 So thank you so much for coming. We have a very exciting education panel here. So first of all I would like to introduce our chair of today is Amy from Michael Bitts and she would basically you know ask the panelists questions and at the end we'll have a session for Q&A hopefully if we have time. So yeah without further ado I would let Amy take us away. Thank you. Hi everybody. I am Amy Fagan from the Michael Bitt educational foundation. So for those of you not familiar with the Michael Bitt it's a tiny programmable computer designed for education. We've got a fantastic brand new Python editor that's going to be launched in about two months time and you can get a preview of that downstairs in the main forum room. So that's my little plug over with. I'm going to hand pass along the panel now to introduce our speakers so I'll go to you first. Hi everyone my name is Roshin Faharty. I'm a lecturer in computer science in T.U. Dublin on the telecampus and I'm also part of a research group called CS Inc which stands for computer science inclusive and as part of that group I go out to both primary and secondary schools but more lately more secondary schools doing outreach in computer science. I'm Sarah Jane Cary. I'm a computer science teacher in Closh to Breed which is a large girl school in Clandocken and computer science is a new subject for the leaving search was introduced four years ago. So this will be the first year that we'll have non-COVID proper run at the course and I also work with other pre-service teachers to help them to teach computer science and in terms of Python I actually did a Python course with Vicki about 12 years ago to try and teach myself over a weekend before computer science was there I used to do a make you up a project based type thing with my students once a week and I went in to try and you know improve my learning and so I literally started learning Python to teach my students so I'm coming at it like I'm enthusiastic now but I'm still just a beginner really just a learner and user to teach the course so I'm delighted to be here. Hello everybody my name is Chris Reina so I have a company called Maker Meet we are makers you probably might see us downstairs we have all of the flammable cardboard which is running a Python game and we do maker-based education so we do steam workshops and things in both primary secondary third level and beyond sometimes even preschool things like that so a lot of what we do is trying to incorporate many different things of steam into one project and no more than our project downstairs which is all cardboard with a bit of paper as a screen but it is running a Raspberry Pi with Python on it so we try to mix stuff up as much as possible in doing project-based learning. We've also got Kelly, hi Kelly, joining us remotely. Oh we don't have time for Kelly I don't think. My fad, habit of keeping on my mute. Hi everyone I am Kelly Schuster-Paredes and I'm a teacher at Codes. I am coming from sunny south Florida where I'm a middle school teacher and we teach Python to sixth, seventh and eighth grade students and some of you may know me as the co-host of the Teaching Python podcast with Sean Tyver and I started coding about four years ago and I like to tell everybody I'm really good at teaching kids basic Python so that's my story. Amazing. Well thank you all for being here and thank you all for being here both in-person and remote it's great to be here in Dublin at the beautiful convention center so to kick us off I'm going to ask a question to the group I'm going to pass you Roshin and go to you first but one of the original goals of the Python language was to be easy to learn and intuitive and these qualities as I'm sure many of us understand it and makes it a very effective programming language for education but I'd love to hear from each of you about your perspective on what other features you find work well in education. Well I'll start if that's okay and I suppose I might take a slightly different slant on that question if that's okay so we use Python to teach CS1 in first year in T Dublin and we've had many debates in the department about which language to teach first C, C++, Java, Python at the moment it is Python and it does work well as an introductory programming language but earlier this week I was at a different conference and it was very very interesting to hear a comment from Titus Winters from Google and he was talking about the gap between education and industry and it made me think a little bit about the Python language and what it is really simple for first year coding or CS1 and a lot of the detail behind the code is hidden from the students just to give one example you can define a variable and you don't have to know what data type that variable is which is brilliant because there's no confusion for the students but Titus's point was that when they get to industry how fluent are they in the language yes they can solve a problem but are they solving it in the best way so I suppose it throws up that question again and I'm sorry Amy is that really an answer but it throws up that question again you know Python is easy to learn and it's very intuitive and it works well for first year programming at third level and but do we need to look at the bigger picture and where that fits in and say a four-year degree program and how to ensure that by using Python in the early years we also turn out graduates that are fluent in programming so that when they come into industry and they're able to do the jobs that are acquired of them yeah and in secondary school we would have students coming in to do computer science in fifth year and coding is available as a junior cycle subject so some students and that's in our school it's not in every school so some students might have been exposed to Python if they've done coding they'll all have been exposed to scratch most schools try to do a bit of scratch and I know and that there is scratch in primary school and they're doing great work in primary schools and what I find is when they come into fifth year I'll have a mixed bag of students some of them have never done coding before and some of them maybe have done junior cycle coding and then some of them might be real enthusiasts and are really big into coding themselves outside schools you're trying to teach 25 students in a room like that and I kind of like Python because it's natural it's English based it's readable for them particularly for the students who've never seen it before so and they can get quite advanced and again there's always that argument of should we be educating students to prepare them for my industry or for education sake you know so from my perspective Python is a good language to start with because they can get quite far with it and then we can integrate it into other aspects of the course like there's an embedded systems course part of the course and they would use micro bit or Raspberry Pi and we use micro in our school but and now that there is Python in the platform we can use the block base coding to kind of hammer home the concepts they can see something happening on the micro bit the hands-on that physical thing where you know you get the question why are we doing this and then I can say well you're doing that so when you walk by this little bit of