Episode 23: Being Reflective: A Year of Learning, Teaching, and Python

Episode 23: Being Reflective Sean Tibor: [00:00:00] Hello and Welcome to Teaching Python. This is Episode 23: Being Reflective, A Year of Learning, Teaching and Python. My name is Sean Tibor. I'm a coder who recently began teaching. Kelly Paredes: [00:00:29] My name is Kelly Schuster-Paredes, and I'm a teacher who recently began to code. Sean Tibor: [00:00:34] I think we should probably think about changing our introduction because it's been a full year now for both of us have learning how to teach and learning how to python. Kelly Paredes: [00:00:41] I don't know as a marketer isn't that called like rebranding? How do we do that? Sean Tibor: [00:00:45] Maybe a pivot? Maybe it's like a gentle shift in Direction. But you know, I have to say at least watching you code now. You're no longer a beginner. You're really moving more into that intermediate territory where you're starting to know things and recognize patterns and everything. So, I don't know if you're you'll always be learning how to code but I don't know that it's so recent anymore. Kelly Paredes: [00:01:06] I know it seems like such a long time ago that I started coding and going through a couple of courses right now, and I'm starting to feel confident as I go along and I yeah, it's quite fun. But and you look at you your last official day of your first year of teaching Sean Tibor: [00:01:25] I made it you made it didn't get fired. They say they want me back next year. Kelly Paredes: [00:01:32] It's always a great thing and then you can think about what you did and what you want to do better and I think that's the whole point of our our session today our episode. Sean Tibor: [00:01:41] Yeah. I think it works really well in both disciplines whether it's teaching or coding. Being reflective is important reflecting on your progress reflecting on your learning. Obviously, it goes beyond that as well right reflecting on your life from time to time and and your development taking stock of where you are as important. And I think that this is a natural point to do it at the end of our first year teaching and coding so I'm excited about this episode because it is a good thing to be reflective upon. Wins of the Week [00:02:10] But I also wanted to talk about the Wins of the Week, you know, make sure that we always get those in because we've had many people tell us as one of their favorite parts of our episode and to be honest. It's one of my favorite things about teaching is celebrating the victories with our students and for our students that really helped with their feeling of accomplishment and success and really sets them up for further learning and growth. Kelly Paredes: [00:02:32] Absolutely. Well, I'm going to start and I'm going to be a little bit selfish this week. And since we are talking about learning and the fact that I have been a student learning python for a year now, I am going to say my big one of the week is that I am a quarter way through my udemy course with Colt Steele the modern Python 3 bootcamp and I'm flying through it to be honest. I just started a couple days ago. And the first part first quarter of the course is all a refresher course just a few little things that I'm picking up that I was like, oh that makes sense now and that was golden Sean Tibor: [00:03:07] feels good to know things, right? That's really great. You know for me, it was a lot of fun in the end of this year was all projects in the projects part of my course is my favorite thing is the favorite time because I get to ride that balance of helping them and helping them by not helping them right time to go figure it out or that sounds great. Why don't you go give it a try without giving them the answer and it's really amazing to go see what they do and I think. There were a couple favorite projects this year. But one of the things I thought was really a sign of true engagement and learning was that I had finished the grading of all the projects everyone had demonstrated what they were working on last Friday. And then we had a few extra days in class. We're wrapping things up and cleaning up and there was less structured time for the students and two of my students kept working on their project because they really wanted to make it work and they really wanted to finish. And they were making some light-up shoes. And so they were gluing strips and doing more coding and programming on it just because they wanted to because they wanted to see it finished and see it through and that to me was a sign that they had chosen a good project and that they were excited about it. And I really saw some deeper learning happening with that project. They were just wouldn't give up on it and it was a really cool thing to see and it was a great way to cap off the Year by seeing students that were deeply engaged in. Buy something that they themselves had Chosen and really engaged into. Kelly Paredes: [00:04:37] Yeah. It's a great to see that I'm excited to see what happens next year with all these kids and all their projects and and what they what they accomplished. Sean Tibor: [00:04:45] So let's reflect more right like that. I think that's a good place to dive in. You know, I think you pulled a great quote about learning and reflection. Kelly Paredes: [00:04:56] Yes. Yes. Confucius says learning without reflection is a waste. Reflection without learning is dangerous. Sean Tibor: [00:05:04] So I hope that's actually a Confucius quote not just like a fortune cookie. Kelly Paredes: [00:05:07] I really