend too much time learning with disappointing results? Do you find it difficult to remember what you read? Do you put off studying because it’s boring and you’re easily distracted? This book is for you.

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.

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• Anaconda Nucleus — Find content in the Anaconda library, support, and more!
• Anaconda | The World's Most Popular Data Science Platform — Anaconda offers the easiest way to perform Python/R data science and machine learning on a single machine. Start working with thousands of open-source packages and libraries today.
• Getting started with Anaconda — Anaconda documentation — Anaconda Distribution contains conda and Anaconda Navigator, as well as Python and hundreds of scientific packages. When you installed Anaconda, you installed all these too.
• PyScript | Run Python in your HTML — Run Python in Your HTML

Special Guests: Anna Wake and Harry Wake.

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Links:

• Mission Encodeable | Free coding tutorials for young people — The coolest way to learn to code. Free digital coding and design courses for young people.
• The collaborative browser based IDE - Replit — Use our free, collaborative, in-browser IDE to code in 50+ languages — without spending a second on setup.

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• Rubicon — Where kids learn the skills that aren't taught in school

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.

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Links:

• seantibor/uorganisms: Python micro:organisms on the BBC micro:bit — The uorganism, spoken: 'micro:organism' (get it?), project helps students understand how genetic information is passed from generation to generation using the BBC micro:bit. Each micro:bit holds a single virtual organism that can reproduce with other micro:bits in range using the built-in radio. Using the REPL, students can see how new organisms are created and track how genetic information is passed from parents to offspring.
• Python Editor for micro:bit — The Beta version!
• Micro:bit Educational Foundation | micro:bit — The Microbit foundation home page
• Talk - Kelly Schuster - Paredes/Sean Tibor: Learn Python Like a 12 Year Old - YouTube — Along the way to adulthood, we often lose that sense of wonder, enjoyment, and playfulness that we had as kids in our favorite school subjects. As adults, we can become better learners ourselves when we examine how kids learn coding with Python. In this session, we’ll talk about making thinking and coding visible, to the brain science behind how we learn new things, to the importance of playfulness in learning. We will share a variety of helpful tips to improve your learning whether you are new to Python or an experienced coder.

Special Guest: David Cavallo.

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• Amazon - Twenty Things to Do with a Computer Forward 50: Future Visions of Education Inspired by Seymour Papert and Cynthia Solomon’s Seminal Work: Stager, Gary S., Solomon, Cynthia: 9781955604000: Books — In 1971, Cynthia Solomon and Seymour Papert published Twenty Things to Do with a Computer, a revolutionary document that would set the course of education for the next fifty years and beyond. This book, Twenty Things to Do with a Computer Forward 50, is a celebration of the vision set forth by Papert and Solomon a half-century ago.
• The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen - Kindle edition by Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Politics & Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com. — In this groundbreaking work, Kwame Anthony Appiah, hailed as "one of the most relevant philosophers today" (New York Times Book Review), changes the way we understand human behavior and the way social reform is brought about. In brilliantly arguing that new democratic movements over the last century have not been driven by legislation from above, Appiah explores the end of the duel in aristocratic England, the tumultuous struggles over footbinding in nineteenth-century China, the uprising of ordinary people against Atlantic slavery, and the horrors of "honor killing" in contemporary Pakistan.
• One Laptop per Child - Wikipedia — One Laptop per Child (OLPC) was a non-profit initiative established with the goal of transforming education for children around the world; this goal was to be achieved by creating and distributing educational devices for the developing world, and by creating software and content for those devices.
• The Math(s) Fix: An Education Blueprint for the AI Age , Wolfram, Conrad - Amazon.com — The Math(s) Fix: An Education Blueprint for the AI Age is a groundbreaking book that exposes why maths education is in crisis worldwide and how the only fix is a fundamentally new mainstream subject.

Note - this is a live debrief with no editing. Enjoy!

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• Learn Python Like a 12-Year-Old - Speaker Deck — View the slides for Kelly & Sean's PyCon 2022 main talk, Learn Python Like a 12-Year-Old
• Busting Curricular Myths of Teaching Python - Speaker Deck — Check out our slides from the PyCon US 2022 Education Summit

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.

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Links:

• LendX is now Kennek!
• PyBites Platform | Real World Python Exercises — In this learning path you will write a simple API to track food / calories using the awesome FastAPI framework. This takes you from complete beginner to building your first CRUD (create-read-update-delete) API. The SQLModel learning path will be more advanced adding a database with multiple tables. 
• SaaS cloud banking platform | Mambu — Join the trailblazers changing banking. The best financial brands in the world are powered by Mambu's cloud banking platform.
• Modulr - the digital standard for business payments. — Business payments are clunky − costing you time, resources and customers. We provide an API payments infrastructure so you can efficiently automate and embed payments. Unlocking operational efficiency and revenue drivers. 
• Intelligent accounting integrations & solutions | Validis — The world's most intelligent accounting integrations Instantly access and interpret up-to-date financials for your business customers

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.

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• Python for Data Visualization — Data visualization is incredibly important for data scientists, as it helps them communicate their insights to nontechnical peers. But you don’t need to be a design pro. Python is a popular, easy-to-use programming language that offers a number of libraries specifically built for data visualization.
• Data Analytics Using Python | UC San Diego Extension — In this course, you will learn the rich set of tools, libraries, and packages that comprise the highly popular and practical Python data analysis ecosystem. This course is primarily taught via screen sharing programming videos. Topics taught range from basic Python syntax all the way to more advanced topics like supervised and unsupervised machine learning techniques.
• Machine Learning Fundamentals | UC San Diego Extension — Utilizing machine learning to apply algorithms to their data has helped companies maximize efficiencies, pursue new markets, and create new products. This trend has prompted many industries to recognize the value of machine learning, creating a high demand for knowledge in this field. Understanding the theory of how machine learning algorithms work is not only important skill for being able to apply and debug code, but also an important skill for interviewing.
• How Charts Lie: Getting Smarter about Visual Information: Cairo, Alberto: 9780393358421: Amazon.com: Books — A leading data visualization expert explores the negative―and positive―influences that charts have on our perception of truth. Today, public conversations are increasingly driven by numbers. While charts, infographics, and diagrams can make us smarter, they can also deceive―intentionally or unintentionally.
• Dogsheep — Tools for personal analytics, powered by Datasette
• PyCon 2022 — Sean & Kelly's PyCon talk: Learn Python Like a 12-year-old

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.

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• Jobs - KPMG Switzerland — KPMG offers you excellent career prospects and a great corporate culture. We employ over 2100 talented people from 55 countries. Find out who we are, what we do, what we find important and what day-to-day work at KPMG is really like. We are seeking people who have a “dare to do” attitude, for our company prospers with the help of courageous people. Choose your level of experience and take a look at our job vacancies.
• python-ldap · PyPI — python-ldap provides an object-oriented API to access LDAP directory servers from Python programs. Mainly it wraps the OpenLDAP 2.x libs for that purpose. Additionally the package contains modules for other LDAP-related stuff (e.g. processing LDIF, LDAPURLs, LDAPv3 schema, LDAPv3 extended operations and controls, etc.).

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.

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• Sean Tibor — The personal website of Sean Tibor. Opinions are my own.
• The world’s fastest framework for building websites | Hugo — The world’s fastest framework for building websites
• A whole new world: Education meets the metaverse — The metaverse is upon us. Soon it will be as omnipresent as TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook (now Meta). As technology advances to bring us new immersive and imaginary worlds, how we educate children and prepare teachers must also advance to meet these new opportunities.
• Prospects for children in 2022: A GLOBAL OUTLOOK — In 2021, the Office of Global Insight and Policy (OGIP) produced a medium-term analysis of global trends in support of UNICEF’s preparation of a new Strategic Plan.
• Python Editor for micro:bit — The new Alpha version of the micro:bit python editor
• "No, really. Why coding?" — “Everybody should learn how to code.” Over the years, you’ve probably seen a million variations on this quote. Let’s challenge this assertion. Why learn to code? What’s in it for the learner? Why should they care? And where do they start?
• Python RegEx Cheat Sheet Updated for 2022 - NetAdmin Reference — This Python RegEx cheat sheet will show you the most commonly used regular expressions that any network or system admin can use as a quick reference.
• Second Life realtor makes $1 million - GameSpot — Ailin Graef--who is better known by the name Anshe Chung--works as a real estate developer. She buys property, develops it, resells it, and uses the profits to buy even more. Her business has rapidly snowballed, and she has just made her first million--although none of the "property" is real.
• Did You Know; Shift Happens - Globalization; Information Age - YouTube — Created by Karl Fisch, and modified by Scott McLeod; Globalization and The Information Age
• Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing - Wikipedia — Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing is an application software program designed to teach touch typing.

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.

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Links:

• Python’s Requests Library (Guide) – Real Python — The requests library is the de facto standard for making HTTP requests in Python. It abstracts the complexities of making requests behind a beautiful, simple API so that you can focus on interacting with services and consuming data in your application.
• PyCon 2022 Welcome to PyCon US 2022 — PyCon US is the largest annual gathering for the community using and developing the open-source Python programming language. It is produced and underwritten by the Python Software Foundation, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing and promoting Python. Through PyCon US, the PSF advances its mission of growing the international community of Python programmers.
• Home | Mondelēz International, Inc. — We are one of the largest snack companies in the world with global net revenues of $25.9 billion and net earnings of $3.4 billion in 2018. We make and sell primarily snacks, including biscuits (cookies, crackers and salted snacks), chocolate, gum & candy as well as various cheese & grocery and powdered beverage products.
• ISL | International School of Luxembourg: Next Events — In collaboration with other international educators and renowned experts, ISL is proud to present a series of webinars that promote best practices and embrace the collective wisdom of the participants. We have been fortunate to collaborate with such experts as Dr. Fran Prolman, Ewan McIntosh, Jeff Utech and Scott McLeod. The Virtual Learning Loft has enabled ISL educators to connect and develop networking opportunities on a global scale and promote ISL as a learning organisation. 
• Pine Crest School's Innovation Institute — The theme for the virtual conference is Going Global: Integrating Innovation, Technology, and Social Entrepreneurship to Improve our World. The Eighth Annual Innovation Institute is scheduled for April 24, 25, and 26, 2022. This year, the Institute will offer a variety of teacher-as-student, online, hands-on workshops geared toward educators at all levels. During the workshops, attendees will explore ways to make global connections and integrate social entrepreneurship through hands-on learning linked to project-based learning activities and technology integration.
• Python Jumpstart by Building 10 Apps Online Course - [Talk Python Training] — Programming is fun and profitable. Learning to become a software developer should be equally fun! This course will teach you everything you need to know about the Python language all the while building interesting and engaging applications.