kit and alarm will go off just very simple example but now that we can switch very easily in the platform from white from block code to Python I can say to them now look this is what it looks like in Python and it's not such a big gap when we get to actually do the Python section of the course if that makes sense yeah absolutely yeah yeah so I would I suppose my love of Python comes from again as as everybody said in terms of the simplicity of using it and the ease of use to get into so I suppose I deal with all levels so primary secondary and even third level in Ireland anyway certainly unfortunately really Python is or any text-based language is rarely seen until the second level my fervent hope is that because of Python's ease of use in education as you were saying it would be amazing to be able to pull that back to primary so that they can start very young students can start very young doing block based whether it's blockly whether it's scratch doesn't matter and then move to a text-based language like Python yeah the arguments that Roshin said are absolutely true you know is it you know is it appropriate for industry well yes it is but it's also a tool like any other Python is absolutely appropriate for certain tasks Java is appropriate for others CSS HTML whatever language you want to choose is appropriate you know does it tie into databases very well you could argue that okay but in terms of education the other bonus for me is as Sarah Jane pointed out it's tie into IOT devices or single board computer devices so again like the micro bit like the Raspberry Pi like lots of other boards and it ties directly to that and for me as a maker introducing making and code it's absolutely perfect to make that leap from block based languages into text based languages because it's just it is that little bit easier to code than other languages are in my opinion obviously other people would probably disagree with me but yeah thank you Chris Kelly love to hear your thoughts on this as well I'm you're a lot of the lot of the comments that have already been made but I have to say I mean this is my only language that I've ever coded and coming from a non-computer science background this language just really took over my heart and it became something that I really just loved and it was the act of problem-solving and critical thinking and finding something that I could connect to that helps me love Python and that's what I bring with the students and I find that the libraries themselves allow this diversity in this inclusivity in the classroom I can pull kids in an interest that they like to be in I use the pillow library or arcade or turtle or micro Python library and just that diversity of all these libraries that are easy to use easy to access you can give an eighth grade or a seventh grade of this this library and get them started is amazing and then second point I'd have to make is the community as a as a teacher who knows I always tell the kids like 10% of this language maybe 5% I need it I need a support group and the Twitter community has just been awesome and all the people that we meet on the podcast if I have an issue and I can't solve with the student we tend to show the kids hey let's use social media and and the Twitter community just of the Python family they just love to help out and so even silly problems that I just can't see the the debug and like one two minutes they're answering questions for 11 12 year olds so if you can imagine that power of not only teaching Python but teaching that you can use your passions and you have a whole family to help you it's just amazing so that's what I love about Python thank you Kelly any other reflections on what Kelly said there guys before we move on no I just think it's a great point absolutely great point and it's something even I have my own notes here in terms of the libraries that again that's plug-in capability of the libraries capability just for students also helps because it's the same in block-based coding fine you fire up scratch well look you can pull the micro bit libraries you can pull any kind of library you like and students understand that and the same is true with Python do they understand it in a text-based language no not yet but they will because they have something to relate it to and that's just yet absolutely Kelly absolutely and just even on the community aspect as a teacher in secondary school like there's a very small number of teachers you know who would have a computer science degree I like the very small number and we're looking for teachers to teach computer science so the fact that you can go on Twitter and ask a question it's really like the computer science community that the computer science teachers the tech teachers community they're so supportive and so helpful and and like you could need that mid-class and literally get the answer by the end of class which is amazing I don't know any other subject area where there is that support just from all over the world you know just a community of enthusiasts who are so passionate about it that they will help anyone to kind of spread the gospel yeah and what's what I love about that is that you're that students are seeing that happening live as you're doing it and that's exactly what the community is all about which is comforting to students to know that they can get answers from a tremendously wider yeah and to know that it's okay to ask to see their teacher saying having a clue yeah let's go on here and look this up and somebody from somewhere will come up like just to learn that it's okay not to know stuff and ask questions and somebody will help you yeah so empowering for the for the students to see and to let them know that there's no way that any coder can know everything and that it's our job to be able to figure it out and if it means calling on a friend and the in the Twitter verse then go for it so yeah yeah I've students in third level who would use the community a lot and you know that especially in first year they're surprised when they get a response with the delight of it yeah and then then they're hooked they and that makes my job so much easier so thank you it's great I love it and well I think that's a nice kind of progression on to our next question which is and I'm gonna start with you for this one Kelly is what are your favorite tools to teach Python and you know what resources do you use and you find stuff online and what maybe is missing right now what have you been looking for anything that you can't yet find that this community might like to to hear about as well well we at my school we make a lot of stuff up as we go so a lot of our is our own curriculum but I do pull a lot of extra resources I I'd like to make these things called choice boards and they allow students to learn in the way that they best see fit for example I will I'll make my own screencast but then I'll call upon real Python short videos or some of the real Python articles we use pi bytes the newbie bytes with Bob and Julian we use the new editor and again we use the Twitter community but I find that you can find a lot of things out there but it just depends on the student and the learner so we provide a lot of choice on what they can find one another thing that's really good is the grok learning platform that