The Teachable Full-time Creator Masterclass 2019

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- By Vasudev Ram - Online Python training / SQL training / Linux training

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Hi, readers,

As I said a few days ago in this post:

Great Teachable offer coming in a few days ...

, here are the details for the Teachable Full-time Creator Masterclass 2019.

It will go on from 14th to 21st January 2019.

What’s the Full-time Creator masterclass?

The Full-time Creator is a free, 4-part masterclass that Teachable is hosting over the course of a week - consisting of 4 jam-packed video trainings that will be dripped out over 7 days. The ideal audience for this event includes creators (think: bloggers, coaches, experts, authors, consultants, influencers, hobbyists, offline trainers, etc.) who want to create a profitable online course, using the knowledge they already have. After the week-long masterclass, they'll be offered an opportunity to buy Teachable's service — and when they do they'll receive $4K+ in valuable bonuses for free.

After the week-long masterclass, you will be invited to sign up for Teachable.

Sign up for the Teachable Full-time Creator Masterclass 2019 here.

P.S. Although I've already been a trainer (both offline and online) for some years now, I plan to attend this Masterclass myself. I'm sure I'll pick up some useful tips that will help in my training work.

See you there.

- Vasudev.

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- Vasudev Ram - Online Python training and consulting

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I conduct online courses on Python programming, Unix / Linux commands and shell scripting and SQL programming and database design, with course material and personal coaching sessions.

The course details and testimonials are here.

Contact me for details of course content, terms and schedule.

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Great Teachable offer coming in a few days ...

... so watch this space.

Python MOOC search on Class Central

python - MOOC search results | Class Central

Saw this via the Net.

- Vasudev Ram
Dancing Bison Enterprises
Python, Linux and open source consulting and training
www.dancingbison.com

PythonMonk - learn Python in the browser

PythonMonk - Interactive Python tutorials

PythonMonk is an online browser-based tool to learn Python, created by C42 Engineering.

Can't try it out right now because I am on my mobile, but will check it later today and update this post with initial impressions.

Update: I tried out the first page of lessons on PythonMonk (on a PC) and it worked fine.

A couple of observations:

- It supports the Python use of docstrings in a function as tests. It runs the tests and checks if they succeed or fail.

- The lesson runs include mildly amusing Zennish comments, like from a master to a student :-)

Also check my earlier posts about other tools roughly similar to PythonMonk:

repl.it, an online REPL for many languages

and

codepad.org, executable multi-language pastebin, in Python

There's a Hacker News thread about Python Monk.

I also tried out this code that one HN reader (on that thread) did:

__import__("os").execv("/usr/bin/uname", ["uname", "-a"])

and got about the same result as them:

Linux ip-10-166-37-168 2.6.32-amazon-xen-r3 #1 SMP Mon Jan 16 21:03:16 PST 2012 i686 GNU/Linux

, from which it looks like PythonMonk is running on AWS (Amazon Web Services).

- Vasudev Ram
dancingbison.com

Online Python Tutor looks quite interesting

By Vasudev Ram

Online Python Tutor by Philip Guo is a web-based tool to let you enter Python code and visualize it as it executes.

I went through the steps of the example on the home page.

The best way to understand what it is about it to try it, so use the links above, but I'll just add a few excerpts from the Online Python Tutor site:

The headline for the site is:

"LEARN programming by visualizing code execution"

[ Online Python Tutor is a free educational tool that helps students overcome a fundamental barrier to learning programming: understanding what happens as the computer executes each line of a program's source code. Using this tool, a teacher or student can write a Python program directly in the web browser and visualize what the computer is doing step-by-step as it executes the program. ]

[ So far, over 200,000 people have used Online Python Tutor to understand and debug their programs, often as a supplement to learning from textbooks, lecture notes, and online programming tutorials.

In addition, instructors in over a dozen universities such as MIT, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, the University of Washington, the University of Toronto, the University of Waterloo, Luther College, and Swarthmore College have used it for teaching introductory computer science and programming courses. ]

[ EMBED visualizations in digital textbooks

Using a single line of JavaScript code, you can embed an Online Python Tutor visualization within your web page (as shown in the “Learn” box above). ]

[ SHARE visualizations online

To share your current visualization, click the “Generate URL” button (at the bottom of this page) and paste that URL link in an email, social networking post, or forum question. When recipients click on that link, they will see your exact visualization. This feature is a more effective way for students to seek assistance than copying-and-pasting code snippets. ]

I tried the Generate URL option, and here is the resulting URL.