did said it. I had didn't verify only did one source. So if someone fixed will double check that before The Showdown, Sean Tibor: [00:05:14] You know, the fastest way to get the right answer on the internet. This gives something out that's dubious or the wrong answer you and Kelly Paredes: [00:05:20] I'm checking it right now just to verify and and I think what Sean Tibor: [00:05:25] no matter the source whether it's apocryphal or whether it's actually a Confucian quote. It's true that if we don't reflect on our learning as wasteful and if we learn, you know, if we reflect without actually learning from it, and we don't really grow it's a dangerous place to be so I think it's a perfect lead-in to our reflection here the research really supports this, right? Kelly Paredes: [00:05:48] Yeah, and I think this year we both were big we were Learners and I think we have to be true to ourselves and true to our students when we asked them to be. Reflective and think about their learning or learn from their learning that we also do the same. We both had some huge learning opportunities this year with me learning Python and with you learning the ins and out of teaching and the pedagogy behind making a unit or making an activity and it's really important just to take that time. And and think about our learning process and our current practices and what we are going to do in order to make ourselves be better and to continue to learn next year. Sean Tibor: [00:06:35] I agree and one things that I've tried to preserve over the course of my career or something that's been a difficult lesson at times is the importance of keeping your reflection balanced and fair, so it's easy to be very negative. And critical and say well this didn't work and this didn't work and this didn't work and this didn't work. Sometimes that can be overly detrimental. There's a difference between constructive criticism and just criticism especially of yourself. So I found it's important that whenever I recognize that my reflection is getting to be overly negative to take a step back and look at what did work or bring some balance? Into it with some of the positive aspects of what I learned in sometimes it's I learned 999 ways not to make a lightbulb. It's all about how you view it. So, you know, the opposite is also a problem to if you've ever been in a meeting where everyone says that everything's amazing and that there's no room for improvement and it was just perfect the way it was. It's probably a sign that things aren't as good as they appear or that people are whitewashing or painting over some of the blemishes in what? And so I think it's always important to take that moment to check in on your own reflection to to say am I being honest and fair with my assessment of what happened Kelly Paredes: [00:07:52] and I think that Rings true for both of us. We both received our evaluations that and although we have a good evaluation about pedagogy and teaching is all Sean Tibor: [00:08:02] specifically we're talking about being observed in the classroom in a teaching setting working with students by our administration's we have a third party. Outside Source coming in to observe and reflect on on what we are doing in the classroom in our approach and style. And this was something I was really excited to get actually so that's the evaluation we're talking about just in terms of outside or administrative assessment of how you're performing to be able to improve Kelly Paredes: [00:08:30] thank you. Yes this thank you for clarifying. I sometimes forget as a teacher use this lingo or jargon, but we both. Ra God our evaluations back from our administrator and I think for for teaching the pedagogy the Styles the the way that we move throughout the classroom. That's something that most administrators can give quality feedback. However, when it comes to our content or how we teach a specific skill within computer science or python it's often difficult for people to evaluate that I shouldn't say like strength, but the way that we've accomplished that learning opportunity for the kids. Sean Tibor: [00:09:15] So I just heart you're saying essentially the content is harder to evaluate than the delivery sometimes Kelly Paredes: [00:09:20] exactly exactly when it comes to something new something that's on the cusp. Most people in the computer science realm tend to be alone into a little island of what they're doing. Not many people. Technology and how it improves the learning within the classroom. So I think that's something that we as teachers constantly reflect on and we have our small group of other computer scientists that we talk to to make sure that our skills are being taught logically or in a logical order or that we are getting that Baseline understanding for the kids and just taking a step back and thinking about our curriculum and how we ordered and. Things throughout the years something that is going to be really beneficial for us Sean Tibor: [00:10:07] and the benefit of the internet now in the ability to communicate this easily is that if you don't have someone who's physically able to come into your classroom, you could record it. You can share your curriculum. If you know, it's possible with another person have them look at it over the Internet so finding those colleagues in the your professional Learning Network that can help you construct a we assess your approach is really helpful Kelly Paredes: [00:10:29] and it's such a. For me, it's one of the best times. It's a really nice professional development moment to take a step