comes out of I think Australia and so right now I haven't found that there's too much too much missing I do feel sometimes that the documentation is a little bit overwhelming to newbies so I tend to avoid a lot of the documentation but micro bit just came out with that that great new editor with all the documentation kind of parsed out and that seems to be something easier for the students to to look over I think when they go to that document there's just text and no pictures they kind of turn off that website right away so I try to find videos and short short tidbits for them thank you Kelly and Sarah Jane how about you yeah and again we like the level we would go to is probably really basic compared to third level or to all to all you people in the audience here and but we would use things like and like there's loads of stuff online but if I was teaching it there's it is a platform called techno dot IE that does little bite size things that are kind of aligned to the course and there's one on Python and would use something like cold club would use the micro bit resources to teach specific parts of it and you're kind of pulling it's similar to you Kelly actually you're pulling and kind of creating your own course and we have a book as well this computer science book from golden key publishing that goes through bits of it and then what I find is you put something in front of the students and they'll find their own stuff like that's what I like doing in class you know go and find a video on this and we do some of it you know the YouTube ones that you mentioned and so it's a kind of a mixture of everything and then we would have certain problems that we would have gotten in teacher training and CS Inc has a platform that goes through Python and HTML and all the different things that we would need for beginners and you can use those in class and the students can work at their own pace because computer science is of course is very project based and hands-on and there's a lot of collaboration there's not a lot of a student sitting there on their own it's all group work and so they tend to find what works for them and then we will share it with the class and so yet there's lots out there and again because similar to Kelly like I don't know I probably don't know enough to know what I would like you know I can't compare it to other languages where I can say well that's in that I'd love if that was there you know yeah brilliant what about you Rosie yeah echoing what everyone else has said really I suppose and two different hats on one that the university had I would say that very much like you Kelly we have our own curriculum we build the resources for that curriculum for the students and and yes they're drawn from lots of different areas and we would also give supplementary material things like W3 schools it's great yeah yeah for some exercises and things like that and so yeah we'd use lots of different resources different videos and again like you surgeon I mean the the students tend to find things and share as well with each other and with us and then we pick out the best of that and and follow through and what I'd like to see and I don't know if there's a tool like this out there but I find and from third level probably one of the brick walls that our students come up against aside from learning the language is and errors and how to navigate solving an error so when I get an error how do I fix that error and if I get an error how do I know what that error is and I think it will be really nice if we had more tools using maybe AI or something that could direct the students to fixing those errors without giving them the answer because we don't want that but we want them to not hit an error and go oh my god I can't make head or tail of this and step away from it and I know from like saying primary school they do three before me you know and we would try and do that as well three different things but when they hit an error they find that very difficult to navigate the solution to that and tracing through we go through and so on but if there was a tool are built into Python that would direct them to solving that error I think that would be amazing if we had something like that so you've heard it here first everybody if anyone's working on anything don't forget there's don't forget there's the Python tutor I don't know if you've ever seen that where you can visualize the steps yeah that one was pretty good for debugging that helps me actually learned a lot yeah I've seen that and we do use the debugging tools as well but I don't know whether it's a mental block that students have and again remember even though computer science there's been and the lean start has run for a number of years now we're still getting a lot of students on the course that may never have done coding for not be fully aware of computer science so when it doesn't work and it stops and you get a box at the end with an error in it it's I don't know if it's panic or road block or what but they just tend to do a stop and even though you might show them deep the debugging tools they tend to be a little bit intimidated by that in first year and especially for a semester so we'll be nice if there was something that handheld them through that initially but yeah or do you have a solution well interestingly earlier this morning I had a conversation and it's a plug if the guys are in the audience great if they're not go have a look I've only just met them this morning so full transparency but there's group downstairs called clean code and that is exactly what they're doing actually yes so they have a debugging tool it's not just for Python but it's for all languages and it's free for personal projects which seems to cover a wide variety of projects really so and look I only saw a demo but it looked pretty cool actually to be honest in terms of tools and things like that I fully agree with Roshan in terms of like a built in I don't I don't want to say a built in debugger because but I also just something again I'm thinking almost for younger students not third level not second level necessarily but something like that that would encourage them in some way I don't know what that is I don't have an answer to that but I absolutely agree with W3 schools is brilliant what else to put down the Python themselves the wiki Python's wiki is really really good it's a little text heavy maybe but yeah still really good for finding information I really like developers Google Python site as well which is excellent Codecademy as well as well which is quite stepping through processes as well as good for kids in terms of apps Thani absolutely because cross-platform brilliant things like that and my absolute go-to is move as well as you said as well just and I was lucky enough to meet my my the mood creator of my hero he's sitting over there in the corner waving at the moment so that's fine so he's there if anyone else would like to meet him as well one thing I say because because we teach very diverse across the board like we might go into a school and have students with Android's tablets or students with iPads or students with nothing or anything I've actually found and just because I happen to be an Apple educator it's nothing to do with this but I have found the tools seem to have on iOS have