“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.

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Links:

• BIG Questions Institute - Big Questions Institute — The Big Questions Institute was created to help educators of all stripes build their capacity to see and accept this moment for what it is and to peer into the future with skill. We ground that work in "fearless inquiry," a disposition of deep questioning and truth-telling of our practice and mission.
• EMO - LivingAi — Built with multiple sensors and cutting-edge techs, Emo is a cool desktop AI robot pet with characters that can self-explore the world and react to you with 1000+ faces and movements. 
• 9 Questions Free EBook - Big Questions Institute — In this new ebook written by BIG Questions Institute co-founders Will Richardson and Homa Tavangar, we suggest that now is the perfect time to ask whether the learning environments our students need today are the same as the ones schools offered them pre-pandemic. And that this is no time to go back to a "normal" which in many ways wasn't all that great to begin with.
• 10 Books for 2022 - Big Questions Institute — (*Because This Is an Historic Moment for Education)
• Amazon.com: The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Memoir of Friendship, Loyalty, and War eBook : Donohue, John "Chick", Molloy, J. T.: Kindle Store — One night in 1967, twenty-six-year-old John Donohue—known as Chick—was out with friends, drinking in a New York City bar. The friends gathered there had lost loved ones in Vietnam. Now, they watched as anti-war protesters turned on the troops themselves. One neighborhood patriot came up with an inspired—some would call it insane—idea. Someone should sneak into Vietnam, track down their buddies there, give them messages of support from back home, and share a few laughs over a can of beer. It would be the Greatest Beer Run Ever.
• Amazon.com: Who Do We Choose To Be?: Facing Reality, Claiming Leadership, Restoring Sanity eBook : Wheatley, Margaret J.: Kindle Store — On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of her classic Leadership and the New Science, bestselling author Margaret Wheatley once again turns to the new science of living systems to help leaders persevere in a time of great turmoil.

From the great guests to the wins in the classroom, Kelly and Sean catch up and kick off the new year together.

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• Amazon.com: Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know eBook : Grant, Adam: Kindle Store — Organizational psychologist Adam Grant is an expert on opening other people's minds--and our own. As Wharton's top-rated professor and the bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take, he makes it one of his guiding principles to argue like he's right but listen like he's wrong. With bold ideas and rigorous evidence, he investigates how we can embrace the joy of being wrong, bring nuance to charged conversations, and build schools, workplaces, and communities of lifelong learners.
• Amazon.com: Terraform: Up & Running: Writing Infrastructure as Code: 9781492046905: Brikman, Yevgeniy: Books — Terraform has become a key player in the DevOps world for defining, launching, and managing infrastructure as code (IaC) across a variety of cloud and virtualization platforms, including AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, and more. This hands-on second edition, expanded and thoroughly updated for Terraform version 0.12 and beyond, shows you the fastest way to get up and running.
• The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV Series 2017– ) - IMDb — A housewife in 1958 decides to become a stand-up comic.
• Amazon.com: LEGO Ghostbusters ECTO-1 (10274) Building Kit; Displayable Model Car Kit for Adults; Great DIY Project, New 2021 (2,352 Pieces) : Toys & Games — This is the ultimate ECTO-1 building kit for fans of LEGO bricks and Ghostbusters looking to build their next model car or simply relax with an immersive hands-on hobby project
• Hacker News - We're two middle school teachers learning and teaching Python [audio] | Hacker News
• Teaching Python Episode 68: Learning How To Learn with Barbara Oakley — 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.
• Teaching Python Episode 67: Mu Editor: Part 1 of the Education IDE Series — 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.
• JoBase | Home — Welcome to JoBase JoBase is aimed at beginner coders who want to have fun making games with Python. Follow steps below to prepare your computer for JoBase.

Special Guest: Richard Culatta.

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Links:

• Digital for Good: Raising Kids to Thrive in an Online World by Richard Culatta — When it comes to raising children in a digital world, every parent feels underprepared and overwhelmed. We worry that our children will become addicted to online games, be victims of cyberbullying, or get lost down the rabbit hole of social media. We warn them about all the things they shouldn't do online, but we don't do nearly enough to teach them the skills of digital well-being.
• We are ISTE | ISTE — We help educators around the world use technology to solve tough problems.
• Circuit Playground Bluefruit - Bluetooth Low Energy : ID 4333 : $24.95 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits — Circuit Playground Bluefruit is our third board in the Circuit Playground series, another step towards a perfect introduction to electronics and programming. We've taken the popular Circuit Playground Express and made it even better! Now the main chip is an nRF52840 microcontroller which is not only more powerful, but also comes with Bluetooth Low Energy support for wireless connectivity.

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Links:

• Amazon.com : Plugable USB 2.0 Digital Microscope with Flexible Arm Observation Stand Compatible with Windows, Mac, Linux (2MP, 250x Magnification) : Electronics — Useful and fun for students, collectors, testers, and anyone interested in exploring the microscopic world. Includes a microscope camera yet cannot be used as a document camera
• Hakko FX888D-23BY Digital Soldering Station FX-888D FX-888 (blue & yellow): Power Soldering Accessories: Amazon.com: Tools & Home Improvement — Introducing the HAKKO FX-888D Excellent thermal recovery Heater output has been increased by 30% compared to that of the conventional models HAKKO 936·937. Also FX-888D delivers excellent thermal recovery by using T18 series tips for their terrific heat conductivity.
• Amazon.com: Otamatone [English Edition] Japanese Electronic Musical Instrument Portable Synthesizer from Japan by Cube/Maywa Denki, Black : Toys & Games — BEST SELLING – One of Japan's best selling musical Instrument Portable Synthesizer toys! FUN & EASY TO PLAY - You can create different sound and pitch by pressing down the middle part of the Otamatone. By sliding down your finger up and down, you can create higher and lower tone. Otamatone's face is made out of rubber, and by pushing his cheeks and making his mouth move around, the volume and the bass of the sound changes. When you press the cheek, mouth will open. It is a musical insturment, you can enjoy the sound.
• Amazon.com: ropoda Shut The Box Dice Game Wooden (2-4 Players) for Kids & Adults [4 Sided Large Wooden Board Game, 8 Dice + Shut The Box Rules] Amusing Game for Learning Addition, 8.6 Inches : Toys & Games — ROPODA Shut the Box is a game of dice, commonly played by 2 to 4 people. Unconfirmed histories of the game could go back to 12th century Normandy. In pubs, Shut the Box is traditionally played as a gambling game. But nowadays, it becomes a popular board game during family events, party and festivals.
• Adafruit CLUE - nRF52840 Express with Bluetooth LE : ID 4500 : $44.95 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits — Get a CLUE here at Adafruit by picking up this sensor-packed development board. We wanted to build some projects that have a small screen and a lot of sensors. To make it compatible with existing projects, we made it the same shape and size as the BBC micro:bit and with the same edge-connector on the bottom with 5 big pads so it will fit into your existing robot kit or 'bit add-on.
• T9 Interstellar Agent — It may look like just a great fun toy, but T9 – the most advanced, programmable auto-converting vehicle to robot on the market -- is much, much more than that. Control it with a mobile device or with voice commands. T9 is also your shortest path to a rich learning experience -- for kids of any age who are excited by the field of robotics, one of the hottest technologies in the world today.
• Amazon.com: Tamagotchi Star Wars: R2-D2 Classic White (88821) : Everything Else — Train R2-D2 to master various skills with STAR WARSTM R2-D2 TAMAGOTCHI. Take care of R2-D2 by keeping him charged and clean and by playing two mini-games (firefighting and Dejarik “holochess”). There are 19 skills for R2-D2 to learn and 7 mini-games for him to unlock, depending on his skill level. Make sure you keep your R2-D2 happy. If you neglect him for too long, the Jawas may take him away!
• reMarkable 2 | reMarkable — Take handwritten notes, read, and review documents Take notes directly on PDFs Paper-like writing and reading All your notes, organized and accessible on all devices
• Circuit Playground Bluefruit - Bluetooth Low Energy : ID 4333 : $24.95 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits — Circuit Playground Bluefruit is our third board in the Circuit Playground series, another step towards a perfect introduction to electronics and programming. We've taken the popular Circuit Playground Express and made it even better! Now the main chip is an nRF52840 microcontroller which is not only more powerful, but also comes with Bluetooth Low Energy support for wireless connectivity.
• Amazon.com: Lil' Gleemerz Babies Black & White Figure : Toys & Games — These Lil' Gleemerz babies were born for teeny gleem dreams! Press its nose over and over for cute sounds and to light up tummy with rainbow colors. Tilt upside down and move all around for purrs, coos, and other silly sounds.
• What Is Nintendo? (What Was?): Shaw, Gina, Who HQ, Thomson, Andrew: 9780593093795: Amazon.com: Books — Founded in 1889, Nintendo started out as a small playing card company in Japan. Though the cards sold well, Nintendo really became popular when it began creating toys in the 1960s, and then became internationally renowned after developing video games and consoles in the 1970s and '80s. After introducing the world to some of the best-known and top-selling video game franchises of all-time, such as Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Animal Crossing, and Pokémon, it's clear to see why Nintendo is beloved by parents as a company that creates nonviolet, family-friendly entertainment for kids.

Special Guest: Becky Smethurst.

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Links:

• Dr. Becky - YouTube — Your friendly neighbourhood astrophysicist. I'm Dr Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford. I love making videos about science with an unnatural level of enthusiasm. I like to focus on how we know things, not just what we know. And especially, the things we still don't know.
• 5 ways I use code as an astrophysicist - YouTube — I could not get my science done if I did not know how to code. Here are 5 things I use it for.
• Space at the Speed of Light: The History of 14 Billion Years for People Short on Time , Smethurst, Dr Becky - Amazon.com — From the big bang to black holes, this fast-paced illustrated tour of time and space for the astro-curious unlocks the science of the stars to reveal fascinating theories, surprising discoveries, and ongoing mysteries in modern astronomy and astrophysics.

