2016 - Meenal Pant - One Pykid at a time

Description
If you are a Pythonista, an educator, STEM supporter, love free software and a parent then you should attend this talk. This talk brings home the importance of brining STEM and computing education to the K-12 school children early and in a timely manner.
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Abstract
Python is a language that makes learning programming easy and can set the foundation for our children to go on and take STEM coursework or use their knowledge of computing in other subject areas when its time for graduate school. Our school system currently has a gap in their curriculum when it comes to computing and learning how to code. pykids is a voluntary organization that is aiming to fill that gap by providing easy to use learning resources. pykids is also encouraging classroom learning by creating a space for local meetups and volunteer classes that run through the curriculum.

The pykids set up today includes the following:
- A blog/website where students/instructors register and share ideas
- A jupyter server that allows running notebooks on the fly
- Downloadable Notebooks created for K3-High School students (WIP)
- Teaching material for K-3 students
- Volunteers

All a student needs is a laptop and an internet connection to start learning Python!
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https://youtu.be/-i0jrVGur10

Transcript

1. One Pykid at a time By Meenal Pant http://pykids.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ meenalpant@gmail.com @mpant
2. Background I teach computing with Python to elementary school kids ( grade 3 - grade 6) Courses in Scratch, Turtle, Basic Python IDLE usage ( lately with IPy Notebook) & Minecraft! My experiments in teaching started with my two boys now 7 and 10 ... STEM advocate through my work
3. Why?
4. •  Computer Science curriculum available at school (elementary) •  Jessica McKellar 2014 keynote about “teaching school students programming” •  Taking a well built curriculum and resources to non profit organizations
5. •  Over the last year I have participated in STEM panels •  The 6C’s - Collaboration, Communication, Content, Critical Thinking , Creative Innovation, Confidence •  Encourage hands on learning to instill a love for science
6. How?
7. Started 2 years ago in Mission Fremont with a group of 6 children (4- 6th grade) in a class room setting
8. Beginners Curriculum •  Kept it simple and grade level ( 8 sessions , 1 hour a week) •  Math concepts - shapes , addition, subtraction, word problems •  Language - strings & string operations •  Drawing - Turtle •  Data Types - List , Dictionary •  Write a script that prints your name
9. Beginners Curriculum •  Kept it simple and grade level ( 8 sessions , 1 hour a week) •  Math concepts - shapes , addition, subtraction, word problems •  Language - strings & string operations •  Drawing - Turtle •  Data Types - List , Dictionary •  Write a script that prints your name
10. Tools Used •  Computers running Ubuntu - 2 child per computer •  Turtle / TurtleArt •  IDLE •  Scratch (MIT, 2.0) •  Ipython notebook
11. Challenges •  Shared resources for kids •  Finding a space to teach! •  Instructor overhead to set up all systems with coursework and software •  “Out of class” Availability •  Volunteers
12. Minecraft
13. CoderDojoTC & Canary IPy Notebook Server Minecraft server Student •  Web browser client •  Minecraft account From their website
14. Minecraft Set up python-minecraft on a Fedora 23 VM https://192.168.117.132:10443/tree Server - 192.168.117.132:10565 Account on Mojang Chose multiplayer mode and connect to my server
15. Enter Pykid!
16. Pykid http://pykids.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ Not doing away with classroom learning – just making it easier ! Harnessing the power of jupyter and easily available resources Out of class availability and a blog to communicate facilitates curious minds
17. Behind the scenes https://github.com/jupyter/tmpnb
18. Next Steps Over summer – pilot Student signups with beginning of school year More notebooks for kids Implement Canary Server on EC2 Use JupyterHub - https:// jupyterhub.readthedocs.io/en/ latest/
19. The most important takeaway is to teach while having fun! Looking for volunteers – please contact me @mpant