back and to look at the Powerpoints or look at the lectures that I did over the quarter and how they changed from quarter 1 to quarter 4 and just think about why I move things around and it's just a great professional development to say. Oh, I don't think I really understood that topic in Python. I need to go back and learn that bad. Sean Tibor: [00:10:59] Right and conversely it's important to observe other teachers. That this can help you with your own Reflections to see how other people teach so make sure that you're doing that and that you're engaging a variety of experts to help you with your teaching. It's a great form of professional development and it lets us really analyzed to focus on what's working rather than what's not Top 5 Reflective Learning Questions [00:11:20] Kelly Paredes: [00:11:20] yeah. So we had a lot of fun on that 5 things. We are looking forward to at pycon. So we kind of got the idea that we were going to do a. Five questions to reflect upon and we're going to add a little spin to it because you are your first-year teacher and you are learning how to teach and because I'm a first-year coder and learning about python. We are going to reflect on our own learning versus our teaching practices and we're going to go through our top five learning moments. Question 1: How did it go and how do you know? [00:11:52] Sean Tibor: [00:11:52] It sounds great. All right. So our first question is really the overall question. How did the year ago and how do I know so Kelly you're going to focus on your coding learning experience and I'm going to focus on my teaching learning experience. Kelly Paredes: [00:12:06] So, how did it go? And how do you know I love this question. I'll try not to say that about all of the questions because I really do like reflecting but how did it go? It was a very hilly run for me with python a very slow start when I started. A lot of ups and downs, but in the end the excitement to for being able to solve problems that students would come up and ask me to solve was amazing just to be able to say oh you got you all you forgot to do that and you didn't put a colon on there, you know, you need to call that variable in the beginning. It was just being able to know where the errors were or what they wanted to do. And I think that's how I know that I was finally getting. To understand python. Sean Tibor: [00:12:59] Yeah, I noticed that the questions you would ask me change throughout the year. So the beginning the questions you were asking me to help you answer or resolve or figure out where more aligned with beginner questions the same sorts of things I was getting from my students, but then as the year progressed and as your knowledge progress what I saw was that you are getting fewer questions about Cindy. Or about common errors you were getting into more of the questions about how do I structure this or how do I think through this or what's a better way to write this or even what is this object? How does it work or how do I think about this or how do I teach this to the students that really signaled to me that you were progressing in your own knowledge that the basics were being taken care of in your recognizing those patterns and being able to solve them so that the more advanced topics were coming easily to the Forefront for you in terms of the questions you. Kelly Paredes: [00:13:52] Okay. Yep, and that's a great feeling of just knowing that you're learning. So what about you? Sean Tibor: [00:13:57] I think overall the year went. Well, I felt my confidence grow as a teacher throughout the year the beginning. I always tried to act confident a little bit of the fake it until you make it approach with the students know and really kind of maybe never showing them fear. But being honest with them that I was still learning this and that we would experiment together in terms of the teaching Style and what was working and what did. But I think it went well overall. I had my share of Hills to climb and valleys as well that were things didn't work as well as I would have liked but the how do I know it worked is really the anecdotes. I wouldn't necessarily say have a lot of quantitative data here. But the qualitative was really good. One of the things that to me, I will I treasured from this year that Roy showed that I was doing something right was a letter that I got from one of my students and I think I mentioned her. In the very early part of the Year where she said I'm not a coder and I challenged her on that and said how do you know and I stuck with her and I made sure that she kept trying and I wouldn't give up on her becoming a more proficient computer science person. Right like someone who thinks programmatically through things and I got this letter from her and I think my favorite part said thank you for believing in me and knowing that I'm not stupid when I. That to me was a sign that for one student. I had made a difference for her when she needed it and I spoke to her again after she sent that letter and I told you that I expected her to keep trying and that she's not stupid whether she's trying or not and that I expect great things from her and I'm want her to come back and share them with me. So I'm hoping that you know in the future she'll be able to come back and tell me more about what's working for and how she's growing as a person over the next four or five years. Kelly Paredes: [00:15:45] Yeah, that's great. And I remember in my first years one of the one of my mentors said to me can't save everyone but at least you can save some and I think