Special Guest: Rusti Gregory.

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Links:

• Trick or Treat for Programmers — Sure, you know Trick OR Treat, but how about Trick XNOR Treat?

About BirdBrain Technologies:

BirdBrain Technologies’ mission is to inspire deep and joyful learning in all students through creative robotics.

Founded at the CREATE Lab at Carnegie Mellon University 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.

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Links:

• BirdBrain Technologies - BirdBrain Technologies — BirdBrain Technologies’ mission is to inspire deep and joyful learning in all students through creative robotics.
• Introducing Finch Robot 2.0! - BirdBrain Technologies — Bring computer science to life from kindergarten to college with the NEW Finch Robot 2.0!
• Borrow a Robot Free for 60 Days! - BirdBrain Technologies — BirdBrain Technologies will allow educators in the US to borrow a robot for 60 days for FREE!
• Hummingbird Robotics Kit - BirdBrain Technologies — The Hummingbird Robotics Kit is an easy-to-use, creative robotics tool which allows students to design, build, and program a personally meaningful robot out of any materials, with any device, in multiple programming languages.
• Teaching Python - Blog - RIP Google Colab in Education — The Teaching Python blog post about the end of Google Colab in K-12...
• CREATE Lab — The Community Robotics, Education and Technology Empowerment Lab (CREATE Lab) explores socially meaningful innovation and deployment of robotic technologies.
• Amazon.com: Learn to Solder Kits Hue Soldering Kit | DIY Electronics Projects For Beginners | Practice For Adults & Kids STEM Classes & Events | Science Project Electronic RGB LED Light Circuit Board With Battery : Toys & Games — INTERACTIVE RGB LED KIT - Learn to solder in a unique, engaging, fun, and achievable way! The Hue Learn to Solder practice kit is our second solder project kit designed for beginners but offers more of a challenge than the Blink Kit. It features one large RGB LED light and three small dials. As you turn the dials the brightness of the red, green and blue change in the LED. Try different combinations to make any color in the rainbow!
• Finch Robot Loan Program - BirdBrain Technologies — We are currently lending out the original Finch Robot, which is tethered to the computer with a USB cord and works with computers and Chromebooks only (it does not work with tablets/phones). If you are interested in borrowing the new Finch Robot 2.0, which is wireless and works with computers, Chromebooks, and tablets/phones, please email loanprogram@birdbraintechnologies.com and we’ll let you know when that program is available.
• Amazon.com: microbit V2 Go Kit Programming Development Board STEM Pocket-Sized BBC Micro:bit Computer,Built-in Touch Sensitive Logo,Speaker and Microphone : Electronics — microbit V2.0 is a tiny programmable computer, designed to make learning and teaching easy and fun! Addition of the speaker and microphone：Same great features easier ways to use sound and touch to get creative in the classroom.

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Links:

• EarSketch — EarSketch helps you * Learn coding through music * Use our sounds or your own * Learn Python or JavaScript code * Produce studio-quality music
• Take Advantage of the Mac's built-in wordlist — OS X comes with a list of all the words in Webster's 2nd International Dictionary (234,936 of them to be precise). These words can be found in the file /usr/share/dict/words. I find it useful to search this list if I'm not sure how spell a given word by using the following command:

• 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.

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The Computer Science Teacher Association (CSTA) provides student standards for learning as well as professional development standards for instructions. For example, there are 23 standards for grades 6-8 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?

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Links:

• Crunchy Engineering of Pringles' Hyperbolic Paraboloid Shape | IE — "Once you pop, the fun don't stop", is the slogan of the popular American chip brand Pringles. But if you're an engineer, you might be interested in Pringles for more than just their addictive crunch and taste. In fact, Pringles have been designed in the shape of a hyperbolic paraboloid.
• Standards | Computer Science Teachers Association — K-12 teaching standards for Computer Science
• (19) Alex (Mengyao) Wang | LinkedIn — Talks about #python, #technology, #datascience, #machinelearning, and #artificialintelligence
• Teaching Python - Blog - Hacking the Classroom Hand Sanitizer Dispenser Part 2 — In Part 1 of this series, we hacked the hand sanitizer dispenser and got it talking to Home Assistant as a binary sensor. For this part, we'll work on a couple of useful automations in HA that will collect data and make it fun for students to sanitize. By the end of this part, you should have a sensor that shows today's dispenses, an automation that makes Alexa speak and some lights flash, and even an interface to a local MQTT broker to send and receive data with other devices.

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.

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Links:

• Amazon.com: The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How. eBook: Coyle, Daniel: Kindle Store — Whether you’re coaching soccer or teaching a child to play the piano, writing a novel or trying to improve your golf swing, this revolutionary book shows you how to grow talent by tapping into a newly discovered brain mechanism.
• Teaching Python Newsletter — Sign up for our newsletter!

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

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Doll-E 1.0 - Kindle edition by McCloskey, Shanda. Children Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com. — A STEM-friendly tale of a girl and the doll she upgrades to be her new friend, for fans of The Most Magnificent Thing and Rosie Revere, Engineer.
• T-Bone the Drone - Kindle edition by McCloskey, Shanda. Children Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com. — A new tech toy brings epic trials and triumphs in this playtime adventure for fans of The Most Magnificent Thing and Iggy Peck, Architect.
• Data.WA | State of Washington Open Data Platform | Data.WA | State of Washington — Welcome to Data.WA.gov - the general purpose open data portal for the State of Washington.
• Learn computer programming | Online courses from JetBrains Academy — Try a holistic approach to learning in which you study the theory and immediately put it into practice by building working applications. Dive into Java, Python, and other programming languages in a project-based learning environment that is integrated with JetBrains IDEs.
• AWS Machine Learning Foundations Course | Udacity Free Courses — Study machine learning techniques and algorithms, programming best practices, python coding, and Amazon AI Services and Amazon AI Devices, including Amazon SageMaker and Amazon DeepComposer. The foundations course is intended to help developers of all skill levels get started with machine learning.
• Amazon.com: AWS DeepComposer – a machine learning-enabled musical keyboard for developers: Amazon Devices — AWS DeepComposer gives developers a creative way to get started with machine learning. Get hands-on, literally, with a musical keyboard and the latest machine learning techniques, designed to expand your ML skills.
• Computer Chronicles Revisited, Part 16 — The Apple Logo Programming Language - S.M. Oliva — Today, Python is probably the most popular computer programming language taught in elementary and secondary schools. (There’s even a terrific podcast, Teaching Python, on this subject.) But back in the 1980s, BASIC was the language of choice for many introductory computer classrooms. Specifically, versions of Microsoft BASIC came with many popular 8-bit microcomputers, including the Apple II and Commodore 64, which were also commonly used in schools at the time.
• Amazon.com: A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence eBook: Hawkins, Jeff, Dawkins, Richard: Kindle Store — For all of neuroscience's advances, we've made little progress on its biggest question: How do simple cells in the brain create intelligence? Jeff Hawkins and his team discovered that the brain uses maplike structures to build a model of the world-not just one model, but hundreds of thousands of models of everything we know. This discovery allows Hawkins to answer important questions about how we perceive the world, why we have a sense of self, and the origin of high-level thought. A Thousand Brains heralds a revolution in the understanding of intelligence. It is a big-think book, in every sense of the word.
• GitHub Copilot · Your AI pair programmer — Trained on billions of lines of public code, GitHub Copilot puts the knowledge you need at your fingertips, saving you time and helping you stay focused.
• PyBites Platform | Real World Python Exercises — Solve Real World Problems Using Python Overwhelmed by tutorials? Stop consuming books and courses! The only way to really learn to code is to write a lot of relevant code. Our platform makes you a confident programmer fast.
• Real-World Python: A Hacker's Guide to Solving Problems with Code: Vaughan, Lee: 9781718500624: Amazon.com: Books — Through a series of hands-on projects, you'll investigate and solve real-world problems using sophisticated computer vision, machine learning, data analysis, and language processing tools. You'll be introduced to important modules like OpenCV, NumPy, Pandas, NLTK, Bokeh, Beautiful Soup, Requests, HoloViews, Tkinter, turtle, matplotlib, and more. You'll create complete, working programs and think through intriguing projects that show you how to:
• Adafruit IO Wippersnapper DevLog #1: What IS Wippersnapper? #AdafruitIO​​ #Adafruit​ #IoT @adafruit @adafruitio « Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! — Adafruit IO Wippersnapper is a new way to create robust Internet of Things Projects without writing code. Wippersnapper is in early development and it’s not out yet.
• Adafruit FunHouse - WiFi Home Automation Development Board : ID 4985 : $34.95 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits — Home is where the heart is...it's also where we keep all our electronic bits. So why not wire it up with sensors and actuators to turn our house into an electronic wonderland. Whether it's tracking the environmental temperature and humidity in your laundry room, or notifying you when someone is detected in the kitchen, to sensing when a window was left open, or logging when your cat leaves through the pet door, this board is designed to make it way easy to make WiFi-connected home automation projects.
• Adafruit Feather nRF52840 Sense : ID 4516 : $32.50 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits — The Adafruit Feather Bluefruit Sense takes our popular Feather nRF52840 Express and adds a smorgasbord of sensors to make a great wireless sensor platform. This Feather microcontroller comes with Bluetooth Low Energy and native USB support featuring the nRF52840!  This Feather is an 'all-in-one' Arduino-compatible + Bluetooth Low Energy with built in USB plus battery charging. With native USB it works great with CircuitPython, too.
• EngiNerds (MAX) - Kindle edition by Lerner, Jarrett. Children Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com. — Ken is an EngiNerd: one of a super-smart group of friends—all nerds—who have been close since kindergarten.
• Amazon.com: POWER A Nano Enhanced Wireless Controller for Nintendo Switch - Grey-Neon, Works with Nintendo Switch Lite, Bluetooth Controller, Gamepad, Compact, Smaller, Rechargeable, Portable - Nintendo Switch: Video Games — Wireless Controller with Bluetooth 5.0 Technology + compact ergonomic shell with standard sized Buttons & controls Features motion controls and mappable advanced gaming Buttons + LEDs for player number, button mapping, and low battery warning

Special Guest: John Mikton.

