Trials & tribulations teaching Python at CoderDojo
summary
Description says teaching Python to 6–18 year olds at a Brisbane CoderDojo. The useful bits: Code Academy and PyCharm Educational Edition exercises prove too advanced and noisy, examples and jargon (modulo, string) confuse; kids waste multiple sessions. What works is tiny, complete programs on the command line—four-line uppercase tool, a guess‑the‑number loop, random‑word password maker, emoji hack and fake virus scanner—so students run, tweak and see results immediately. If deciding, pick this to learn concrete pitfalls and the specific, working exercises that actually scale to kids.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (16)
- 0:00Intro
- 1:08Teaching Python online
- 1:50What is CoderDojo
- 8:45Code Academy
- 12:15PyCharm
- 16:07Strategy
- 19:10Complete program
- 21:21Guess a number
- 22:15Random password
- 23:50Fake virus scanner
- 24:42Output
- 25:06Feedback
- 25:45Graduation
- 26:22Is Python only for children
- 27:33Would you use PyCharm
- 28:33Adding the concept of reusability
related talks
35mTeaching kids to code 2.0
49mPython to the (Little) People: teaching 300,000 students Python through the DT Curriculum
26mPython in Primary School
30mIntegrating Python within a School Context
35mThe Good, The Bad, and the Ugly – Python in Secondary Education in Queensland
27mLearn Python Like a 12 Year Old
31mTeaching Children Python-What Works?
33mTeaching Python: Ten+ Years of Successes, Trials and Tribulations