Description
Brett Becker (UCD) and Keith Quille (IT Tallaght) will jointly discuss the current state of Python in education, internationally and nationally. Brett will focus on Python education on an international level, with a focus on introductory programming courses (CS1), for both uptake trends and research findings. This then sets the scene for Keith to discuss the current state of Python in Irish education, with a specific focus on the new Leaving Certificate Computer Science Subject, which has just started its phase one. Details of the subject and its content, in particular Python will be presented. Finally an overview of a large scale initiative is described, where in the 2017-2018 academic year, the team traveled to 95 schools and delivered computing camps to just under 3000 students. This was run in parallel to teacher continuous professional development (delivered to 500 teachers), where the Python played a significant role. Interesting anecdotal findings are presented, and the plan for the initiative for the 2018-2019 academic year is described, where the team hopes to reach almost 6000 students.