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Links:

• The Big Google Doc of John's Links — We asked John to compile a list of resources for teachers and this was the result. Click through to get an amazing wealth of teacher training and learning materials.
• The Learning Ideas Conference — New technologies provide us with new opportunities to create new learning experiences, leveraging research from a variety of disciplines along with imagination and creativity. The Learning Ideas Conference has been created to bring researchers, practitioners, and others together to discuss, innovate, and create.
• Learn Computer Science – JetBrains Academy — This track will guide you on your path of mastering Python, one of the much-in-demand languages in today's environment. Known for its straightforward syntax, Python is easy to learn and use, which gained this language popularity and makes its community grow every day. Most commonly, Python is used in data science, web development, and task automation.
• Page from Using Technology in Evidence-Based Teaching and Learning - Chartered College of Teaching — Explore effective research-informed ways of using technology to support teaching and learning in the classroom.
• Amazon.com: A Day in Code- Python: Learn to Code in Python through an Illustrated Story (for Kids and Beginners) eBook: Eskenas, Shari, Quintero Villafraz, Ana: Kindle Store — For kids and beginners of all ages, learning to code in the Python programming language has never been this fun...or fast! This story of an epic day describes real-life situations with Python computer programs presented next to beautiful full-page illustrations. You'll see how activities like adding toppings to a waffle breakfast and playing a game of balloon darts are described with Python programs.
• Summer Workshops - EdTechTeacher — Summer 2021 marks our 19th year of EdTechTeacher Summer Workshops. Just like you have had to adjust, so have we! This year we are offering virtual summer workshops to help you create learning environments that lead to your students’ success.
• Webinars | Resources | Jamf — Webinars from Jamf designed for teachers and IT professionals using Apple devices in the education space.
• 5 Reasons Students Today Need Innovative Learning Spaces | Emerging Education Technologies — That the future of learning and development requires around technology and innovation is a simple reality. Today, students need creative learning spaces to help them build knowledge and think like creators. With the right use of technology, learners can witness an increase in information-retaining and concentration abilities. Innovation is also likely to boost learner-centered education programs. Online projects with interesting education questions and answers will provide students the chance to build their capacity to collaborate and enhance their skills.
• The Science of Well-Being by Yale University | Coursera — In this course you will engage in a series of challenges designed to increase your own happiness and build more productive habits. As preparation for these tasks, Professor Laurie Santos reveals misconceptions about happiness, annoying features of the mind that lead us to think the way we do, and the research that can help us change. You will ultimately be prepared to successfully incorporate a specific wellness activity into your life.
• Luxembourg Tech School — As mentioned in the episode, the Luxembourg Tech School is running a hackathon on July 3. Follow them to learn more.
• Talk Python Training - Python courses and tutorials for developers - [Talk Python Training] — Learn on-demand through high quality training videos. Our videos and additional resources are available 24/7 so you can learn what you need exactly when you need it.
• AWS Scholarship - AWS Machine Learning Engineer — AWS and Udacity are collaborating to educate developers of all skill levels on machine learning concepts. We invite students 18 years of age or older who are interested in expanding their machine learning skills and expertise to enroll in the AWS Machine Learning Scholarship Program. The goal for this program is to up-level machine learning skills to all, and to cultivate the next generation of ML leaders across the world, with a focus on underrepresented groups. Through its We Power Tech Program, AWS collaborates with professional organizations that are leading initiatives to increase the diversity and talent in technical roles, including organizations like Girls In Tech and the National Society of Black Engineers.
• The International Schools Podcast — Every two weeks we discuss all aspects of technology and life in International Schools. Brought to you by AppsEvents and Acer Education.

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.

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Microsoft Learn | Microsoft Docs — Whether you're just starting or an experienced professional, our hands-on approach helps you arrive at your goals faster, with more confidence and at your own pace.
• Development Containers in Education with Visual Studio Code — Development containers with Visual Studio Code can serve as a fantastic tool in education to ensure students have a consistent coding environment. They take care of setup so that students and instructors can quickly move past configuration, and instead focus on what's truly important: learning and coding something great!
• Coding and learning with VS Code on Chromebooks — For the last few years, Chromebooks running Google Chrome OS have been providing an alternative to "traditional" laptops. Thanks to lots of choices, from very affordable models to high-end ones, Chromebooks are especially popular among students, who can use them for learning, completing assignments, and attending classes virtually. While Chromebooks and Chrome OS are typically centered around the web browser, you can also enable a Linux environment that allows installing native desktop applications, including Visual Studio Code!
• Using DevContainers to Standardize Student Development Environments: An Experience Report — In computer science classes it can be a challenge to ensure every student has a functioning development environment. Running preconfigured servers that provide students with remote access can help mitigate most of these setup issues, however they can also introduce new limitations of their own. We propose using DevContainers to overcome the local machine setup difficulties for the students. DevContainers allow the instructional staff to provision a development environment (a Docker image) with all the correct software versions pre-configured. This development environment can be used on any major OS through Docker. Moreover, through this DevContainer configuration, Microsoft Visual Studio Code can integrate seamlessly with the Docker container to provide an experience for the user that is practically the same as working on the native OS. This work examines the value of employing a DevContainer setup in an Advanced Data Structures course and provides details for those interested in using DevContainers in their courses.
• Learn to code with materials inspired by "Space Jam: A New Legacy" | Microsoft EDU — Space Jam: A New Legacy is inspiring unique learning opportunities for students of all ages! Basketball and coding have more in common than you might think; they both require practice, creativity, and coaching. That’s why we’ve teamed up to bring educators and students learning materials inspired by the film. Research shows learners are more likely to retain and explore based on culturally relevant areas of passion, and our lessons guide learners through authentically solving real problems.1
• Visual Studio Code - Code Editing. Redefined — Code editing. Redefined. Free. Built on open source. Runs everywhere.
• microsoft/vscode: Visual Studio Code — This repository ("Code - OSS") is where we (Microsoft) develop the Visual Studio Code product together with the community. Not only do we work on code and issues here, we also publish our roadmap, monthly iteration plans, and our endgame plans. This source code is available to everyone under the standard MIT license.

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

Special Guest: Nick Tollervey.

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Code With Mu — Code with Mu: a simple Python editor for beginner programmers.
• Mu thanks — Mu would not be possible without the help and support of many volunteer developers who give up their time to improve Mu. However, it is important to acknowledge the help and work of others who may not be developers, those who make significant contributions or those whose work is essential for Mu. If you find Mu useful, why not thank the following people and organisations? It takes only a minute of your time to tweet your appreciation.
• CodeGrades — CodeGrades are eight cumulative steps for learning how to code. They're a programming version of time-proven techniques like music grades, belts in martial arts or lifeguard certification. Level up by applying the knowledge and skills needed for each grade to your own fun, interesting and challenging coding projects.
• EduBlocks — EduBlocks is the easiest way to make the transition from blocks to text.

Our lists:

Sean

• Datetime
• random
• Matplotlib
• bullet

Kelly

• Pillow
• Math
• Turtle
• getpass
• Regex

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Tutorial — Pillow (PIL Fork) 8.3.0.dev0 documentation — Tutorial Using the Image class The most important class in the Python Imaging Library is the Image class, defined in the module with the same name. You can create instances of this class in several ways; either by loading images from files, processing other images, or creating images from scratch.
• Episode #45: Processing Images in Python With Pillow – The Real Python Podcast — Are you interested in processing images in Python? Do you need to load and modify images for your Flask or Django website or CMS? Then you most likely will be working with Pillow, the friendly fork of PIL, the Python imaging library. This week on the show, we have Mike Driscoll, who is writing a new book about image processing in Python.
• Pillow: Image Processing… by Michael Driscoll [PDF/iPad/Kindle] — Have you ever wondered how to use Python to process your images? Wonder no longer! The Pillow package is Python's Imaging Library. In this book, you will learn how to crop photos, apply filters and transforms, work with colors and much more!
• math — Mathematical functions — Python 3.9.4 documentation — This module provides access to the mathematical functions defined by the C standard.
• Gallery — Matplotlib 3.4.1 documentation — This gallery contains examples of the many things you can do with Matplotlib. Click on any image to see the full image and source code.
• bchao1/bullet: 🚅 Interactive prompts made simple. Build a prompt like stacking blocks. — 🎨 Customize prompts in your Python CLI tool. Extensive support for formatting, colors, background colors, styling, and etc. Also supports emojis!
• datetime — Basic date and time types — Python 3.9.4 documentation — The datetime module supplies classes for manipulating dates and times.
• Amazon.com: Petoi Bittle Bionic Open Source Robot Dog which has Customized Arduino board, Compatible with Raspberry Pi, Arduino IDE and graphical programming, Easy to operate and Rich curriculum resources: Computers & Accessories — Petoi Bittle is a small but agile and powerful bionic robot dog which has the unique bionic system can perform dynamic movement and has excellent coordination.The bionic structure of the legs gives it more freedom in unstructured terrain.This dynamic mobility can only be seen in some of the best laboratories or some luxury robots of big companies, such as Boston Dynamics Spot or Sony Aibo.
• The Beginner's Guide to Python Turtle – Real Python — When I was a kid, I used to learn Logo, a programming language that involved a turtle that you could move around the screen with just a few commands. I remember feeling like a computer genius as I controlled this little object on my screen, and this was what got me interested in programming in the first place. The Python turtle library comes with a similar interactive feature that gives new programmers a taste of what it’s like to work with Python.
• turtle — Turtle graphics — Python 3.9.4 documentation — Turtle graphics is a popular way for introducing programming to kids. It was part of the original Logo programming language developed by Wally Feurzeig, Seymour Papert and Cynthia Solomon in 1967.
• re — Regular expression operations — Python 3.9.4 documentation — This module provides regular expression matching operations similar to those found in Perl.
• getpass — Portable password input — Python 3.9.4 documentation — getpass — Portable password input

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

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• CS5001 Homework Rubric — This rubric will be used to evaluate your homework assignments in CS5001. It will be applied to each Python program you submit (most assignments have multiple Python programs). In addition to numeric scores in each rubric category, your grader will provide written feedback as well, if there is something helpful we can contribute to your learning.
• The Power of Yet Mug – Teaching Python — Three letter words are often the most powerful. Y-E-T is the gateway to changing your mindset. When you add yet, you add possibility and purpose. Remind your students that "yet changes everything" with every sip that you take. These ceramic mugs not only have a fun design on them, but also a colorful rim, handle, and inside, so the mug is bound to spice up your mug rack.
• iRubric: Python mini project rubric - QX73A82: RCampus — Grading Rubric for Python guessing game.
• Single Point Rubric: A Tool for Responsible Student Self-Assessment
• The Big Book of Small Python Projects: 81 Easy Practice Programs: Sweigart, Al: 9781718501249: Amazon.com: Books — Deploy Python creatively and effectively through this collection of short coding projects carefullly curated by best-selling author and Python expert Al Sweigart. This curated collection of simple Python projects lets you dive right in and make digital art, games, animations, number-crunching tools and more – right away! Forget standard step-by-step tutorials; instead, author Al Sweigart takes a learn-by-doing approach that provides you with over 80 programs to manually copy, run, and play with. Once you see how the code works, it’s time to experiment with your own changes and practice re-creating them yourself.