that goes in line with what you're learning. You can't get everyone to be a code or be a programmer or go into that field, but you can get that one that did not think they were going to love computer science to at least sit there and reflect on that and say yeah. It's not so bad. I think I'm going to do that Sean Tibor: [00:16:14] one things that I realized as a teacher and not just as a computer scientist. It don't care as much about whether they love computer science or not. The more important thing is are they growing as a person are they developing are they finding their own strengths and their own areas where they can Excel and overcoming some of those challenges that we've all faced in our growth and development. So if you have this particular student or any of the other. Even if they don't particularly care about computer science, did they have a sense of accomplishment that they have a sense of feeling successful and competent and capable that they can carry with them to whatever Pursuits our endeavors that they go after. Question 2: What do you feel really worked? [00:16:53] Kelly Paredes: [00:16:53] absolutely so our number two question is what do I feel really worked? I'll let you start with that one. Sean Tibor: [00:17:03] I think the part that really worked was finding ways to connect students with their passions. There was nothing more disheartening than seeing kids who just gave up or didn't care or they would do the bare minimum to have satisfied. Right? But it kind of that that signal that you're not really getting it is when you when the students is how much time is left in the class, right or when does this class end because they've already checked out there already done what really were. It was when we hit that state of flow where kids were diving in and they were excited about what they were doing and they had some sense of choice that led them to deeper learning and more engagement and that really helped me feel like this is working like there's something to this because they are feeling that sense of accomplishment and enablement that this skill that they're learning or these techniques that they're learning are valuable for them and they can apply them to solve real problems. Kelly Paredes: [00:18:02] Yeah. Again from another a conference I went to was called looking for Learning and coming into that classroom and seeing kids engaged. It's not it's not a quiet feeling it could be but there is a buzz. There's a buzz that that exists when those kids get into a float when they're working. They may be laying on the floor. They may be intensely looking at their computer or searching in. But there's this electrical kind of feeling that goes on and you know, you've got this success happening when they hit that state of flow. Sean Tibor: [00:18:35] Yeah, I agree and it for you with the coding side. Did you ever experience one of those moments where it really clicked and you were like just firing on all cylinders with your python. Kelly Paredes: [00:18:45] So it's really funny. I've tried a lot of different learning methods throughout the year. And the thing that I feel really worked for me is when you introduced me to the collaboratory notebooks from jupyter notebook and for me when I write code there and I can write notes in my own words and the text editor that has really helped me to solidify my knowledge of coding. It's not that I go back and look at these notebooks all the time. But the point of having to write it out and write the code while I'm either doing a course or working through a book. It has really helped me. I did that for the automate the boring stuff and just to be able to go back and click on some of those exercises. It's just it's a great feeling. I know it worked. I know it's stuck in my head and it worked a lot better than the the handwritten Note book which I was surprised about because I tried that in the beginning. Sean Tibor: [00:19:40] Yeah, I saw you really get into that and one of things I like about that as a teaching method is the ability to to add notes or provide richer content than just a comment in code. But as a learning tool I saw that you really use that to try a piece of code. So as you're going through and building this cumulative set of knowledge of your Python and you're working through a problem or when you're working through a program and building it out. The nice thing about the jupyter notebook is you can run one block of code over and over and over again. And as long as you don't destroy the data state that you already have in the computer, you can run that piece over and over again until you get it right without having to go back and run the whole thing. And so it really helps you chunk your learning into smaller pieces and focus on that and I saw you really kind of grab onto that and use it as a principal learning tool. Kelly Paredes: [00:20:33] Yes, and I also did jupyter notebook and pycon with folium and I started working through that that's a project that I want to finish I started and I think I posted it in my first was it repository? What is it? Sean Tibor: [00:20:46] Pull request? Kelly Paredes: [00:20:47] No, it wasn't a pull request. It was like a note other side what you'll have Sean Tibor: [00:20:51] an issue? Kelly Paredes: [00:20:51] An issue. Yes. I did write my first issue at pycon. So that was very exciting and it was a jupyter notebook or collab know. Question 3: What's one thing you weren't able to do but weren't able to? [00:20:58] Sean Tibor: [00:20:58] Nice. Well, what's one thing you wanted to do, but