gone from absolutely terrible tools to absolutely amazing tools on iOS and the step through and the walk through on iOS is really really good and just the two Python Easter and Python are those two apps they're both I think about a tenor something like that and you know I just found those really good on iOS frankly and so in terms of creating resources no more than yourselves which is interesting actually I create my own resources depending on projects and things that I'm doing or again it's a little different because we're going in doing a project using that particular language with students so I will actually create the resources and bring those in and do the screenshots and make the PDF file and provide the PDF file and things like that so but it's interesting we're all creating our own resources for that I just find that interesting actually that's kind of but we're all pulling from some very very similar places yeah I just think that's why are we doing that why can't we pull our resources I was just meant to ask you that yeah I think we should pull our resources definitely and why we invent the wheel yeah but I think for me it's it's because each year I change my resources and that is because after a couple of weeks in front of your class you see who you have yeah and you're changing the resources to see the students in front of you and it's never the same so you're always trying to give the best to them so it's constantly changing and plus Python 2 Python 3 yeah I don't have to jump yeah yeah yeah yeah I know yeah and I feel that teaching is very personal so when we are in it and we're pulling out the resources that best enhance what we've just taught I think it's hard to go here here's my curriculum you go teach it it doesn't work that way so although we pull the resources that we use giving someone else your curriculum sometimes doesn't work I know when Sean and I were teaching we both have the same kind of objective but the way that Sean taught that objective was completely different than the way that I taught that objective so it's it's unique but yeah that's I think that's why teachers pull so much of their own stuff yeah the idea of sharing resources is the best way to go about doing that we have the people yeah certainly do right I'll set up a Google Doc after this fantastic I think we've kind of started to touch on this a little bit already but the next thing I wanted to ask you all worlds that if you had a magic wand and you could change one feature in Python now I have a feeling you've got a sense of what you might say routine but if you could yeah I think you probably have but yeah if you could change on Python feature what would it be and why I'm gonna go to you first Chris very little I have to say very little I've only ever had one experience and it wasn't an educational experience it was a corporate experience in terms of helping in fact not even the coding but helping design the graphics for a project that was being written in Python and we just ran into again I wasn't actually the coder I wouldn't be that good of a code to do what they were doing but it was it just kept crapping out it was a memory memory runtime errors it just kept going basically is what it was it was only ever once to be fair only ever once it happened and it was number of years ago to be fair as well too but apart from that little enough as a maker just I want to see our I want to libraries for everything I want to see them for micro bits I want to see them for everything absolutely everything is what I want to see them for you know Arduino just everything I want a library for everything apart from that that's all ready to go I don't ask you not asking for much have a use there then yeah again and it basically does what we need you to do for the course and personally I'm not advanced enough yet I must say it's still learning this time next year I might have a haul list and but yeah it does everything we need to do at the minute I mean what Roshin suggested about the helping the students see what the error was and not giving them the answer but like in teaching you have assessment of learning versus assessment for learning so we want them to learn as they're coming into these difficulties you know and work through it's that that would be nice not really I think I'd agree with you Chris I think the libraries for everything really important I mean the libraries we use them all the time as well and some of the more advanced ones for the AI DSK learn and things like that invaluable to us absolutely invaluable and but yeah I agreed like there's not much I change in Python it is it works for us for CS1 and the students learn very well from it and yeah if I had a magic wand that would be it to help them to find helps help them to sort out when they hit us yeah now I'm just checking I'm not sure if we've lost Kelly she's her pictures disappeared off the screen okay okay and great we'll just give her a second and yeah no I think well I'll go to the next question and we get Kelly back already I'll ask it again and I'm gonna start with you for this sergeant given your teeth you're in in classroom you're teaching and you're covering the leading third subject at the moment what is the biggest challenge you're coming up against I mean I know we've touched on obviously bugs and errors and you know that resilience that you're trying to help students with but you know and anything else to add to that that is a challenge you find you're coming up against and when you're helping students engaging with this for the first time and anything that might help overcome it and yeah well I think and I mentioned it before students who have had no experience of computers are coding and so the challenge as a teacher and I suppose for every subject is the different levels in the classroom and they do find some of the core concepts are quite difficult for them to get like it's something like a variable like he spent weeks teaching the what a variable is and you know recursion things like that then again the hands-on stuff really helps with that you know and so when they can see it you know and things like story telling really works with that you know so as a teacher you have to be a storyteller now as well as everything else and to try and give them examples of what it means so they're kind of what I would see in the classroom and then there's the other issues like yeah and it's not to do with Python or programming at all it's just the access you know so some students wouldn't have access to a computer or something they can work on at home so in a school you'll open up labs you'll have coding clubs and things like that where they can go to but if they can't practice it at home and it does make a difference you know for the course they have to be doing a lot of work at home and then yeah I think that's that type of thing and just the other thing is the the self-belief yeah I could kind of tied into the resilience and again I'm in a girl's school right so we're lucky we've had we've a class a year we had a class a year for the past four years since it started one group and they choose it as an option for a fifth year but the self-belief that they can do it like I would get students into the class and they're all different you know walks of life different shapes and