Also this week, we're excited to announce the launch of the new Teaching Python shop, where you can get fun t-shirts, mugs, hoodie sweatshirts, and even some flip flops to show your support of the show. Use 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.

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Python Discord | Home — We're a large community focused around the Python programming language. We believe anyone can learn to code, and are very dedicated to helping novice developers take their first steps into the world of programming. We also attract a lot of expert developers who are seeking friendships, collaborators, and who wish to hone their craft by teaching and getting involved in the community.
• Primer on Python Decorators – Real Python — In this tutorial on decorators, we’ll look at what they are and how to create and use them. Decorators provide a simple syntax for calling higher-order functions. By definition, a decorator is a function that takes another function and extends the behavior of the latter function without explicitly modifying it.
• Shop Teaching Python | Products for Teachers & Coders — Check out the brand new Teaching Python shop! Use code FRIENDS15 to get 15% off your first order.
• Magnus' Kingdom of Chess - Play Magnus and Dragonbox — Discover the Wonderful World of Chess!
• 🎵 The PEP 8 Song 🎵 - YouTube — A songification of that most holiest of Python Enhancement Proposals, the PEP 8. Based on an idea by Daniel "Mr. Hemlock" Brown.

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.

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Our Presentation: What We Learned from Teaching Kids to Code - YouTube — Learning to code has many unexpected advantages. Because programming languages are updated frequently and are fluid tools for future jobs, coding is a semi-perishable skill. However, the durable skills developed while learning to code are essential. These skills help develop life long skills that benefit students for years to come. In this session, explore the techniques used and learned while ‘learning how to code’ and brainstorm ways to transfer these skills into your classroom and curriculum.
• Video - The Pandemic is A Portal by Arundhati Roy - A Future where the Global Goals are achieved — Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. Right now, nothing could be worse than a return to normality. It’s time to reimagine a new future where the #GlobalGoals​ are all achieved.
• Article - Arundhati Roy: ‘The pandemic is a portal’ — Who can use the term “gone viral” now without shuddering a little? Who can look at anything any more — a door handle, a cardboard carton, a bag of vegetables — without imagining it swarming with those unseeable, undead, unliving blobs dotted with suction pads waiting to fasten themselves on to our lungs? 
• Will Richardson's 9 Questions Free EBook — What have we learned about education in schooling in 2020, and what might we create for learners in 2021? After what we experienced in 2020, one thing is certain: education and school will never be the same.
• Live Curious 2021 — Home page for the Live Curious, Go Beyond conference where Kelly & Sean presented.
• Twilio Engage Everywhere 2021 — Join us to hear from Ashton Kutcher, American actor, producer, and entrepreneur, for a virtual conversation with Twilio co-founder and CEO Jeff Lawson as they discuss the future of communication and new technology that is leading the way during a global pandemic. 
• Episode #303 Python for Astronomy with Dr. Becky - [Talk Python To Me Podcast] — If you are involved in science or use computational tools in your work, you should be using code to solve your problem. On this episode, we have Dr. Becky Smethurst who's an astrophysicist at Oxford University. She uses Python to explore galaxies and black holes. Learn how she's using Python to make new discoveries at the cutting edge of research and dive into a couple of her YouTube videos aimed at spreading scientific truth in an entertaining wrapper.
• Kodak's First Digital Moment - The New York Times — Imagine a world where photography is a slow process that is impossible to master without years of study or apprenticeship. A world without iPhones or Instagram, where one company reigned supreme. Such a world existed in 1973, when Steven Sasson, a young engineer, went to work for Eastman Kodak. Two years later he invented digital photography and made the first digital camera.

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• AWS DeepRacer - the fastest way to get rolling with machine learning — Developers of all skill levels can get hands on with machine learning through a cloud based 3D racing simulator, fully autonomous 1/18th scale race car driven by reinforcement learning, and global racing league.
• Real-World Python: A Hacker's Guide to Solving Problems with Code: Vaughan, Lee: 9781718500624: Amazon.com: Books — You've mastered the basics. Now you're ready to explore some of Python's more powerful tools. Real-World Python will show you how. Through a series of hands-on projects, you'll investigate and solve real-world problems using sophisticated computer vision, machine learning, data analysis, and language processing tools. You'll be introduced to important modules like OpenCV, NumPy, Pandas, NLTK, Bokeh, Beautiful Soup, Requests, HoloViews, Tkinter, turtle, matplotlib, and more.
• tiangolo/typer: Typer, build great CLIs. Easy to code. Based on Python type hints. — Typer is a library for building CLI applications that users will love using and developers will love creating. Based on Python 3.6+ type hints.
• {placekitten} - Placeholder kitten images for developers — A quick and simple service for getting pictures of kittens for use as placeholders in your designs or code. Just put your image size (width & height) after our URL and you'll get a placeholder.
• Mars Weather | InSight Mission – NASA's InSight Mars Lander — InSight has temporarily suspended daily weather measurements. As more data becomes available, it will appear below. Meanwhile, get the latest Mars weather from the Curiosity Rover.
• Who's on First? - YouTube — Abbott and Costello perform the classic "Who's on first?" baseball sketch in their 1945 film "The Naughty Nineties" first performed as part of their stage act. Still find this really funny

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.

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• US Capitol Siege, tools and data | By Patr10tic — US Capitol Attack Tools Fighting to preserve democracy in America
• Real-World Python: A Hacker's Guide to Solving Problems with Code: Vaughan, Lee: 9781718500624: Amazon.com: Books — You've mastered the basics. Now you're ready to explore some of Python's more powerful tools. Real-World Python will show you how. Through a series of hands-on projects, you'll investigate and solve real-world problems using sophisticated computer vision, machine learning, data analysis, and language processing tools. You'll be introduced to important modules like OpenCV, NumPy, Pandas, NLTK, Bokeh, Beautiful Soup, Requests, HoloViews, Tkinter, turtle, matplotlib, and more.
• Natural Language Toolkit — NLTK 3.5 documentation — NLTK is a leading platform for building Python programs to work with human language data. It provides easy-to-use interfaces to over 50 corpora and lexical resources such as WordNet, along with a suite of text processing libraries for classification, tokenization, stemming, tagging, parsing, and semantic reasoning, wrappers for industrial-strength NLP libraries, and an active discussion forum.
• Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I have a Dream Speech - COLOR - YouTube — Experience the iconic I have a Dream Speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on August 28, 1963 in this 4K and colorized version. Thanks to the advancement in AI/artificial intelligence, old black and white film can be converted into higher resolutions and also produced into color.
• Modern APIs with FastAPI and Python Online Course - [Talk Python Training] — (The course Sean took to make a simple API for students) FastAPI is one of the most exciting new web frameworks out today. It's exciting because it leverages more of the modern Python language features than any other framework: type hints, async and await, dataclasses, and much more. If you are building an API in Python, you have many choices. But, to us, FastAPI is the clear choice going forward. And this course will teach you everything you need to know to get started. We'll build a realistic API working with live data and deploy that API to a cloud server Linux VM. In fact, you'll even see how to create proper HTML web pages to augment your API all within FastAPI.
• Raspberry Pi Pico RP2040 with Loose Headers ID: 4883 - $5.00 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits — The Raspberry Pi foundation changed single-board computing when they released the Raspberry Pi computer, now they're ready to do the same for microcontrollers with the release of the brand new Raspberry Pi Pico. This low-cost microcontroller board features a powerful new chip, the RP2040, and all the fixin's to get started with embedded electronics projects at a stress-free price.
• Codye App | Dario Roa — Codye allows you to present code in more than 180 languages and 80 themes. Available on iOS, iPadOS and macOS.
• Sean's New Washing Machine: GE® 4.8 cu. ft. Capacity Smart Front Load ENERGY STAR® Steam Washer with SmartDispense™ UltraFresh Vent System with OdorBlock™ and Sanitize + Allergen - GFW650SPNSN - GE Appliances — Sean's new washing machine. There's a lot of registered trademarks in that title! Built-in WiFi Start, stop and monitor your laundry from anywhere while receiving real-time notifications and updates

Special Guests: Bob Belderbos and Julian Sequeira.

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• PyBites Platform | Real World Python Exercises — Our Pythonistas love how our platform expands their Python skills, picking up new features like ABCs, decorators, regexes, the collections module, and much much more. Once they start coding on our platform, before they know it, list comprehensions have become second nature, and they finally wrap their heads around lambdas and context managers.
• JavaScript for Kids: A Playful Introduction to Programming: Morgan, Nick: 9781593274085: Amazon.com: Books — JavaScript for Kids is a lighthearted introduction that teaches programming essentials through patient, step-by-step examples paired with funny illustrations. You’ll begin with the basics, like working with strings, arrays, and loops, and then move on to more advanced topics, like building interactivity with jQuery and drawing graphics with Canvas.
• Real-World Python: A Hacker's Guide to Solving Problems with Code: Vaughan, Lee: 9781718500624: Amazon.com: Books — You've mastered the basics. Now you're ready to explore some of Python's more powerful tools. Real-World Python will show you how. Through a series of hands-on projects, you'll investigate and solve real-world problems using sophisticated computer vision, machine learning, data analysis, and language processing tools. You'll be introduced to important modules like OpenCV, NumPy, Pandas, NLTK, Bokeh, Beautiful Soup, Requests, HoloViews, Tkinter, turtle, matplotlib, and more.
• Amazon.com: High Expectations Teaching: How We Persuade Students to Believe and Act on "Smart Is Something You Can Get" eBook: Saphier, Jon: Kindle Store — For all the productive conversation around "mindsets," what’s missing are the details of how to convince our discouraged and underperforming students that "smart is something you can get." Until now. With the publication of High-Expectations Teaching, Jon Saphier reveals once and for all evidence that the bell curve of ability is plain wrong—that ability is something that can be grown significantly if we can first help students to believe in themselves.

