Activateen

The purpose of this workshop is to give you general information about the importance of programming in today’s world, the general function of a computer, and an introduction to how a computer program is written using the very popular programming language called Python.

Python is an easy to learn programming language with a wide variety of well-paying jobs in many fields, including data science, web development, and network programming.  There couldn’t be a better time for you to join the world of Python!

The course will be taught by Lynden Rosier, a highly regarded computer science teacher with over 30 years of teaching experience as well as tech industry experience.

What you will learn:

You will learn that a computer is not magical, that software is not magical, and yet most anybody can learn how to program. You will learn how the CPU interacts with the RAM memory and external storage. You will learn how to use an online programming environment to write some programs (code). You will also learn a little bit about some computer buzz words like encryption, AI, etc. You will learn a little bit about how real-world type software works behind the scenes in the code.

• Interpreted vs. Compiled Code
• Commenting in your code
• Printing on the Console
• Arithmetic Operators
• Arithmetic Expressions
• Assignment Operators
• Relational Operators
• Logical Operators
• Variables and Types (integers, floats, strings, boolean, classes)
• if Statements
• if elif Statements
• Ranges
• Loops
• Built in Functions
• Lists (arrays)
• Classes

Requirements

• A computer
• Access to the internet,
• An interest in learning Python
• High level of proficiency in English because of the technical language
• Basic math knowledge: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, knowledge of types of numbers such as integers and decimal numbers, exponentiation, etc.
• A willingness to interact and collaborate.  

Who this course is for:

• Teens and college students interested in programming who have no prior programming experience
• Students taking a Python class in school who want a supplementary learning resource
• This course is NOT for experienced Python programmers

Teacher: Lynden Rosier

Lynden was born and raised in Michigan.  He received his Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Michigan State University.  He later got his MIS (programming) degree from The University of Texas at Dallas. Teaching was his path from the start. He started teaching 8th and 9th grade math in 1977 in Maryland and later started teaching math and computer science (programming) in 1980 at Richardson ISD.

He moved with his family to Austin in 1998 and began teaching at Eanes Independent School District in 2002. He started first at West Ridge Middle School and then later at Westlake High School.  He has taught for 39 years.  He also worked as a programmer for Schools Open (part-time and full time) for 14 years, and worked for Texas Instruments (part-time and full time) for 3 years as an educational consultant.  His teaching and programming jobs were usually simultaneous.  He is currently teaching computer science at Westlake High School in Austin, TX and has been teaching there for 18 years.  He is married to Kelly Rosier who is also a teacher, and has a daughter Shannon Rosier who is a student at Texas State University.