[ Online Python Tutor supports Python 2.7 and 3.2, hosted on either a CGI-capable web server or on Google App Engine

Main technologies: Python with bdb for the backend; HTML/CSS/JavaScript with jQuery, D3.js, jsPlumb, and CodeMirror for the frontend

Free, open-source BSD-licensed code on GitHub ]

It has a few restrictons: for example, no file I/O, and imports of Python modules are restricted to a few modules. But those are understandable for an online interactive Python tool. IMO, it is still a good tool for learning Python online, at least for the algorithmic and logic aspects. You can learn a lot of programming without using any modules, just with the basic language.

Online Python Tutor has got some 30 to 40 Python code examples which you can try, modify and visualize.

- Vasudev Ram - Dancing Bison Enterprises

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Codingbat, Progress Graphs and Michael Jordan

codingbat.com is an interesting site where you can practice your programming skills in Python (newer) and Java. It was earlier called JavaBat but the name was changed to codingbat after Python problems were added.

About codingbat

Excerpt from above page:

[ CodingBat is a free site of live coding problems to build coding skill in Java, and now in Python (example problem), created by Nick Parlante who is computer science lecturer at Stanford. The coding problems give immediate feedback, so it's an opportunity to practice and solidify understanding of the concepts. The problems could be used as homework, or for self-study practice, or in a lab, or as live lecture examples. The problems, all listed off the CodingBat home, have low overhead: short problem statements (like an exam) and immediate feedback in the browser. ]

These two excerpts give some good reasons why the site is useful:

[ Theory -- Coding in the Large and Small

To excel in Java, or any computer language, you want to build skill in both the "large" and "small". By "large" I mean the sweeping, strategic issues of algorithms, data structures, ... what we think of basically as a degree in Computer Science. You also need skill in the "small" -- 10 or 20 line methods built of loops, logic, strings, lists etc. to solve each piece of the larger problem. Working with students in my office hours, I see what an advantage it is for students who are practiced and quick with their method code. Skill with the method code allows you to concentrate on the larger parts of the problem. Or put another other way, someone who struggles with the loops, logic, etc. does not have time for the larger issues. ... ]

[ Coding Practice
If you want to build skill in running, what do you do? You run. To build skill in method code, write methods. Ok, that's pretty obvious, but with this site, I'm trying to create an environment where people can concentrate on the coding with nothing else to get in the way. With all the surrounding structure taken care of, you can get a lot of coding practice done in just an hour or two. ... ]

The Progress Graphs feature of codingbat is cool. The author has a good quote in that page:

[ My favorite graphs are like the one above. The person is taking on a problem which is a challenge, and so there are lots of failed attempts. What's most important is that they do not give up; they keep working at it, and eventually figure it out. Step by step, that's how you learn. If a graph is really short, the person was probably not challenging themselves.

I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
- Michael Jordan ]

Michael (Air:) Jordan



I came across codingbat recently and tried out a simple Python problem on the site; here is the progress graph for it. You will have to sign up for the site before you can see that graph; signing up is free.

CodingBat sleep_in Progress Graph

- Vasudev Ram

Online turtle graphics in Python from Runestone Interactive

Hello, Little Turtles! — How to Think like a Computer Scientist: Interactive Edition

Interesting idea. It combines basic computer science teaching with fun, interactivity, and testing the students.

(Only tried it from my Android mobile till now, and the Run button did not result in any output. Have to try it from a PC.)

Turtle graphics is only one way of giving training on the site, though. Anyone can host a course on the site for free.

I had first programmed turtle graphics in the LOGO programming language on my first home computer, an IBM PC Jr. It was fun. LOGO, a sort of simplified Lisp, was easy to learn and still fairly powerful. It's a good language to teach children programming.

Later, some time after first learning Python, I got to know that Python also has a turtle graphics module, which uses Tkinter, and tried it out.

Runestone, being web-based, probably uses the  HTML5 canvas element.

Related links:

About Runestone Interactive:

http://interactivepython.org/courselib/default/about

Python turtle graphics module:

http://docs.python.org/2/library/turtle.html

Logo language on Wikipedia:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language)

Update: For kids (of all ages :-) interested in trying out LOGO, there are some free versions available.

