Finding your "Teaching Stack": tools for teaching Python from beginners to experts

10:45 AM - 11:15 AM on August 16, 2014, Room 705

Elliott Hauser

Audience level:

novice

Watch:

http://youtu.be/SMWx294hT2s

Description

Tools are often a big influence on success or failure teaching Python in person. The dreaded install and compatibility problems can leave many students convinced that Python isn't for them. I’ll describe my zero-install teaching stack: Python's turtle module for beginners, IPython notebooks for academics, and cloud-based IDE Nitrous for intermediate and advanced Web development.

Abstract

For those of us who teach Python, tools are often a big influence on success or failure in the classroom. The dreaded installation and compatibility problems that students experience in the first hour of setup can leave many bewildered and convinced that Python - or, worse, Programming - isn't for them. In this talk I'll discuss tools appropriate for various levels of Python instruction: Python's built-in turtle module for beginners, IPython notebooks for intermediate and academic computing, and cloud-based development environment Nitrous.io for intermediate and advanced Web development.