[Edu-sig] Kirby's current Python gigs

[Kirby Urner]

> I am teaching "Introduction to Programming with Python" with a local
> adult ed program. Here is a status report:
> 

Just thought I'd mention my various teaching gigs re Python:

I'm the adult mentor at my daughter's public school, meaning I show up on
Fridays (not every Friday) around noon and serve as a resource person.
Python is already installed on all the computers in the lab (which is where
I'm stationed).  

My special assignment is to help a 3rd grader, who has already stuffed his
head with a ton of computer related stuff (I've not met him yet), but could
use some mentoring/focus.

I'm also standing by to mentor an 8th grader, pursuant to our successful
meeting at a coffee shop with him and his dad.  He's already self-taught
himself come C, Java, Perl.  I'm hoping Python will be his best experience
yet.

In January, I'm scheduled to teach a math-through-programming course at
Oregon Graduate Institute, with mostly high schoolers signed up.  This is
through a local university-based academy with a long track record and a lot
of name recognition around here.  

This'll be their first venture into Python.  Jerritt Collord and I did
'Adventures in Open Source' through this academy in June, at a police
station (Linux Lab at West Precinct HPD).  That featured some Python too,
but this January course has Python in the title.

Other gigs may be shaping up on the horizon, but these are the ones I
currently feel are pretty solid commitments that I've made.

I'll be hoping to discuss each of these assignments with my peers on edu-sig
as time goes on (as Kent is doing, others).  That's very much part of the
purpose of this list, per the write-up at .../sigs/edu-sig/.

I'm especially interested in the assignment to mentor a 3rd grader.  That
seems very young to me.  The stuff I cover with 8th graders and up won't
necessarily be appropriate, at least not in the same form.  

I think it'd be good if I could find a peer close to his age, with similar
interests, so they could bounce off each other.  I don't want programming to
seem too lonely or solitary a venture for someone starting out that early,
given programming potentially involves a lot of collaboration, team work,
inter-personal communications.

Kirby