Bluesky & YouTube, Doc Examples, Math
by matthias.hauswirth＠usi.ch
Dear all,
Welcome to the first LuCE newsletter since our big survey!
Thank You for Participating in our Teacher Survey on Programming Language Concepts!
We are super happy that so many of you participated in our survey. We received almost 100 completed surveys! Of course this also means that the data analysis is going to take us a while; there are thousands of text responses we have to analyze.
We will let you know once we are done and have written up the paper. We will then also update the ProgMiscon web site, to reflect the new information (including statistics about the prevalence and importance you attributed to the specific misconceptions).
https://progmiscon.org/misconceptions/Python/
Follow us on Bluesky and YouTube for weekly educational nuggets
Here in Ticino, we don’t need to go up Monte Tamaro to get above the clouds. We often have a blue sky right at USI in Lugano. So when thinking about which social media platform to go to, Bluesky seemed like a neat choice. If you are on social media, and specifically on Bluesky, you may want to welcome us into your bubble by following us:
https://bsky.app/profile/pytamaro.bsky.social – PyTamaro-related
https://bsky.app/profile/progmiscon.bsky.social – Misconception-related
https://bsky.app/profile/luceresearchlab.bsky.social – Our work in general
Starting in 2025, we will post weekly YouTube videos related to programming education. Follow us on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@pytamaro – Videos about PyTamaro
https://www.youtube.com/@luceresearchlab – General videos by our group
Even Better Python Documentation
We already wrote about Luca’s Judicious Python library documentation. Guess what? He improved it! If you aren’t using it yet, you may want to check it out:
https://pytamaro.si.usi.ch/documentation
What’s new? Examples! Each function or constant now includes one or more example code snippets with the corresponding result and/or output. And, of course, the examples of PyTamaro functions show the resulting graphics.
True to its name, the system judiciously shows those examples: if you decide to not show optional function parameters (because you haven’t explained the idea of optional parameters yet), the examples that use optional parameters are hidden as well.
[A screenshot of a computer Description automatically generated.png] [A screenshot of a computer Description automatically generated.png]
Each function is documented on its own page, so you can link to it. For example, if you want to point your students to the documentation of Python’s built-in enumerate function, or the radians function in Python’s math library, or the hexdigits constant in Python’s string library, just link there:
https://pytamaro.si.usi.ch/documentation/builtins/enumerate
https://pytamaro.si.usi.ch/documentation/math/radians
https://pytamaro.si.usi.ch/documentation/string/hexdigits
For the functions and constants we documented, the Judiciuos documentation pages probably include everything a programmer needs to know. Nevertheless, we include a link to the corresponding section in the official Python documentation (thanks, Marcel, for the suggestion!).
PyTamaro in Math: An Application of the Laws of Sine & Cosine
If you teach math in high school, at some point you teach the law of sine and the law of cosine. Why not have students implement a set of Python functions that employ those laws to make it possible to construct triangles given sides and angles? Check out our PyTamaro activity! (Don’t hesitate to provide feedback if you see something that could be improved!)
https://pytamaro.si.usi.ch/activities/luce/triangles-sides-angles/en/v1
Happy New Year!
[A snowman with a red hat and a red scarf Description automatically generated.png]
All the best from Lugano,
Matthias and the LuCE team
PS: You can find this and the previous message in our mailing list archive:
https://lists.usi.ch/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/luce-news@lists.usi.ch/
If you would like to unsubscribe from our list, or if you would like to update your email address, simply let me (Matthias.Hauswirth(a)usi.ch) know. You also can do it yourself here:
https://lists.usi.ch/mailman3/postorius/lists/luce-news.lists.usi.ch/
6 months