Just do a Google search.

- Vasudev
dancingbison.com

Coursera Signature Track and Verified Certificates

Coursera Blog

Good idea, methinks. It attempts to use technology to solve the potential cheating problem with such courses, by using a typing signature and other means. If it works, it could help Coursera students in their careers.

Google's new online Course Builder tool, open source

By Vasudev Ram


Google has launched a new product called Course Builder to let anyone create an online course.

Note from the site: "To use Course Builder, you should have some technical skills at the level of a web master. In particular, you should have some familiarity with HTML and JavaScript."

Edudemic article about Course Builder. It has a video of Dr. Peter Norvig, Director of Research at Google, explaining why they built it.

Excerpt from a message from Dr. Norvig, mentioned in the article:

[ In July, Research at Google ran a large open online course, Power Searching with Google, taught by search expert, Dan Russell. The course was successful, with 155,000 registered students. Through this experiment, we learned that Google technologies can help bring education to a global audience. So we packaged up the technology we used to build Power Searching and are providing it as an open source project called Course Builder. We want to make this technology available so that others can experiment with online learning.
...
We are excited that Stanford University, Indiana University, UC San Diego, Saylor.org, LearningByGivingFoundation.org, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), and a group of universities in Spain led by Universia, CRUE, and Banco Santander-Universidades are considering how this experimental technology might work for some of their online courses. ]

- Vasudev Ram - Dancing Bison Enterprises

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The OpenCourseWare Consortium

By Vasudev Ram


I got to know about the OpenCourseWare Consortium via visiting the Saylor Foundation site again while writing my blog post of today about the Saylor Foundation's $20,000 Open Textbook Challenge.

(The Saylor Foundation seems to be a member of the OpenCourseWare Consortium.)

The OpenCourseWare Consortium (OCWC) "is a collaboration of higher education institutions and associated organizations from around the world creating a broad and deep body of open educational content using a shared model."

Links about them:

The OpenCourseWare Consortium - About Us.

More about the OCWC.

OCWC Board of Directors.

OCWC Staff.

What is OpenCourseWare?

I guess it all started with the OpenCourseWare initiative of MIT.

- Vasudev Ram - Dancing Bison Enterprises

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Saylor Foundation's $20,000 Open Textbook Challenge

By Vasudev Ram


I had blogged recently about the Saylor Foundation, which offers free online courses in Computer Science and other topics. One advantage of their courses seems to be that you can take them at your own pace, as contrasted to some of the other free online courses which you have to finish in a fixed amount of time - which is the duration of the course.

Today I read about the Saylor Foundation's $20,000 Open Textbook Challenge. This seems like something that may of interest to people who have written textbooks on relevant topics that the Foundation conducts courses on.

Excerpt from the Saylor Foundation's Open Textbook Challenge page:

[ The Saylor Foundation is offering $20,000 for accepted textbooks aligning with eligible Saylor Foundation courses, if the copyright holder will re-license them as CC-BY!

Did you know that, according to the College Board, the average college student at a four-year public school spends over $1,000 for textbooks each year? This means that in just America alone, the total cost for course materials is in the billions of dollars. These high costs are greatly impacting students’ access to education, with 7 of 10 students reporting they’ve not purchased a textbook simply because of its cost.

We need to provide a cost-free alternative, and we need your help doing so. If you know about a textbook that might be eligible for inclusion in one of The Saylor Foundation’s free, online college-level courses, let us know! We are offering potentially millions of dollars in bounties and awards for referrals and submissions that meet our criteria. ]

- Vasudev Ram - Dancing Bison Enterprises

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Of black chairs and MacBook Airs

By Vasudev Ram


The Siege of Academe.

Though I meant the post title as a joke, the article itself is interesting.

It's about how startups are changing higher education. Though it mentions somewhat well-known ones such as Udacity, Coursera, and Udemy, it also talks about other interesting ones like Quizlet and OpenStudy. But more than even that, what I found of interest was the general concepts (mentioned in the article), that startups are applying for this area.

- Vasudev Ram - Dancing Bison Enterprises

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MIT free online beginner's Python programming course

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-00sc-introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming-spring-2011/

The course is suitable for people with no programming experience. This is part of MIT's OpenCourseWare project (OCW), via which a huge part (all?) of MIT's courses are made available free online for anyone to use.

