I’ll be teaching a live online course on Python programming on behalf of Computer Coach Training Center starting Monday. Here are the details:
- What: Intro to Python Coding course
- When: Monday and Wednesday evenings, 6:00 – 10:00 p.m., starting Monday, July 13 and ending Wednesday, August 12 (6 weeks, twice a week)
- Where: Online.
- How much: $900 — and Computer Coach has grants that can cover the cost if you’re unemployed and based in the Tampa Bay area (contact them to see if you qualify)
- What you’ll need:
- A computer that was made sometime in the last ten years. My main computer is a 2014-era MacBook Pro, but I’ll be doing demonstrations on a 2012-era Lenovo ThinkPad running Linux Mint, a 2009-era Compaq laptop running Peppermint Linux, and a $35 Raspberry Pi.
- An internet connection. This is an online course, after all.
To register for this course, visit this page and tap the Attend Online button. Someone from Computer Coach will contact you.
The course description
This is an introduction to the Python programming language. Now in the top 10 programming languages according to the TIOBE Programming Language Index, it is versatile enough to have a wide array of uses, from simple scripting to powering Instagram, Spotify, Netflix, Dropbox, and more. Its combination of simplicity and vast scientific and math libraries have made it the preferred programming language for data science and machine learning. If you’re looking for a first programming language, Python is an excellent choice.
This is not a passive course! This isn’t the kind of course where the instructor lectures over slides while you take notes (or pretend to take notes while surfing the web or checking your social media feeds). In this course, you’ll be actively taking part in the learning process, entering code, experimenting, making mistakes, correcting those mistakes, and producing working applications. You will learn by doing. At the end of each session, you’ll have a collection of little Python programs that you wrote, and which you can use as the basis for your own work.
The course will start at the most basic level by walking you through the process of downloading and installing the necessary tools to start Python programming. From there, you’ll learn the building blocks of the Python programming language:
- Control structures that determine what your programs do,
- Data structures to store the information that your programs act on,
- Functions and objects to organize your code, and
- Using libraries as building blocks for your applications.
You’ll write all sorts of programs…
- You’ll use Python in “immediate mode” to perform quick calculations (and you’ll sharpen your command-line skills in the process).
- You’ll write scripts to simplify or automate tedious tasks.
- You’ll build web applications.
- And since it’s a networked, data-driven world where no application is an island, you’ll learn how to use Python to interact with web services and databases.
Better still, you’ll learn how to think like a programmer. You’ll learn how to look at a goal and learn how you could write a program to meet it, and how that program could be improved or enhanced. You’ll learn skills that will serve you well as you take up other programming languages, and even learn a little bit about the inner workings of computers, operating systems, and the internet.