sizes different groups you know in in high school you have in America you see the films are all the different gangs and all the different types not as marked here but and we have different people from all kind of walks of life and some of them like I have no idea what a coder looks like you know or they have a specific idea of what a coder looks like and that's not what it is at all so you find a lot of the time you're trying to tell them know you can actually do this sure look what you did that's amazing keep at it and and that challenge of not feeling bad when they fail yeah so that takes a while at the start when they come in you're trying to make them see that it's okay and you're you can't you have your pollsters up if we haven't failed we're not learning you know the right answer to if you haven't done it a thousand times and then got to the answer you're doing it wrong you know that kind of thing and and that takes a while to work about now we're at it in school we've had it in school for four years so I think that's breaking down a bit and so those are kind of I mean again it's not Python related but you know they're the child of its subject overall isn't it yeah keeping that interest up and yeah exactly instilling that kind of yeah and the success like building in success that's why Python is really good for that because you can show them what success will look like and they can get success with a program really quickly you know whereas some of the other languages they might take them a long time yeah absolutely and Kelly I think we might you might have dropped out miss I'll just repeat the question so you're not wondering what what are we talking about and we're talking about just the biggest challenge that you find that students face when you're when you're covering Python with them for the first time and you know what might help overcome it so it'd be great to hear your thoughts on you know the positives as well as the negatives absolutely so the biggest thing is that power of yet we like to talk about the mindset a lot yeah and of course the six the six graders of year 10s the 10 year olds that come in they're happy and excited you get them to print hello their mindset is still positive they still have this imagination and this ability to I could do anything but as you start to get older the 13 14 15 year olds they start to understand that I'm not as good as so and so next to me and this mindset of I can't I can't do it I can't code I'm not a coder I can't do math and so we work a lot on that power of yet and we talk about climbing the steps and saying that you know we're here at the top and I can't answer all the questions either yet but one day I will and and we talk a lot about just saying change that that word I can't code and add in the sentence I can't code yet and it is a it is a good struggle but it's not just coding that it applies to so in our classroom it's not just about learning how to use Python because Python God forbid will be gone in you know 20 years and they have to learn another language or they might be doing some other thing they need to be able to overcome whatever challenge is put in front of them and by having an open mindset a positive mindset that's going to help them regardless if they're playing basketball they're doing geometry they're studying for an AP physics exam they may not be able to accomplish it but they will do it one day and so I really like that part of it it's very uplifting and I was one of those students not good at math technology you know some of that thinking would have really helped me along the way if it had if it had been happening haven't you all seen any further dad really excited to hear Sarah Jane and Kelly speak and because I've been involved as I said primary secondary mostly third level by the time I get them in third level we have huge problems special females with imposter syndrome they feel they can't do it they feel they're not as good as the boys and we need to catch that earlier so it makes me so happy Kelly to hear that you're working on and then Sarah Jane and I know with see I think I'm trying to work on that too and it's about kind of breaking down those perceptions and as you said the I can't it's just I can't yet and seeing that sometimes I can't you know whether Kelly can't at the surgeon can't and that that's okay we're all still learning it's it's a journey and so yeah I couldn't I couldn't agree more I think and that is that is very much a challenge and at the moment it's a huge challenge in third level and in particular interesting just some of the research I've been involved in and female students South Africa see which is the same thing and is is is lower than males but and this is the big both the student the female students who stick out the degree out perform the males traditionally by the end of it so very interesting statistics so if we can get them to believe in themselves they have the potential to go very very very far and that's just some education research I'm involved in and then I think the other more mundane challenges that we have and again not directly related to Python but it's always those threshold concepts in first year so it's the ifs and the loops will be the two big ones and then when you move into maybe second year it's moving into more object oriented and what is an object and that could be in Python or any language it doesn't matter but if the Python community could help with improving or helping us with educating students around those threshold concepts that will be very welcomed as well great so yeah all of your suggestions we're welcome we're looking forward to hearing them afterwards so thank you Chris any more on that with regards to maybe maker projects and yeah I mean it's a bigger discussion and I would sit here all day talking about it but in terms of what everyone else has said I can only repeat it probably not as good especially in terms of gender encoding I'm a guy I code fine but I'm a maker first and foremost and in terms of quote-unquote failing at doing something it's a mindset it's a systemic mindset not only in I would say probably almost every education system on the planet but in society as well and it's women that unfortunately suffer at that mindset and I'm gonna say that bluntly as a man and it shouldn't be that way under any circumstances I won't relay the story that we talk about but the reality is is that it's not about the code it's not about the job and this is me speaking with my maker hat on it's about the feeling you all get when you finish a project or when a bit of code works and that's a good feeling it's a positive feeling and that as a maker is in my opinion how it should go through if you make pasta and you burn the pasta that's fine you failed burning the pasta just make it again and remember it's only 20 minutes not 40 minutes whatever it is doesn't matter the same is true for code we've all failed at making code that's okay but let's encourage other people everybody to let's help them get through that and do it and that's a maker mindset it's not exclusively a maker mindset by any stretch of the imagination but it's just the mindset of trying to be inclusive of everybody that's it because it's better for the community no more as Kelly was saying in terms as we're all saying