- Vasudev Ram
www.dancingbison.com
twitter.com/vasudevram

A Stanford-quality Masters in Computer Science online for $2000

By Vasudev Ram - dancingbison.com | @vasudevram | jugad2.blogspot.com

Just saw this tweet by Dr. Sebastian Thrun ( http://twitter.com/#!/SebastianThrun ):

"Who here would love to get a CS Master's degree online, if it is of Stanford quality and only costs $2000 in tuition? Please reply."

Link to the tweet, in original form (not shortened):

http://twitter.com/#!/SebastianThrun/status/112397835370115072

Looks like he may be planning to organize and offer such a course if there is enough interest. The online AI Class (
http://www.ai-class.com ) to be taught by him and Peter Norvig (this fall / autumn), and which will also be based on the same content as taught to that class at Stanford, has gotten a huge number of signups - over 50 or 70 thousand or maybe even over a 100 thousand by now - I saw reports earlier of 50K (sure) and 70K (IIRC), but that was some days ago and I did not track it after that.

So reply to that tweet of his if you are interested - the more people indicate interest, the more likely that the course will happen.

Posted via email

- Vasudev Ram @ Dancing Bison

Free Stanford online AI class by Peter Norvig and Sebastian Thrun

By Vasudev Ram - dancingbison.com | @vasudevram | jugad2.blogspot.com

Seen on Hacker News - http://news.ycombinator.com

Stanford University - http://stanford.edu - is going to offer a free online course on AI (Artificial Intelligence), taught by Peter Norvig and Sebastian Thrun. You can read more details about the course offering, the instructors,
and sign up for it, all at: http://www.ai-class.com/

Excerpts:

[ The class runs from Sept 26 through Dec 16, 2011. While this class is being offered online, it is also taught at Stanford University, where it continues to be a popular intro-level class on AI. For the online version, the instructors aim to offer identical materials, assignments, and exams, and to use the same grading criteria. ]

[ Peter Norvig is Director of Research at Google Inc. He is also a Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and the Association for Computing Machinery. Norvig co-authored Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, which is the world's most popular text book on Artificial Intelligence. ]

[ Sebastian Thrun is a Research Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, a Google Fellow, a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the German Academy of Sciences. Thrun is best known for his research in robotics and machine learning. ]

- Vasudev Ram @ Dancing Bison

John Resig, jQuery creator, joining Khan Academy

By Vasudev Ram - http://www.dancingbison.com

John Resig, the creator of jQuery, the widely used JavaScript library, is joining Salman Khan's (*) Khan Academy, which develops free online courses and videos for various topics.

(*) Not the Indian movie star of the same name :-) This Salman Khan lives and works in the US, though he does have a partly Indian background.

Resig earlier worked for around 4 years for Mozilla. He's going to work full time on leading the open source and JavaScript efforts of the Khan Academy, according to his blog post (linked below).

John Resig: http://ejohn.org/about/

jQuery: http://jquery.com/

Khan Academy: http://www.khanacademy.org/

Mozilla: http://www.mozilla.org/

Here is John Resig's blog post about this news:

http://ejohn.org/blog/next-steps-in-2011/

(*) jQuery users include Google, Dell, Bank of America, Major League Baseball, Digg, NBC, CBS News, Netflix, Technorati, Mozilla, Wordpress, Drupal, according to the jQuery site.

I had blogged recently about Salman Khan and his Khan Academy, here:

Bill Gates' favorite teacher, Sal Khan:

http://jugad2.blogspot.com/2011/04/bill-gates-favorite-teacher-sal-khan.html

Posted via email
- Vasudev Ram - Dancing Bison Enterprises

School of Webcraft, free online courses and study groups

By Vasudev Ram - http://www.dancingbison.com

The School of Webcraft is an online school with free courses and study groups, organized by Mozilla and Peer 2 Peer University. Anyone, anywhere, can start/conduct or take a course.

The School of Webcraft FAQ is here; it should answer many questions you may have:

http://p2pu.org/webcraft/school-webcraft-frequently-asked-questions

Mozilla is here: http://www.mozilla.org/

Peer 2 Peer University is here: http://p2pu.org/

Posted via email
- Vasudev Ram - Dancing Bison Enterprises