Special Guests: Jessica Gilbert and Roslynn Jackson.

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• High Expectations Teaching: How We Persuade Students to Believe and Act on "Smart Is Something You Can Get": Saphier, Jon: 9781506356792: Amazon.com: Books — For all the productive conversation around "mindsets," what’s missing are the details of how to convince our discouraged and underperforming students that "smart is something you can get." Until now. With the publication of High-Expectations Teaching, Jon Saphier reveals once and for all evidence that the bell curve of ability is plain wrong―that ability is something that can be grown significantly if we can first help students to believe in themselves.
• Cultivating the Skill of Figuring Things Out | Scott H Young — There’s a skill I’ve noticed some people possess which, for lack of a better term, I’ll call the ability to figure things out. Some people are really good at figuring things out. Give them an ambiguous problem and they’ll investigate, try things out, push through frustration and solve it.
• People Learn Better When They Figure Things Out For Themselves | by Thomas Oppong | Mind Cafe | Medium — We all are our own teachers for the school of life. Taking advice is not as effective as direct perception and participation — it’s one of the best ways to cultivate more of what we like about ourselves as opposed to listening to advice or gathering lessons from others.
• What Is Problem Solving? - Problem Solving Skills from MindTools.com — Having good, strong problem solving skills can make a huge difference to your career. Problems are at the center of what many people do at work every day. Whether you're solving a problem for a client (internal or external), supporting those who are solving problems, or discovering new problems to solve, the problems you face can be large or small, simple or complex, and easy or difficult.

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.

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Amazon.com: Star Wars The Child Animatronic Edition 7.2-Inch-Tall Toy by Hasbro with Over 25 Sound and Motion Combinations, Toys for Kids Ages 4 and Up: Toys & Games — He may look like “Baby Yoda,” but this lovable creature is called The Child - and now you can become his protector with this animatronic toy from Star Wars. Touching the top of The Child Animatronic Edition’s head activates over 25 sound and motion combinations, including happy and excited sounds, giggles, babbles, and more, all while the figure’s head moves up and down, ears move back and forth, and eyes open and close. Boys and girls ages 4 and up can pretend to harness the power of the Force as The Child toy closes its eyes, raises its arm, and sighs as if exerting a great amount of energy.
• Amazon.com: All-new Echo Dot (4th Gen) + Amazon Smart Plug | Charcoal: Amazon Devices — Teach your child how to set reminders, listen to stories online, check the weather. Make sure to check your security settings.
• Alexa in the Classroom [A Teacher's Guide] | Voices.com — Not only has Amazon Alexa become popular in our homes, many young students are now starting to encounter Alexa in the classroom as well. While there are many ways that technology is being used in digital learning, introducing hardware and AI represents yet another learning trend, and many teachers are finding advantages to leveraging Alexa as a learning tool and even a classroom assistant.  
• Amazon.com: pi-top [4] computer with Raspberry Pi 4 - 100+ hours of Coding Projects, STEM Learning, LEGO compatible: Computers & Accessories — pi-top [4] is an easy-to-use, rugged device for creating practical computing projects and learning to code. With pi-top [4] you get to design, code and make anything you can imagine using one simple system. From beginner to superuser, pi-top powers your projects and brings learning into the real world.
• Introducing Finch Robot 2.0! - BirdBrain Technologies — Bring computer science to life from kindergarten to college with the NEW Finch Robot 2.0!
• DK Eyewitness Books: Robot: Discover the Amazing World of Machines from Robots that Play Chess to Systems that Think: Bridgman, Roger: 8601400584828: Amazon.com: Books — Take a detailed look at the fascinating world of robots - from the earliest single-task machines to the advanced intelligence of robots with feelings. Young readers will be amazed to learn all that robots can do: perform delicate surgical operations, clean city sewers, work as museum tour guides, or even battle each other in combat. Find out how humans have created these mechanical minds and bodies.
• Raspberry Pi 400 Desktop - Full Computer Kit ID: 4796 - $100.00 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits — Raspberry Pi 400 is a complete Raspberry Pi 4-based personal computer, integrated into a keyboard. The Pi 4 is the first computer from the Pi Foundation that really feels 'desktop computer' speed - you can use it as an every day computer at a great price! Normally you'd need to pick up a keyboard and other accessories to turn the Pi 4 into a functioning desktop - but since most keyboards have empty space in them, you can just cram the Pi 4 inside to make an all-in-one kit. Think of it like a modern Apple IIe, but super light and powerful.
• micro:bit v2 Go Bundle - Batteries and USB Cable Included ID: 4834 - $17.50 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits — Meet the new BBC micro:bit v2 - Upgraded with a powerful new processor that has tons more capability and also adds more sensing with a new speaker and microphone! The latest micro:bit will fit right into your existing lessons and materials; all the existing MakeCode blocks and MicroPython code will work in the same way as they do on the original micro:bit. More features, including easy ways to take AI and ML into the classroom, will be released throughout 2021.
• DIY "Be a Unicorn" Light-Up Unicorn Headband Kit – TechnoChic — Become the unicorn of your dreams! Learn about circuits in the coolest and trendiest way - by building a light-up unicorn headband. Build the circuit and fold the pre-cut pieces to bring your unicorn headband to life! It’s a project that’s all about smarts & self expression!
• A Beginner's Guide to Circuits | No Starch Press — A Beginner's Guide to Circuits is the perfect first step for anyone ready to jump into the world of electronics and circuit design. First, you’ll learn to read circuit diagrams and use a breadboard, which allows you to connect electrical components without using a hot soldering iron! Next, you’ll build nine simple projects using just a handful of readily available components, like resistors, transistors, capacitors, and other parts. As you build, you’ll learn what each component does, how it works, and how to combine components to achieve new and interesting effects. By the end of the book, you’ll be able to build your own electronic creations. With easy-to-follow directions, anyone can become an inventor with the help of A Beginner’s Guide to Circuits!
• Teach Your Kids to Code | No Starch Press — Teach Your Kids to Code is a parent's and teacher's guide to teaching kids basic programming and problem solving using Python, the powerful language used in college courses and by tech companies like Google and IBM. Step-by-step explanations will have kids learning computational thinking right away, while visual and game-oriented examples hold their attention. Friendly introductions to fundamental programming concepts such as variables, loops, and functions will help even the youngest programmers build the skills they need to make their own cool games and applications.
• Python for Kids | No Starch Press — Python for Kids brings Python to life and brings you (and your parents) into the world of programming. The ever-patient Jason R. Briggs will guide you through the basics as you experiment with unique (and often hilarious) example programs that feature ravenous monsters, secret agents, thieving ravens, and more. New terms are defined; code is colored, dissected, and explained; and quirky, full-color illustrations keep things on the lighter side.
• The Computer Science Activity Book | No Starch Press — The Computer Science Activity Book is the perfect companion for curious youngsters — or grown-ups who think they'll never understand some of the basics of how computers work. Work through this brief, coloring book-like collection of fun and innovative hands-on exercises and learn some basic programming concepts and computer terminology that form the foundation of a STEM education. You'll learn a bit about historical figures like Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, and Alan Turing; how computers store data and run programs; and how the parts of a computer work together (like the hard drive, RAM, and CPU). Draw a garden of flowers using loops, create creatures with conditional statements, and just have a bit of fun.
• Original Prusa MINI+ - Prusa Research — Introducing our new compact 3D printer with all the bells and whistles you would expect from the creators of the award-winning Original Prusa i3 MK2 and MK3S! The MINI+ is a big printer in a compact body. We did our best to squeeze as many features into the lowest possible price as possible. The MINI+ is great for beginners, companies looking to build a printing farm and 3D printing enthusiasts worldwide.
• Amazon.com: Sovol SV01 3D Printer 95% Pre-Assembled with Direct Drive Extruder Meanwell Power Supply and Glass Plate + Sovol PLA 3D Printer Filament 1 kg(2.2 LBS) Blue 1.75mm: Industrial & Scientific — Bundle includes Sovol SV01 3D Printer 95% Pre-Assembled with Direct Drive Extruder Meanwell Power Supply and Glass Plate Built-in Thermal Runaway Protection 280x240x300mm + Sovol PLA 3D Printer Filament 1 kg(2.2 LBS) Blue Spool Printing Materials, Wiring Tightness, Dimensional Accuracy +/- 0.02 mm, 1.75 mm, Blue

“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.

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Machine Learning for Kids — This free tool introduces machine learning by providing hands-on experiences for training machine learning systems and building things with them.
• You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place: Shane, Janelle: 9780316525244: Amazon.com: Books — "You look like a thing and I love you" is one of the best pickup lines ever... according to an artificial intelligence trained by scientist Janelle Shane, creator of the popular blog AI Weirdness. She creates silly AIs that learn how to name paint colors, create the best recipes, and even flirt (badly) with humans--all to understand the technology that governs so much of our daily lives.
• Amazon.com: Explain the Cloud Like I'm 10 (9780979707117): Hoff, Todd: Books — What is the cloud? Discover the secrets of the cloud through simple explanations that use lots of pictures and lots of examples. Why learn about the cloud? It's the future. The cloud is the future of software, the future of computing, and the future of business. If you're not up on the cloud the future will move on without you. Don't miss out. Not a geek? Don't worry. I wrote this book for you! After reading Explain Cloud Like I'm 10,

Support Teaching Python

Special Guest: Eric Matthes.