in terms of the community like play fun community is really an amazing community it genuinely is and why can't we share that I think we should share that with in fact not only share it I think we should teach other people how good this community is and I just feel that that's really important I just think that's really important I know it's kind of vaguely off topic I was going to talk about syntax but I just I really do genuinely think in terms of that it's just it's extremely extremely important it's extremely important I love that Chris I can I just add real quick going in about that that mindset I think it's also that hook that getting that fail turned into a positive it's those positive endorphins that that's the challenge another big challenge that I have in the middle school because I want them to go on to secondary school and I want them to go into the career but it's it's my job I feel it's my job to find that thing that makes them have those positive endorphins so if it means that one child is doing ear sketch in music and another child is making something in cardboard like a basketball game with the micro bit and another child's doing something on circuit python my classroom is chaotic and I have a headache when I go home but but those kids are finding there they're endorphin lighter and and they're getting they're getting that stuff that we get when we solve problems and that's what it means to fail and move on because failing and failing and having those negative endorphins doesn't help anyone and that is a challenge sometimes when people pick up coding so finding those libraries those things that make them you know that glints in their eyes when they're smiling and saying look what I made that's a challenge for every teacher I think I love that Kelly week we talk about this all the time in the micro bit foundation and we call it the micro bit moment like that first exposure where you've you're you've coded something and then you've downloaded into my commitment the thing and I remember the first time I had that experience and I was at a bet show like years ago and I was like so excited so you know that but it doesn't have to be that device we were talking about this earlier Chris around device agnostic it's that feeling almost isn't it that you're you're creating that feeling in whether it's maker projects it's in third level it could be wherever but you're it's about kind of capturing that feeling isn't it and helping our pasta right yeah I don't know if I'm coming to your house or past a Chris no I think this is this is it's really fascinating I think what I'd like to kind of move on to now just is we're talking a lot about what we can do as a community of Python and educators but I wonder about policymakers and actual systemic change that we've been talking about being so necessary and obviously Sarah Jane you've been heavily involved in the leading search subject of all you all you all have your own hand up to play in the way that these things are happening but I wonder from a policy point of view what needs what needs to happen or what what can be done you know at this stage to improve things from that kind of systemic point of view yeah it's it's that's a difficult one because again you could you should have asked me to prepare that question if I could wish for anything I want computer science to mean every single school I want science to be compulsory in every single school and yeah it's difficult I mean at the minute there is a there's a there's not enough teachers to teach computer science and that's an issue so you know if anyone here would like to be a teacher of computer science look into it you know there are loads of courses you could do it outside of your working life and I think there is a lot of work being done like coding and computational thinking is being introduced at primary school level and that's filtering through into secondary school which is great coding is a new junior well new wish junior cycle subject computer science is a brand new subject it's just to keep it to keep the momentum up now obviously COVID hit in the middle of it but you know to try and get it into every school and to get teachers interested in teaching it and students and parents to realize that it's not just in terms of careers it's not just one particular picture of somebody sitting on a computer all day like it's such a vast it can open up a vast world and there are countries all over the world now who are introducing just computational thinking to every student never mind the coding just the mind set around it you know and even in terms of 21st century skills like the Python community embodies the 21st century skill of collaboration you know like just the fact that you're this massive group working together to promote the subject we're trying to bring that into every subject every classroom the whole time so it is quite difficult but I mean that you know that would be my policy change that the computer science is offered in every school will reflect on you saying that one day I'm sure we will remember the states everybody no I definitely would agree and I think we need definitely need more teachers and I think that's probably one of the biggest problems with the computer science leaving search but also I've worked very hard to see us ink to try and change perceptions of computer science and from primary and secondary level and we need help with that like we're one small group of five people working out of T.U. Dublin we've traveled all around the country we've reached 10,000 students over three years which is great but it's still not enough and work has to be done on this to break down the perceptions around computer science so that it does become more open more equal more diverse because we need everybody involved in it and so I think that's that's definitely something that is huge for me and in terms of policy I mean I think the Department of Education has an excellent policy in the living certificate curriculum and one of their quotes is computers for all and I think that's really important and I think we have to always remember that there's always the risk with the leaving cert that it becomes an extra subject or the subject for after school for the elite students we have to work really hard to make sure that isn't the case it has to be for all and then I know my colleague Keith Quill is working very hard in the background to to draw up kind of a policy and procedures for bringing this into primary school Chris will be happy to hear and I also think that's so I think we need the pipeline there I think we need to look at primary school start early yeah and even though the coding is there for junior cycle because it's not part of the formal curricula that can also pose a problem because not everybody has to do that or it's not open to everybody and sometimes those extra courses while they're very valuable for people who are interested in them it's those perceptions are not interested I'm a girl you know we need to expose them to these so I think it's coming I think it's it's it's on its way but I think we need a kind of a joined up thinking now between the Department of Education third level and industry and second and primary level as well to join up and push this through to make sure that we have a fully