[Edu-sig] Suggestion for python learning

[kirby urner]

I wanted to thank web2py author Massimo Di Pierro for cluing me re
Vimeo, a higher bandwidth "tube service" that isn't putting my Python
for Math Teachers intros behind a PayPal firewall (what happened on
ShowMeDo, where I also archive. also higher rez than YouTube).

http://www.vimeo.com/user595710/videos

(
lower rez Google Video versions:
http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2007/01/python-for-math-teachers.html
)

Python 411 has been a good source of podcasts for my iPod, which I
usually keep with me, at the gym, on the plane, in the car, so I can
listen to interviews with luminaries mostly, not so much listening to
read-aloud source code, or even pseudo code.

We each have different mixes of sensory input we prefer, when
learning, sometimes gets in the way, sometimes just what the doctor
ordered, so as a teacher I try not to dictate too stringently, as if
it were my way or the high way.

On the other hand, when it comes to media *production* I need to stick
with my talents and/or team up with simpaticos who help make up for my
weaknesses, capable software also a boon (made these initial three
with Camtasia Studio, open to FOSS on my Ubuntu Dell especially).

Kirby
4Dstudios


On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 10:48 AM, David MacQuigg
<macquigg at ece.arizona.edu> wrote:
> At 06:21 AM 7/10/2008 +0400, deepu john wrote:
>
>>It would have been extremely useful to have an audiobook about python which one can listen to while sitting in a tram, waiting at a doctors office, walking on the treadmill, driving a car.... The same topics that will take about an hour to read through in a book can be listened through in 10 or 15 minutes.
>>
>>Hope someone will do it soon, that then python would become the only programming language that can be learnt by listening!
>
> Can you really learn Python this way?  Try writing some code after listening to a verbal explanation only.  Even if you have amazing powers to visualize what you hear, the verbal description, even for something as simple as a for-loop, would be tedious.
>
> There is a reason programming books are written the way they are - programming is a visual thing for most people, even a tactile thing, at least for me.  If I don't actually write some code, I quickly forget what I have just read.
>
> That said, it would be nice to have more tutorials written for targeted audiences, like biological scientists.  A well-written tutorial integrates the code and words in a way that your thoughts are not disrupted by having to find an example buried in a complex figure on another page.  The best person to write a tutorial for biological scientists is a biological scientist who has just learned Python.  Go for it!!  I'll be glad to read and offer suggestions.
>
> -- Dave
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Edu-sig mailing list
> Edu-sig at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
>