Direct your students to this page for a simple set of instructions to follow to get started: https://www.discovercoding.ca/dpwcb
This proposed program is inspired from our “Python Discoverers” program, combined with our volunteer work for the “Hour of Code” movement. Through a series of hour-long, guided, introductory lessons, we will use Callysto and Jupyter Notebooks to teach computational thinking through the focused and isolated introduction of Python. Kids will have an enhanced learning experience that is focused on the code and projects provided, without the overhead and distraction of “traditional” programming environments.
These notebooks expand on the original "Discover Python with Callysto" notebooks by incorporating Blockly into the lessons to give students an alternative method to get familiar with Python syntax.
A critical success factor to this initiative is the development of a series of Jupyter templates on the Callysto platform to deliver 8 notebooks designed to support the following hour-long lessons:
- Lessons 1-2: Introduction to Callysto, Python, basic operations and control flows.
- Lessons 3-4: Introduction to variables, loops, debugging, and a Caesar cypher project.
- Lessons 5-7: Introduction to graphics with the Turtle module to create graphical projects such mandala drawings.
- Lesson 8: Putting it all together and using Python to program a micro controller (micro:bit) and create an interactive name tag, emoticons, or a reaction game.