you weren't able to do it for whatever reason. Kelly Paredes: [00:21:04] Well, the one thing that I wanted to do, I got a little bit excited at the very beginning of my year and I enrolled in a data science udemy course, but about three sections into the course. I realized it was way over my head. And as much as it was very I love data. I love graphs. I love everything that happens with data science, but the python was a little bit out of my reach. So that's one thing that I want to do. Next year is go back and take that course that they keep reminding me that I didn't finish Sean Tibor: [00:21:43] well for me one thing that I wanted to do in the classroom that I never really got to was to include more data literacy. And show students how to bring data in from other sources and do some analysis on it. We just got to the point with a few students by the end of the quarter where they could load a CSV file and start to process it to do things. So I'm looking forward to that next year as we build on our first year of teaching python in our middle school and as I'm teaching students that have some background and experience. I'm looking to be able to specialize. We're focused on a few topic areas throughout the wheel including data science and Robotics and artificial intelligence and some of these areas that with the right approach and the right leveling of the content that they'll be able to do some pretty amazing things with the basic python skills that they've acquired this year. So that's something that is I've pushed to next year when they're more ready and when I'm more. Kelly Paredes: [00:22:44] And I think that's one of these things that's going to we're probably going to see in our field of edgy and education this idea of digital literacy this understanding about being a cyber citizen the the data that's coming in and how that plays as a programmer as a coder or just behind the scenes and I think that's going to be a very big turn of events for educators around the world about that digital literacy and the data, so whatever we can do to help teach the kids that I think it's going to be beneficial. Sean Tibor: [00:23:15] I agree and there's certainly going to be some teachers teaching teachers without one where we're going to work with our colleagues to help them Infuse more of that into their classrooms and for their own knowledge as well. Question 4: What's one thing I should not have done? [00:23:26] Kelly Paredes: [00:23:26] So one thing that I should not have done in a lesson. Sean Tibor: [00:23:30] Oh, I this one's easy for me because this is when I should have known better about and you know after the fact I recognized that we were talking about Robotics and we were talking about. Solving problems and Simone Gertz who is the self-proclaimed queen of shitty robots has a YouTube channel with all of these robots that she's created and submissions from other people where they're robots that do things poorly. And so one example is it's a robot that feeds you cereal but it ends up getting like milk and cereal everywhere. It's like tries to pour the milk, but it just misses everything and milk splashes everywhere and other than the name, which should have been my first indicator that it was not the right channel to use as soon as I turned on her first video. She has her theme music and it's wildly inappropriate for a school setting and then to shut it off immediately and everybody in the class kind of went. Whoa, and I said, yeah. Well, oh for sure that was not okay, and I apologize. I should have screen that beforehand. That was my mistake. And so it was something that seems very obvious in retrospect. But it was a great reminder to always pre-screen your YouTube videos before you show them in class. Kelly Paredes: [00:24:39] There's a great lesson for a teacher for any teacher and I think we've all been there when that either add or something has shown up on YouTube. So that's a great lesson for all new teachers. So one thing that I should not have done and I'm kind of slipping into this teaching phase but it's because I was learning and teaching python at the same time, but it was the sensor. For me I try to introduce sensors thinking my knowledge of sensors with EV3 was going to help me understand sensors working on a micro bit and working on a circuit playground and I think I was very naive and yes, everything has inputs everything has outputs, but being able to connect sensors use them with without I was trying to do it without a breadboard. I don't even know what I was thinking. So I think whenever you are whenever you are learning the language, you need to try to focus in on a certain aspect and not try to pull in from all the great libraries that that python has because as much as you think you might know something yeah it work for me. Sean Tibor: [00:25:55] Yeah, I think but I think that that's something that will grow over time sensors are something that can be tricky but thanks to the hard work of a lot of people that are bringing more sensors to beginners. There's a lot of things that we can do with sensors out that just weren't possible years and years ago and even a lot of the digital standards for reading sensor values in the libraries have been created it made it easier. So I'm hopeful as well that as we go forward you and your knowledge will grow and you'll be able to use these more adeptly in a lesson. And the students really get a lot out of that because it really does connect it to the physical world that they're a part of. Kelly Paredes: [00:26:33] Yeah, and I think