Description
This online Python programming class will be a 16-week course and consists of our beginner, intermediate and advanced courses (these are available as 5-week classes).
Our online python programming class assumes students have no prior coding knowledge. Python is one of the easiest programming languages for beginners to learn. However, I would suggest students first complete our Scratch course or have had some programming experience before taking this. Motivated high schoolers who are good at logic should be capable of the work without prior experience, though.
The class includes video instruction, exercises, quizzes, and small programs to write. Students can work whatever time of the day suits them, but they do need to meet deadlines. By the end of this course, students will be familiar with loops, conditionals, lists, tuples, dictionaries, manipulating strings, functions, classes, and some beginning graphics.
Students will need to download Python onto a laptop or desktop (either Mac or Windows).
This is a 16-week course, 1 semester online Python programming class.
Instructor: Meryl van der Merwe (ex-programmer) – meryl@fundafunda.com
Grades: Suitable for grades 7 -12
Hours: 3-4 hours each week
Credit Hours: 0.5 High School Credit
Syllabus: Available here
Fall Dates: August 19 – Dec 13 (with a week’s break over Thanksgiving)
Spring Dates: January 10 – May 2 (any week in March can be taken for Spring break)
View One Module Here
Matthew Rivera –
I took Mrs. van der Merwe’s class as a Junior in high school and loved it! It is a good base program to learn since it gets the user used to the logic behind programming but has fairly simple syntax. Mrs. van der Merwe’s videos are clear and easy to follow and the assignments are a lot of fun. I have since gone on to the college level and dabbled in a couple languages and have gone into some depth in matlab. Having a background in python made it easy to learn other languages since I only had to learn the new syntax because I had already been taught the thought process behind programming. I would strongly recommend this two anyone interested in programming.
Jonathan Ziesmer –
I took all of the Python classes a couple years ago. They taught me a lot and now I feel like I have a very solid understanding of Python.
August Smith –
I love this class! I learned so much, and it stretched my cognitive abilities to their limits, I mean just trying to think about how you’re going to code a program that allows you play a hangman or a lingo game is mind-boggling, but then slowly but surely everything comes together. Luckily when you get stuck you can always get help and Meryl does a great job of explaining the “how to”s and “why”s of Python programming.
I have found the Python knowledge I learned in this class very helpful! I took an online course that Rice University offered on Coursera.org and passed with an A, the only Python I had taken up to that point was this class and I was 14 years old. Also, I recently got a Raspberry Pi (https://www.raspberrypi.org/) witch is basically a mini computer that runs a Python based version of Linux.
Lily Turaski –
This is an excellent class for learning both universal computer science basics and the specific syntax for the Python language. Each week a new technique is taught through video lessons and online practice. Mrs. van der Merwe does a great job making the concepts easy to understand and accessible even for students with limited background knowledge. At the end of each week there is a project due that builds on cumulative skills. The projects are fun to code (often it is a game, like tic-tac-toe or battleships). The assignments at the end of each week continue to use skills learned in previous lessons. This repetition means that I feel very comfortable using all of the techniques we learned through the semester.
I sat in on a computer science class at MIT and was pleasantly surprised that I understood everything that was going on. I had very little computer science knowledge prior to my python class, and now I would be confident taking a computer science class on the college level. I recommend Python Programming through FundaFunda as great preparation for anyone.