ecosystem in our education system from from primary right through and I'm a primary that can be cross-curricular like what you were saying it doesn't have to be computer science it can be you know and computers in geography computers for history yeah climate change looking at all of these different things so I mean there's no reason why we can't bring this in across the full range of our education system I'm very passionate absolutely no and and Kelly I'll come to you as well obviously with the US perspective and there's great work going on obviously code orgs USDA but you know what what would you like to see more of or from an international point of view you know how can we all help well having having taught in London and in South America and the US it's it's pretty much worldwide the same and I could go on and on about the needs of education and computer science but I'll stick only for what the Python community can do for us I mirror all the comments definitely finding teachers that can do the job and getting teachers out of that mindset of I'm a science teacher because I'm a biology major and I teach code so I think we need to tap into those risk takers those teachers that like to problem-solve in their curricular activities and and move them into code and I think it mirrors what some of the talks that we saw yesterday Sylvester he made a really good point that we need to break down that stigma that computer science only works in the computer classroom why is that we read across the curriculum we do mass across the across the curriculum we we can bring social studies across the curriculum or you know civics across the curriculum why can't we bring code across the curriculum so many areas where math and and code and even coding the Constitution I tempted that wasn't very successful but coding the Constitution in allows those students to break down the problems so one of the things I think that the Python community can do is really be that that source to get the teacher that's not a coder into coding and I remember the first year at PyCon I had been coding only six months and everyone was so welcoming and I kept saying oh my god I can't believe I'm here with all these smart people but but why is that why is that that's the initial feeling when you get into code I think that needs to break down yes we are all smart people but everybody's smart in their own sense and and if we work hard at something we all can code and I think that needs to be pushed that it's not just these smart people that go to these great colleges and take computer science all their life and play computer with computers all their life it's everyone can do it if they want to so that's my my plea for the Python community amazing thanks Kelly and Chris yeah I definitely echo all of that and I'm I'm absolutely heartened to hear Kelly saying that she's teaching Python to you know 10 year olds and things like that again exactly as Roshan said as well and it's great that you know that you guys are doing that work in order to bring it back because I just think it's a situation and that's kind of what we do as well too you know I actually don't think it's about the code as I kind of said before I think it's about mindset as you were saying and it's about problem solving it's about critical thinking it's about lots of other things all those skills are coding skills but they're not just coding skills those as you said Kelly those are what are required across the curriculum and I normally speak from the bottom up if that makes sense but Amy and I had this talk from the top down from industry there's a lot of companies industry leaders that do not want clones of everybody anymore because it cost them a lot of money to hire and then rehire three months six months 18 month whatever it is and rehire those people that cost companies money but if you have an employee who has a diverse range of skills that is based in critical thinking then that those employees are much more valuable to the company so if the company changes direction in a year or two years or the third quarter of 2025 or whatever it is then those employees can be kept on and there's no need to retrain or rehire and that's really important and as a systemic change I think those companies need to speak to government and third level institutions to try to engineer that change and push it down all the way to primary schools so that those critical thinking skills those 21st century skills those maker skills whatever you want are employed across the board in every single subject because they're valuable at every subject are they valuable in coding absolutely you know but if you are a coder and I'm sure many of you are if you're a Python coder how many of the languages do you know I would suspect most of you know other languages apart from Python that makes you a much more valuable employee to a company you're working for if you're working for a company that makes you much more valuable but imagine if you take those critical thinking skills and say well yes I can drive a forklift I can crunch a spreadsheet of numbers I can do whatever so you're not just coders you have other valuable skills and I think that needs to be pushed from corporate down that's my yeah and I think that points around improving diversity and in this space right the way through research in third level in primary in teaching and that kind of message really would really land I can imagine where you're thinking right I'm good at the certain things you can learn the certain things you've got a natural aptitude for and I think it's less scary I think if you open people's eyes to that you know you can see possibilities for themselves and I think it's it's incumbent on us all I suppose to think about those messages and how they get out there you know we do it obviously within the foundation but it's you know you've got a lot of influencing to do around with parents with you know head teachers as I'm sure you've done and I'm conscious of time and we I could obviously sit here all day having this wonderful conversation but I think we should definitely go for some questions now from the audience I think remotely we I'm not sure how we will see them but they might know okay well then I think guys if anyone has any questions the microphone right there so please don't be shy come on up and ask a question to the group yes please hi thank you so much for the panel it was really interesting I'm a civil engineer and a Python developer and in my department in my work I act as a teacher of Python many times and I get a lot of questions so I'm really interested in the things you mentioned of not answering the questions and letting the students find out by themselves do you have maybe a rule of thumb that you can apply when to answer when not to answer thank you because every student is different so and I think right back to the primary school rule of three three before me so have you tried three things have you checked the web have you traced through your code have you so three things before you come to me and at that point then potentially again I tell don't I think it's more valuable that they see it themselves so maybe not give an answer but direct you know towards this piece of code seems to be causing the problem in this area have another look so always be