just the whole electrical component was something new to me too. So that was overlooked as a biologist. I only know the body's systems. Sean Tibor: [00:26:45] Oh sure. Electric Eels Like this? Think of electric eels. You'll be fine. Kelly Paredes: [00:26:49] Don't put your hand in the socket. All right, so last question. Question 5: What are 3 things you will do differently next year? [00:26:54] Sean Tibor: [00:26:54] So three things based on these Reflections that I will do differently next year. You want to go sure. Okay. So three things I will do differently one. I will always pre-screen my YouTube videos to I'm working on more of the fundamentals and just the logistics of teaching. It's the basics that need to happen. It's all the boring stuff that needs to be automated but it needs to happen. So one of the things that I think will help me overtime is just focusing on getting a lot of the fundamentals of grading in place attendance clear communicating clear expectations finding ways to make students more aware of how they're performing and how they're progressing in class. And I think that that will help me overall manage the workload better because one of my goals next year is to get more sleep along the way. And then and then the third thing that I will do differently is I'm going to add more Focus areas of content. Now that we have established the basics with our students. There's still going to be some review and some building on python Basics. Like we still have some data structures that we haven't really talked about yet. We do a little bit with lists and tuples and everything, but it's been a little bit more time with that and do it in the context of data analysis or graphing or something. Give them some skills that they can use especially as my eighth graders are preparing for upper school. And then College where they have these fundamental analysis and data processing skills that they can use. Kelly Paredes: [00:28:28] I think those are big things for you to look forward to but I know you'll be successful in those and I think that will really benefit the learning for the students. It will be interesting as we shift in our our curriculum next year and I moved to sixth grade. And we work together and plan seventh grade. I think we'll have some some opportunities to really push some of those goals. Yep. Great. So the three things that I will do differently next year as I continue to Learn Python. Well number one definitely is complete any course that I start because currently I have two courses that I am taking simultaneously for some reason and I want to make sure that I finished those fully and get my certificate and close that chapter. The other thing that I want to work on is web scraping. It's something that I really think will be interesting and I want to you know check and I've learned that. And then lastly and hesitantly, I want to do more with electrical circuits and kind of sensors bread boarding. It's not one of the things I really like to do, but we know and seeing that the kids really like that aspect. They love soldering they love bread boarding. They love prototyping and as much as I like looking at my screen, they like shaking a you know on a circuit playground and watching it change. So those are the three things that I am going to do differently. I'm going to focus on on learning different things that I don't really like to do and not just focus on the stuff. Wish List [00:30:11] Sean Tibor: [00:30:11] Well one thing that I have on my wish list for next year that ties into that last Point around physical Computing and circuits and electronics like one of my things I would love to do next year or the year after whenever it's an opportunity is I would love to take a field trip to go visit Adafruit or SparkFun and just see all the different things that they're doing and how they work on projects and the the new and exciting things that they're bringing our way when it comes to things like CircuitPython and all the boards and sensors and everything that are out there. It was such a great pleasure to meet all of the Adafruit team at PyCon this past year and I would love to go see where they get to work and play on a regular basis. I think that would be so much fun, and I would love to do that. So I'm looking forward to making more connections like we did at pycon and finding more opportunities to grow and I think that that will help bring some of the excitement and enthusiasm for what you're trying to do with the students, especially around physical computing and electronics and circuits because it's it is contagious and it's fun and exciting when you can make things light up and move and sense the world around you and things like that. Kelly Paredes: [00:31:18] So yeah, I'm slowly getting a passion we have ever I have a Trinket in my backpack a gemma. Mo in my backpack we have this what else do I have? Oh I of course have a circuit playground and a cricket that we're going to be exploring a little bit like Sean Tibor: [00:31:36] we've at this point have nearly every eighth circuit python board that Adafruit offers, although I'm trying to get all the rest like round out the collection but the cool and exciting thing coming out of pycon in this seemingly renewed focus on python hardware. Is that it's not just Adafruit making the boards now, there's lots of other really cool Boards out there that are coming out for microPython and CircuitPython that are unique and different and really give students and teachers a lot of things to play with. So we're going to keep our