Week 04 – How are You?

Student Centered is about You

As is the case in any course, the students (and teacher) will adjust to each other as the semester moves on. How are you doing? Are you progressing in your growth in programming and in particular in Python3?

Have you visited Ken in (or out of) his office yet? That one-on-one communication is essential to a true student centered experience. You should aim to meet Ken at least three times this semester (so about once per partial). You can arrange to meet with Ken via this link: kenbauer.youcanbook.me

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Week 03 – Wake Up

Yes, Wake Up

The natural flow of a semester is week one is settling in, week two is getting comfortable and week three is #OhMyExamsInTwoWeeks.  So this will be short (at late, my apologies).

Key Points

  • Be on time for class. Respect the others that do arrive on time please. There is no required attendance for this class but there is an expectation of contribution to the community learning. Attendance is important to create that community as well. Note that attendance plays a small part in your self grading rubric.
  • The Mastery topics are ALL the topics for the course, some were thinking I only released the work for a few weeks or the partial. Nope, that is everything (minimal, you should push to do more).
  • You should be blogging and getting comfortable doing it. Don’t just do the minimum (again, that point). Dig deep, find the details in multiple locations, look at other posts by your classmates (I admit that you will NOT have time to read them all).
  • Read OTHER students’ posts. Tell them thank you, comment on their blog and share a good post you find via Twitter using hashtag #TC1019 or any other social media you choose to show others examples of good work.
  • Visit Ken in his office or somewhere not in class. This is part of your self-grading rubric. You should aim for at least once each partial and three or more visits in the semester. Can be about the course and often students talk to me about non-course material which is actually more important. Make an appointment via this link.
  • Be a student #AllTheTime but remember #LifeBalance. You should be constantly thinking about your studies, not just when “studying”. Your education is your life, your life is learning. Remember of course to have fun, get involved in other activities on campus and most importantly: help other people.

Video

tldr: plus more video brings more emotion to the discussion. Also, live from Starbucks on campus.

flickr photo by Hugo Bernard https://flickr.com/photos/hugobernard/8329945906 shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license
flickr photo by Hugo Bernard https://flickr.com/photos/hugobernard/8329945906 shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license

Comments? Questions?

Ask me in class, ask me out of class, ask others as well and come visit, I am here to help you learn and grow.

Twitter Bots

Are Twitter Bots really Robots

Now that I’ve asked you to create (or use) your Twitter account for this course, I will ask you to create another one in order to create a Twitter Bot. Each Twitter account needs a unique email address, so keep that in mind.

Social Media Power

I know that Audrey Watters has done work with Twitter Bots and I caught a post on her Facebook wall yesterday about one of her new bots Red Tutor so I asked in the comments if someone could share resources to get my students started.  David Kernohan responded with a link to help out.  The message here is curate and maintain your social network, contribute to that network and it will contribute back to your work.

The Tool

Obviously there are many tools to do this, Twitter has API documentation you can work with and should investigate deeper if this interests you. The link shared by David is to “Cheap Bots, Done Quick”.

flickr photo by quisnovus https://flickr.com/photos/quisnovus/6407362873 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license
flickr photo by quisnovus https://flickr.com/photos/quisnovus/6407362873 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license

Digging Deeper

I would recommend you check out the work of Kin Lane (the API Evangelist) and in particular his API 101 resource.

Comments or Suggestions

If you have more resources or want to link to your Twitter Bot, include that in the comments as well as contributing to our conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #TC1019

 

 

Week 02 – Discussions

Time to Move

Okay, you’ve stretched out and are ready for the semester. Remember this is a learning processed driven by each student individually but within a group context including myself the instructor. This is what you should be thinking about:

  • Do you have your Blog setup with an initial post? Perhaps you want to create a category for this course like tc1019.
  • Do you have Twitter setup? Do you know how to search for and follow our course tag of #TC1019
  • Not as crucial yet, but you should also have GitHub setup to use during this course and the rest of your career.
  • Now that you have those three setup, please go register those locations at this link.
  • You should be looking up resources for the topics that you are writing about this partial, did you make a plan of your topics and order to blog? How many posts per week, how many per partial?
  • Remember to blog about each mastery topic as well as any other blogging idea that comes to you. Feel free to use your blog for non-course activities but if you do choose that, please let Ken know and dedicate a category (like #tc1019) to your course posts.
  • You are responsible for your learning here but should be receiving meaningful feedback on progress and direction from myself as your instructor. Your goal should be (at least) three visits with Ken (inside office or outside, but outside class time). You can reserve time with Ken at this link.
  • Oh, have fun too.

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Welcome

Choose your own Adventure

Welcome to this semester and your class. This course may be different than others that you have taken before. Let me lay out a few key points for you.

Please Ask

This course is about you, it may be confusing but we are not trying to confuse you on purpose, explore the content and always feel free to ask questions to your classmates, the instructor (Ken) or past students.

Starting Points

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