pushing them towards solving it themselves and I and I'm in a classroom of 40 or 50 students on my own for one hour I make the mistake of going oh look he doesn't let me call the next person I'm always doing that but theoretically it's not the best way to do it so I would always try and help each other so if they do team coding or if there's a buddy system in the organization that always works really well as well and because they're in it together and then that person has shown me that I find something else I'll show to them so that kind of works I hope sorry I jumped in there does anyone that's great I I can help I always say Google's your friend obviously that's your first source but we talk about keywords and I forgot I was reminded to mention that all the work that on Andre Robert is doing on the friendly trace backs so a lot of the times when students come to me I make them read the trace back out loud it sounds like a little childish thing but Sean Sean always did it to me he's like what is a trace back say how what words can you pull from that trace back and now that they're the trace backs are a lot clearer you can have the students or the learners adult learners even what are the keywords in that in that area is it a syntax error where is it pointing and I find that just having them read out loud helps them to start to think about the solution right away and yes it is the hardest thing not to give the answer because you know you've said it and you can see the the problem right there in their face but thank you so much everybody go to the next question thank you thanks very much I'm a teacher as well and what you're saying and starting about Python being a nice beginners language I think is true when I come to a conference like this and find out some of the really complex things that Python can do and that's great as well but I sometimes struggle with the kind of the middle ground how do you get students from kind of the prints and simple loops and things on to things like you know GUIs and the more the more tricky things have you got any recommendations for sort of good intermediate steps which I can take that's that's a perennial problem that we have in two Dublin so we would teach Python in first year and then we jump to the Django framework in second year and it's something that we're currently reconsidering because as you know we have somebody going from kind of console based output and then trying to integrate to a framework with GUIs and I put it's such a big leap so it isn't an easy answer and I think that it's more about how you introduce those as opposed to I think it has to be done so I think our leap from first year to second year still has to be done but I think it's how you introduce that and maybe taking smaller steps so we kind of go straight from the console to the framework maybe bring in the GUI before that and then the framework but to be totally honest there's no golden answer for that one it's it's tricky packaging would be another way you know packaging your Python into an app depending on what you're doing obviously but you know to try and introduce okay you're going to build an app you're going to build a self-running app and then now you have to package that and and attach the graphics to it the GUI to attach everything to it and that can be a little bit intimidating as well but yeah I would agree with you Russian there's no it's difficult yeah it is difficult I generally at the lower I said lower end I don't mean lower end but I'm generally at the primary secondary end so I don't often encounter that but I would say I do know in terms of sometimes doing things my experience has just been when I'm starting Python or when I'm doing Python with the students and things it's to a specific goal and sometimes that goal Python is not is not the correct language to use so what I might in Dennis say okay well look you've used Python you're vaguely familiar with it let's try a different language that might achieve this goal better and that can be a whole nother thing but then I'm not in a classroom situation so it's a very different thing as well the other thing that does tie things together very well for them as the projects I don't know if you do any of that but the project work in terms of having a set goal so they define their project and I think that that really helps and I think once they define the project and the outline of it then as educators we can direct them to the pathway to integrate more GUIs and the database at the back end the front end and the coding in the middle and I think we can we can they're more engaged in it because it's their idea and that helps a lot as well hundred percent thank you so much one and one last question yeah thank you getting the students to install stuff the lessons on their machines can take up a whole lesson and what are your strategies for I guess picking whether you do everything in the browser in a lesson or whether you get them to install things locally I'll take that as yeah please Kelly yeah so the very first lesson I have was six seventh and eighth grade mostly seventh and eighth is investigating their editor and what they're going to use they always have to have two choices one that's online and one that is local on their on their desktop so we try I try to do the screen a screencast and we use mu editor at our school most of the time so we do a screencast and I try to get the students to do it at home because obviously it's going to upload faster when they they have everything uploaded at home and then we also use co lab which is an online sort of Jupiter notebook and some students also will choose replete so having those two locals and something that they have on the cloud can help so when for example a computer breaks or they have to borrow a computer from their mom or dad they have an option that is online and they can still work with so that's what we do pretty much the same as well like we would have used very much and kind of like the Tony and pie time traditionally but covered has just changed everything and we have to be have to have availability online and for students and staff so that in the event that I'm teaching in a classroom and half of my students at home that they can complete the coursework as well so yeah it's very much mixed now yeah we'd be the same except for the the actual exam so the leaving cert exam is done on a computer and but they can't have any internet access so so they have to know how to use Tony you know they have to have seen it and for the end but we have the same we'd have a couple of that takes us up to time and thank you all very much for your questions on an enormous thank you to Chris Kelly Sarah Jane and routine for your perspectives and I'm sure there's lots of food of food for thought for all the members of the audience and all the things you were sharing with us today and thank you Kelly for joining us remotely and you are very much here it feels like you're sitting with us in Dublin so absolutely absolutely check it teaching pipe and podcast for sure and but yes thank you all so much and thanks to your python and the organizers this has been very straightforward which has been a very nice thing and but yeah thank you all for being here and a round of applause for our lovely panelist and for Amy as well