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Python Crash Course, 2nd Edition: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming: Matthes, Eric: 9781593279288: Amazon.com: Books — Python Crash Course is the world's best-selling guide to the Python programming language. This fast-paced, thorough introduction to programming with Python will have you writing programs, solving problems, and making things that work in no time.
• Teaching Python Episode 33: Interview with Eric Matthes — Kelly and Sean interview Eric Matthes, author of Python Crash Course, 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.
• Adafruit Matrix Portal Starter Kit - ADABOX 016 Essentials ID: 4812 - $69.95 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits — If you missed out on AdaBox016, it's not too late for you to pick up the parts necessary to build many of the projects! It doesn't come with tissue paper or the nifty extras, but it does have all the electronic goodies you need.
• Introduction to command line · HonKit — It's exciting, right?! You'll write your first line of code in just a few minutes! :) Let us introduce you to your first new friend: the command line! The following steps will show you how to use the black window all hackers use. It might look a bit scary at first but really it's just a prompt waiting for commands from you.
• Write once. Deploy everywhere.— BeeWare — BeeWare allows you to write your app in Python and release it on multiple platforms. No need to rewrite the app in multiple programming languages. It means no issues with build tools, environments, compatibility, etc.
• PREORDER: Beyond the Basic Stuff with Python: Best Practices for Writing Clean Code: Sweigart, Al: 9781593279660: Amazon.com: Books — Welcome to Beyond the Basic Stuff with Python. More than a mere collection of advanced syntax and masterful tips for writing clean code, you'll learn how to advance your Python programming skills by using the command line and other professional tools like code formatters, type checkers, linters, and version control. Sweigart takes you through best practices for setting up your development environment, naming variables, and improving readability, then tackles documentation, organization and performance measurement, as well as object-oriented design and the Big-O algorithm analysis commonly used in coding interviews. The skills you learn will boost your ability to program--not just in Python but in any language.

• 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.

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Write once. Deploy everywhere.— BeeWare — Write your apps in Python and release them on iOS, Android, Windows, MacOS, Linux, Web, and tvOS using rich, native user interfaces. Multiple apps, one codebase, with a fully native user experience on every platform.
• Introduction to command line · HonKit — Let us introduce you to your first new friend: the command line! The following steps will show you how to use the black window all hackers use. It might look a bit scary at first but really it's just a prompt waiting for commands from you.
• Computer and coding books from Usborne — Usborne has been publishing award-winning computer books since the 1980s. Our latest books will give today's kids a clear understanding of computers and coding, which are compulsory school topics in the UK. To celebrate the release of Coding for beginners using Python, we've released five more 1980s Usborne coding books. Scroll down to download the free pdfs. 
• starship_takeoff.py — Sean's Python version of a Usborne BASIC game. STARSHIP TAKEOFF Adapted from Usborne Book Computer Spacegames https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxv0SsvibDMTNlMwTi1PTlVxc2M/view
• Code With Mu — Code with Mu: a simple Python editor for beginner programmers.

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.

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Introduction · HonKit — Welcome to the Django Girls Tutorial! We are happy to see you here :) In this tutorial, we will take you on a journey under the hood of web technologies, offering you a glimpse of all the bits and pieces that need to come together to make the web work as we know it. As with all unknown things, this is going to be an adventure - but no worries, since you already worked up the courage to be here, you'll be just fine :)
• Ladybug Podcast — We started the Ladybug Podcast as a few lady Twitter acquaintances looking to add our voices to the male-dominated tech podcast space. We published our first episode on July 1, 2019. Since then we’ve published nearly 50 episodes, interviewed many amazing guests, and become close friends in the process.
• Home · We Learn Code — Hi! I'm Ali I’m a software engineer and teacher. I blog about the things I wish I knew when I was learning to code. You'll find technical tutorials, career advice, and more all right here!
• Github - aspittel (Ali Spittel)

Special Guest: Jeff Olson.

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Model inclusive language - Eberly Center - Carnegie Mellon University — As instructors, you can have a great impact on the classroom climate through the very language you use. Yet it can be hard to recognize in one’s own speech that some of the most basic idioms and examples are often not inclusive, for they are actually very specific to one group in society (e.g. men/women, Christians, whites, heterosexuals, etc.). This tendency can inadvertently marginalize minority groups. For instance, research has shown that using gender-exclusive language (e.g., using he to indicate he or she) in professional settings affects women’s sense of belonging and lowers motivation (Stout and Dasgupta, 2011; Sczesny, Formanowicz, & Moser, 2016).
• The Trouble with Real-ish Problems — We've all seen math problems like this. Problems where the context or numbers are ridiculous. And what might we say to a kid in this situation? "Don't worry about that, just do the math."
• What Are You Talking About?! The Need for Common Language around Personalized Learning | EDUCAUSE — As a former language teacher, I love examples of translations that didn't turn out quite as they were intended. There's the famous example when the U.S. auto-maker Chevrolet marketed the Nova in Latin America: no va in Spanish means "doesn't go". Airports seem to be a great place to find language problems, such as the sign helping people find the restrooms. My point is that language matters.
• Students Don’t Need Simple Examples | by Jeff Olson | upperlinecode — In my post about coding for predictions, I wrote a sentence that got edited out of the final draft, but that’s played on repeat in my head ever since. Students don’t need simple examples. They need clear ones. I’m realizing that this catchy little antithesis is essentially my whole teaching philosophy rolled up into one line.
• Education Summit 2020 - YouTube — The Summit is a gathering of teachers and educators focused on bringing coding literacy, through Python, to as broad a group of audiences as possible. -Jeffrey L. Olson Jr, Foo and “Bar” Must Die - Teach Less and Do More with Context, Predictions, and Playtime
• Humble Book Bundle: Learn to Code the Fun Way by No Starch Press (pay what you want and help charity) — Sean's Win of the Week is the If Hemingway Wrote Javascript from the current Humble Bundle. --- We've teamed up with No Starch Press for our newest bundle! Get ebooks like Learn You a Haskell for Great Good!, Practical SQL, and Eloquent JavaScript 3rd Edition. Plus, your purchase will support UNCF and No Starch Press Foundation!
• Amazon.com: If Hemingway Wrote JavaScript eBook: Croll, Angus: Kindle Store — What if William Shakespeare were asked to generate the Fibonacci series or Jane Austen had to write a factorial program? In If Hemingway Wrote JavaScript, author Angus Croll imagines short JavaScript programs as written by famous wordsmiths. The result is a peculiar and charming combination of prose, poetry, and programming.

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Adafruit CLUE - nRF52840 Express with Bluetooth LE ID: 4500 - $39.95 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits — Do you feel like you just don't have a CLUE? Well, we can help with that - get a CLUE here at Adafruit by picking up this sensor-packed development board. We wanted to build some projects that have a small screen and a lot of sensors. To make it compatible with existing projects, we made it the same shape and size as the BBC micro:bit and with the same edge-connector on the bottom with 5 big pads so it will fit into your existing robot kit or 'bit add-on.
• Adafruit CRICKIT for Circuit Playground Express ID: 3093 - $29.95 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits — We designed Crickit - That's our Creative Robotics & Interactive Construction Kit. It's an add-on to our popular Circuit Playground Express that lets you #MakeRobotFriend using CircuitPython, MakeCode, or Arduino. Bolt on your Circuit Playground using the included stand-off bolts and start controlling motors, servos, solenoids. You also get signal pins, capacitive touch sensors, a NeoPixel driver and amplified speaker output. It complements & extends the Circuit Playground so you can still use all the goodies on the CPX, but now you have a robotics playground as well.
• Adafruit CRICKIT for micro:bit ID: 3928 - $29.95 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits — Plug your :bit into the 40 pin edge connector and start controlling motors, servos, solenoids. You also get signal pins, capacitive touch sensors, a NeoPixel driver and amplified speaker output. It complements & extends micro:bit so you can still use all the goodies on the :bit, but now you have a robotics playground as well.
• Amazon.com: DFROBOT Maqueen Micro:bit Robot Platform - Graphical Programming Educational Robotic Car for Kids - STEM Learning DIY Mini Robot Kit for Maker Education (Without Micro:bit Board): Toys & Games — Hello, my name is Maqueen, is a graphical programming robot for STEM education, which inherits playability and simple operation of micro:bit. The Mini-body, interesting features and plug-and-play allow children to quickly learn graphic programming in entertaining, nurturing children's interest in science and logical thinking.
• Amazon.com: Yahboom BBC Micro:bit Coding Robot STEM Education Kit for Kids to Programmable DIY Toy Car with Tutorial for 10+ (Without Micro:bit): Toys & Games — Robot toy car is a collection of BBC micro:bit board, learning kits, and expansion boards, allowing you to learn micro:bit from simplest to more complex,turn ideas into reality and let more children become maker. The vehicle model is small and cute. Most of the parts are connected with screw and a few parts are designed with anti reverse socket, which makes installation simple and safe.
• Amazon.com: Adeept BBC Micro:bit Sensor Starter Kit | Microbit Programmable Starter Kit for Micro:bit with 35 Projects PDF Tutorial Book | Micro:bit and Expansion Board Included: Toys & Games — Micro:bit Starter Kit for BBC, micro:bit is a tiny programmable computer, designed to make learning and teaching easy and fun! BBC Micro:bit Development Board is included. Provided with: Blocks and Python code. Compatible with micro bit. Includes common sensor modules such as: buzzers, LEDs, push buttons, sound sensors, soil moisture sensor, Ultrasonic module etc, allow you make a lot of interesting projects like Traffic Light, Magnetic Check, Temperature Test, Joystick Test, Ultrasonic control DC motor, Ultrasonic control RGB bar, Changes of the Soil Moisture, Temperature Alarm, Neopixel etc. Easy to assemble, encourages learning: Perfect DIY inventor project for micro:bit experiment and programming beginners.
• Adeept BBC Micro:Bit Expansion Board v3.0
• Gikfun 1V-6V DC Hobby Motor Type 130 Micro Motor Toy Motor DC Motor for Arduino (Pack of 5PCS) EK1894 - - Amazon.com — DC1V-6V Cable Length:about 70mm Used to connect spindle gears and propellers, model cars, aircraft, etc.
• Amazon.com: Miuzei 10 pcs SG90 9G Servo Motor Kit for RC Robot Arm Helicopter Airplane Remote Control: Toys & Games — Application Fields: remote control helicopters, micro robot, robot arm and boats. ALL kind of R/C Toys and Arduino experiments Interface Type: compatible with JR & Futaba interface. No Load Running Speed: 0.09±0.01 sec/60° at 4.8V Rotary Angle: 120°
• Amazon.com: [4-Pack] MG996R 55g Metal Gear Torque Digital Servo Motor for Futaba JR RC Helicopter Car Boat Robot: Toys & Games — This MG996R Servo motor which updated from SG90 and MG90S micro servo motor. (the Speed, Tension and Accuracy all increase) The MG996R model compliant with most standard receiver connector,for Futaba, Hitec, Sanwa, GWS etc.
• uxcell 5 Pcs 10K OHM Linear Taper Rotary Potentiometer 10KB B10K Pot Zinc Plating with 13mm Shaft: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific — Features: 10K ohm, 3 terminals, single linear (Type b), suits most standard knobs. Top adjustment Type and knurled shaft for easy operate in daily use time. Main used to control electrical devices such as volume controls O

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.

