[Edu-sig] Sample letter from summer camp instructor parents / guardians

[kirby urner]

Here's the follow-up I sent out, giving more of a snapshot of the state of
the art at least in our region.

Codesters is modeled after Scratch and as such feels less "grownup".

Some teenagers are chomping at the bit for a more "adult" experience.

At Coding with Kids, we've gotten as far as offering Cloud9 (c9.io) for
Python trainees.

In actual fact, there's more to know than Python in using such a cloud
service.

Many have no prior experience with bash, for example.

If we dive into the Cloud9 provided example web app, then we're right away
into HTML and the template stuff too.

Python does not live in a vacuum.  "Playing well with others" is a critical
to survival, not just a "nice feature".

Kirby


--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Coding with Kids <info-portland at codingwithkids.com>
Date: Thu, Aug 24, 2017 at 2:48 PM
Subject: Greetings again, from Python summer camp....
To: kirby.urner at gmail.com


Greetings again...

Today we shifted gears and for those interested, a steeper learning path
through Cloud9 (c9.io) was explored.  Every student has lasting login
credentials to this cloud service, which lets you set up Python as a web
serving application, plus provides an environment for running Python code
off the web, in either Python 2 or Python 3.

Cloud9's example web application (what we started with) is geared to a
book:  Learn Python the Hard Way.

I gave students a way to explore / access this book they might not find
using Google.  Go to my website:  thekirbster.pythonanywhere.com and
choose More
Links to Fun Places <http://thekirbster.pythonanywhere.com/links>.  It's
the 2nd to last link.

Developing websites requires several skills sets. *Coding with Kids* has a
web development class with a focus on the "front end" i.e. HTML + CSS.  We
use codepen.io as our cloud-based sandbox.

In the meantime, I was pleased to be able to assist those choosing to
explore this steeper path.

There's still lots to be learned from Codesters though, so I was not
insistent that everyone switch to Cloud9.

Remember, those login credentials will continue to work.

Feel free to show up a little early tomorrow, to find out more about what
your camper has been up to.
Kirby Urner
Lake Oswego - Best in Class
2017 Summer
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