Starting this Monday (January 14), Charles Severance (Dr. Chuck) from the School of Information will be teaching an 8-week Python mini-course as part of SI301.  The course is based on the SI502 textbook (Python for Informatics). The course features a free book, free lectures on Youtube, and an online auto-grader that will instantly grade your homework. All of the course materials are Creative Commons so other teachers can replicate the course if they like.

Dr. Chuck has built some technical infrastructure that allows open enrollment in the course – so anyone – anywhere in the world can take the course alongside the SI301 students. Anyone is welcome to take the class. You can join at:
http://online.dr-chuck.com/

Once you log into the site with your Google account, you can join two courses:

DCO042 – Python Playground

DCO142 – Python for Informatics

The first is a playground that is always open for exploration while the second course is the one that starts Monday, January 14, and has its first due date Friday January 25. If you take the DCO142 class, to keep up will take 2-5 hours per week of lectures, homework, etc.

You can see a map of the students who have explored the Playground here:

There are over 150 students already registered for DCO142.   Folks with the blue icons have completed the playground and folks with green icons have registered but not earned any points yet.

Here is the first Chapter lecture.  This lecture is longer than most of the Chapter lectures – the rest of the Chapter lectures will be between 20 and 40 minutes.

There will be no credit for DC142 and no certificate or badge – but you do get your name on a map!

You are welcome to join and take the course – there is no downside if you start and don’t finish it since you did not pay for it! For students who have taken SI502 – the material will be a nice review and very familiar.