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Python Tutor - Visualize Python, Java, C, C++, JavaScript, TypeScript, and Ruby code execution — Python Tutor helps people overcome a fundamental barrier to learning programming: understanding what happens as the computer runs each line of code. You can use it to write Python, Java, C, C++, JavaScript, and Ruby code in your web browser and see its execution visualized step by step.
• Repl.it - The collaborative browser based IDE — Use our free, collaborative, in-browser IDE to code in 50+ languages — without spending a second on setup.

Episode Outline

1. Importance of variety in Lessons
   1. Motivation
   2. Increase Focus/Keeps classroom live and Active
   3. Combat Boredom/Avoids dullness
   4. Demonstrating concepts in multiple settings reinforces learning
2. Importance of Lesson Planning
   1. Basic Objectives
   2. Activities
   3. Assessments
   4. Time Management
   5. Result- oriented
3. Creating Environments for learning:Good Teaching Tools for SEL/21st Century Skills
   1. Delivery and sharing of resources
      1. LMS
      2. Weekly Overview
      3. Screenshots
      4. Sharing of Colab documents
   2. SEL Core Competencies: Self Awareness, Self Management, Social Awareness, Relationship SKills, Responsible decision making.
      1. Padlet- reflection and sharing ideas?
      2. Focusing Tools: Strick Workflow : block specific sites for 25 minutes by a click of a chrome extension
      3. Self Learning Opportunities: “Curiosity is the main driver of learning.”
   3. Teaching Techniques/Communication Tools
      1. Looking at a lot of code:
         1. Screenshare (Currently feature in Zoom) - allow students to share their code and have students look for errors on other student codes/Air server/Cast
      2. Use of Videos:
         1. Loom/Screencastify- give students short videos that they can use on their own time.
      3. Use of Class Time:
         1. Time to Talk it out (Think alouds) - give students time to talk about code verbally
         2. Pre-Teaching Vocabulary
         3. Pause, Ask Questions, Pause, Review
         4. Class Challenges
   4. Share the tools and how we use them
      1. IDE’s (details in episode 25)
         1. Mu Editor
            1. Great IDE for beginners and comes packaged with Python
            2. Works for pure Python, hardware, web development, games
            3. Intentionally limited to encourage students to move beyond
            4. In 2020: Kelly & Sean use it for programming micro:bits with sixth grade
            5. Best Audience: complete newbies to Python, hardware hackers
            6. Available for Mac, Windows, Linux
         2. Colab -
            1. Jupyter Notebooks in Google Apps system
            2. Pure Python with visualizations, graphing, etc.
            3. In 2020: Kelly & Sean use it for Python review sheet & quick demos
            4. Showing iterations/versions of code without Git
            5. Includes sharing/commenting features of Google Drive
            7. Best audience: newbies already familiar with Google Docs, more accomplished programmers that want to practice concepts without writing full “software”
         3. Repl.it
            1. Web-based coding environment for Python
            2. Multiplayer mode, assignment submissions with automated testing
            3. Classroom environment works well for adult learners
            4. In 2020: Kelly & Sean use it for student projects, especially those that run 3rd party packages
            5. Best audience: students that want to live code with others and share programs easily with teacher or peers
         4. Advance coding Options
            1. Used for differentiation with students or advanced applications like EV3 coding
            2. We use these ourselves to write software for school use
            3. Goal is to have 8th graders ready for these environments
            4. Options
   5. Visualization Tools
      1. Python tutor
      2. Python Turtle
      3. Mu Debugger
   6. Class Challenges versus Codechalleng.es
   7. Manipulatives: Robots and Hardware
      1. Microbits
      2. CircuitPython devices
      3. DFRobot Maqueen Plus

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Code With Mu — Code with Mu: a simple Python editor for beginner programmers.
• Welcome To Colaboratory - Colaboratory — Colaboratory, or "Colab" for short, allows you to write and execute Python in your browser, with Zero configuration required Free access to GPUs Easy sharing
• Repl.it - The collaborative browser based IDE — Use our free, collaborative, in-browser IDE to code in 50+ languages — without spending a second on setup.
• Visual Studio Code - Code Editing. Redefined — Code editing. Redefined. Free. Built on open source. Runs everywhere
• PyCharm Edu — A Professional Tool to Learn and Teach Programming with Python
• Python Tutor - Visualize Python, Java, C, C++, JavaScript, TypeScript, and Ruby code execution — Python Tutor helps people overcome a fundamental barrier to learning programming: understanding what happens as the computer runs each line of code. You can use it to write Python, Java, C, C++, JavaScript, and Ruby code in your web browser and see its execution visualized step by step.

Episode Outline:

1. Start with clear goals for topic
   1. Why are we teaching this?
   2. Backwards by design process
      1. What do we want the kids to do?
      2. What should students know when we’re done?
         1. Are the objectives differentiated?
         2. Can students demonstrate more advanced understanding according to Bloom’s Taxonomy?
         3. Where do they go next?
      3. What do students need to know before we start?
2. Introducing the List
   1. Mathes’ : cheat sheet https://t.co/KZdJkdPz7i?amp=1
   2. The problem of organizing too many bits of data
   3. Programmers use data structures to organize related data
   4. Vocabulary
      1. Data structure
      2. Ordered
      3. Mutable
      4. Sequence
3. Examples and Demonstrations
   1. Real World Grocery List
   2. Brainstorming types of lists in the real world
   3. Python Grocery List
4. Practical applications
   1. List sizes
      1. Small lists (choices, menus, limiting options)
      2. Medium Lists (class rosters, schedules, phone apps, etc)
      3. Large Lists (weather data, sensor measurements, etc)
   2. List limits (when not to use a list)
      1. Order doesn’t matter
      2. Searching by key (use dictionary)
      3. List shouldn’t change (use tuple)
   3. List indices are confusing at first
      1. Zero-indexed
      2. Negative index
   4. List methods
      1. Append & Insert
      2. Pop & Remove
      3. Sort & Sorted
   5. Tools for visualization and understanding
      1. Python Tutor
      2. Mu Debugger
5. Synthesis Opportunities
   1. Using for loops with lists
   2. List slicing
   3. List of Lists
   4. Functions/methods
6. Creativity & Fun
   1. Class Schedule
   2. Rock Paper Scissors

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Python Tutor - Visualize Python, Java, C, C++, JavaScript, TypeScript, and Ruby code execution — Python Tutor helps people overcome a fundamental barrier to learning programming: understanding what happens as the computer runs each line of code. You can use it to write Python, Java, C, C++, JavaScript, and Ruby code in your web browser and see its execution visualized step by step.
• Python Flash Cards: Syntax, Concepts, and Examples: Matthes, Eric: 9781593278960: Amazon.com: Books — These colorful programming study cards help new Python coders drill and reinforce the concepts, syntax, and terminology they'll need to become successful professional programmers. Keep your coding skills sharp on the go! Python Flash Cards take a tried-and-tested method and give it a programming makeover. Eric Matthes, author of the best-selling Python Crash Course, distills essential Python programming knowledge into this 101-card deck you can use anywhere.
• UNDERSTANDING BY DESIGN® FRAMEWORK — The Understanding by Design® framework (UbD™ framework) offers a planning process and structure to guide curriculum, assessment, and instruction. Its two key ideas are contained in the title: 1) focus on teaching and assessing for understanding and learning transfer, and 2) design curriculum "backward” from those ends.
• Will Richardson (@willrich45) / Twitter — It's the most amazing time to be a learner. Time to explore what comes next for schools. Co-founder of http://BigQuestions.Institute. Parent, speaker, instigator.

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 on Twitter. Send us a message at teachingpython.fm

Support Teaching Python

Links:

• Amazon.com: Logitech MeetUp HD Video and Audio Conferencing System for Small Meeting Rooms: Computers & Accessories — Logitech's premier conference cam specifically designed for business grade video meetings in huddle rooms and small conference rooms
• Python Testing with pytest: Simple, Rapid, Effective, and Scalable: Okken, Brian: 9781680502404: Amazon.com: Books — Do less work when testing your Python code, but be just as expressive, just as elegant, and just as readable. The pytest testing framework helps you write tests quickly and keep them readable and maintainable - with no boilerplate code. Using a robust yet simple fixture model, it's just as easy to write small tests with pytest as it is to scale up to complex functional testing for applications, packages, and libraries. This book shows you how.
• PyBites Platform | Hone Your Python Skills — Whether you aspire to become a web developer, data scientist, DevOps or cybersecurity engineer, good chance you will greatly benefit from being well versed in Python!
• Edpuzzle — Make any video your lesson Choose a video, give it your magic touch and track your students' comprehension.
• Pythex: a Python regular expression editor — Python Regular Expression tester
• Loom: Video Messaging for Work — The expressiveness of video with the convenience of messaging. Communicate more effectively wherever you work with Loom.
• Amazon.com : Meeting Owl Pro - 360 Degree, 1080p Smart Video Conference Camera, Microphone, and Speaker (Automatic Speaker Focus & Smart Meeting Room Enabled) : Electronics — BEST TEAM MEETING EXPERIENCE Meeting Owl Pro is the top 1080p resolution 360° smart video conferencing camera It automatically highlights and shifts focus to different people in the room when they speak so you know what's happening as if you're there
• Device Simulator Express - Visual Studio Marketplace — Make without limit! Device Simulator Express, a Microsoft Garage project, allows you to code microcontrollers without the hardware on hand! You can program your Adafruit Circuit Playground Express (CPX), your BBC micro:bit or the Adafruit CLUE! Test and debug your code on the device simulator and see the same result when you plug in your actual microcontroller. Curious about the output of the device, the serial monitor allows you to observe the device output.