eyes out for what's next. And what's coming. Kelly Paredes: [00:32:10] Do you want to hear my wish? Sean Tibor: [00:32:11] What's your wish for next year? Kelly Paredes: [00:32:13] My wish is that they have a tiny micro processing board that's relatively cheap under five dollars with. You know battery pack included where we can just give to the kids and say okay here. This will light up a one LED or two LEDs and you can take this home. And so it's just like a tiny tiny package of you know, cost-efficient little micro controller. Sean Tibor: [00:32:38] Yeah. I think we're close with things like the drink it the trinket looks like it could be really good. I think it retails for 8.95 very dollars or less $15 right? We're close were close. Yeah, so I think we're I think we're getting close and there's a lot of things that are possible especially as we start to simplify. But the goal would be for next year to have some really great new opportunities for our students when it comes to making their projects and bring their ideas to life. Kelly Paredes: [00:33:04] Absolutely. Well, we wanted to keep this short. This is the last day of the year and we will be continuing to to record during the summer because we do have summer. Preview of Teaching Python for the Summer [00:33:15] Sean Tibor: [00:33:15] Yeah, so what's just take one minute to preview what's coming over the summer and what we have in mind for teaching python over the summer. So we all are both teaching summer stem camp and the nice thing about this for Kelly and I is that we teach much younger students. So it's a good chance for us to work on unplugged activities and work on algorithmic thinking and computational design with younger students as they're in their more formative years for Thought processes and. So we're going to be doing a little bit more scratch and some things with basic circuits and robot navigation and everything. So we'll be doing that this summer. We're also getting some time off and I know that I have a stack of projects in books that I want to go through over the summer, but we're going to keep recording teaching python episodes. We're going to keep will probably shift to more of a conference call format. We've got some guests that were working on to bring in over the summer so in Kelly Paredes: [00:34:10] we're also on brown bag. Sean Tibor: [00:34:13] Yes a lot in July. We are going to be guests on the V Brown Bag podcast, which is actually it's a webinar. So we're going to be on screen with something as well. We have to put together slides. We're going to be talking about effective methods for teaching and learning Python. And our goal is is really to help those people that are at companies or corporations or maybe working in a data center or in developer operations or something like that where they are. Maybe learning Python and finding it really valuable to their job and want to teach it to others. So, how can we help equip them with some basic tools that they can use to grow adoption of python within their companies or within their organizations. Kelly Paredes: [00:34:50] Yes, and on top of summer summer camp. I'm actually going to be BIE Institute in California Buck Institute and doing a district level course on Project based learning and I'm hoping to bring that back in of how can we have a authentic audiences with computer science and and really just to develop better products with maybe our 20% time and look at that. So that's going to be fun. We also have our signature camp where we'll be doing wearable technology. Sean Tibor: [00:35:22] So we were selling entrepreneurial entrepreneurships, right? So make it and sell it. Kelly Paredes: [00:35:26] It's going to be a great busy here next thing, you know, we'll be back at it. Sean Tibor: [00:35:31] Well, and I have for my conference schedule. If anybody out there is going to use the side Pi conference in Austin Texas the week after the Fourth of July. I think it's like July 7th or 8th through the 12th. I'll be at that trying to keep up with all the scientists out there and learn about how we can bring some of that back to the classroom. For both our middle school and our upper school. I think there's a lot of great interactions and connections between the hard science or traditional science area and computer science. So I'm looking to bring some of that back if you're planning to attend that conference reach out to me on Twitter. We're looking forward to the different conferences. We're going to this year, but we really look forward to meeting new people and making connections that can grow everyone Contact Us [00:36:14] Kelly Paredes: [00:36:14] and if you have any suggestions on how we should introduce ourselves, Next year since we won't be new teachers and new coders relatively new teachers and relatively new coders. Go ahead and send us a message or tweet to us at teaching python. Sean Tibor: [00:36:31] That's right. And if you want to support us, we have a patreon now so you can support us with a few bucks here there. It really helps us out with defraying hosting costs and transcription and things like that. So the efforts that we invest into making it easy for you to get our. If you can help us out on patreon, it really goes a long way our website for that as patreon.com teaching python, which surprisingly enough that web address was available when I looked for it. Kelly Paredes: [00:36:57] It's so lucky. Sean Tibor: [00:36:59] Alright, well, we'll sign off and get on with our summer for teaching python. This is Sean and this is Kelly signing off.