Did you have something you wanted to add? I'll just tell you a funny r1 quickly, which is that Russell and I saw the value in Python because Russell and I get in trouble every couple of weeks because we never take our attendance. And it's like the major paperwork, bureaucratic thing in education is you have to take your attendance. And Russell came in the classroom, and he's like, I wrote a piece of code that will take attendance for us. And suddenly I'm like, I must learn this Python coding thing. Hello, and welcome to the Pibytes podcast, where we talk about Python career and mindset. We're your hosts. I'm Julian Sequeira. And I am Bob Valdebos. If you're looking to improve your python, your career, and learn the mindset for success, this is the podcast for you. Let's get started. Welcome back, everybody, to the Pivots podcast. This is Bob Baldebos. And today, a very special episode where we have two teachers from California, which I will introduce and I'm honored to have on the show. Russell and Alex, welcome to Pibyte's podcast. How are you doing today? We're doing great, man. Thanks for having us. Super excited to be here and talk about Python and all the other things that we're doing in the classroom. Great to be here. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for joining. And some of you might recognize Russell's voice because he launched the newbie Byte series on our YouTube channel, 25 exercises. So thanks for that. Yeah. So, maybe, first of all, do you both want to introduce yourselves? What do you do as teachers? And Python, how long have you been using Python for, and what do you use it for? Totally. I guess I'll start. So, my name is Russell Helmsetter, and I've been a teacher at De Anza Academy of Technology in the art for about eight years now. And I actually only started programming with Python in March of 2020. So with the lockdowns and everything that happened with COVID we were not able to go out very many places and do all the things that we were used to doing. And so I decided that I was going to take that time to develop some new skills. And one of the skills that I settled on was I was going to learn how to code in python. And it just so happened that the following school year, our original computer science teacher was moving out of state. And so I became a math teacher in addition to a coding teacher. And I kind of moved into that position. And now I've been doing math and coding both for two school years, and so it's kind of happened really quickly, and we'll talk about the design and engineering academy that we're going to put together a little bit later in the show, I'm sure, but it's been a really recent development for me, and before that, it was nothing but math. Nice addition and a lot going on in a short time. Yeah. What about you, Alex? So, yeah, my name is Alex Wolf, and I've been teaching for close to 23 years now. And for the past decade or so, I've been at De Anza and I've been teaching project based math science class, which kind of integrates all the math and science skills into engineering projects, like designing wind turbines and solar rovers and aquaponics setups, etcetera. And then I also get to teach a two period elective that's a combination of entrepreneurs and design and manufacturing. So we got a classroom loaded with lasers and cncs and 3d printers and water jets, and kids get to design and manufacture all kinds of cool products and then market and sell them. And up to now, my experience with coding has been mainly either in trying to kind of program machines and get them to do what I want them to do some programming with drones, to get fpv racing drones to act the way that they want to. But I'm really excited to learn how to learn from Russell, how to make things happen in the physical world using Python and code. That's so cool, Julian. It must have big FOMo right now, and I want to join the university again because that's so much cool stuff going on. And, yeah, I really want to dive in deeper how you combine programming with all these interesting disciplines. So thanks for that introduction. I hear drones, Rovers. So I'm really excited to hear about. Yeah. General overview of the program. Yeah, let's. Let's jump right into it. So, Alex and I are both fortunate enough that we teach a core class, which here in California at least, is math and science. And so we had taught that pretty much. And you can correct me if I'm wrong, but we both started with math and science, and then only after that did we have the elective class. So where Alex's elective is the makerspace. My elective is a standalone computer science class. And the advantage to that is we have the opportunity to see where we can combine these elective skills of coding and all the makerspace stuff with the core skills of math and science. And so, moving forward, the goal for me on my end is to, how do I use python to teach math in a better way? For students. And I'll let Alex talk about his goal as well. But I think it's the same. How can we use the makerspace technologies to better teach math and science? Yeah, I think the magic is we can make the learning that's happening in the classroom immediately relevant, as opposed to something that, in some nebulous future, will reap a benefit. So, an example, one of the projects we discussed, kids have made their own Bluetooth speakers in makerspace class, and it's been a hardware project almost exclusively, an amplifier, a charging module, some 18 650 batteries, and soldering, and then getting on CNC machines and cutting it out. So now, if you integrate math with this, and you say, look, we need to achieve a volume of exactly 0.25 cubic inches, or 0.25 cubic feet, rather, to get this thing to work exactly as it should, but it's composed of all these regular and irregular polygons. If you think about it, we're not just making a rectangular speaker here. We're making something that looks like a Pokemon character. Now, kids are having to break this thing down and calculate the volume, but it gets super exciting. If we can now integrate raspberry PI Pico with it that's been coded in Python to respond to different sound frequencies and then control a strip of programmable led lights, you can see how everything becomes better and more interesting. And it also, I think it keeps us from pigeonholing kids, where some kids say, I'm into computer science or I'm into making, or I'm a math kid, or I'm a language arts kid. And those are all kind of. To me, those are false categories. And if you have an engaging project and you can integrate all those skills together, you really bring the learning to life in all the different disciplines. So that's our goal with the DEA next year, is to do that throughout the year for a three year span for kids. So it really sounds like you have a more holistic approach here of combining math with science with python and also physical objects, which seems very interesting and useful for the students. Right? That's the goal. Yeah, that's totally the goal. And so I think what Alex was alluding to was before it would happen, at a much smaller scale, where maybe there was a handful of students in our school who happened to have Alex in 6th grade for math and science. And then maybe at some point, either in 6th grade or maybe not even until 8th grade, they would have me for the coding elective, and maybe they had me for 7th grade math, but not for 8th grade math. Right. And so we, we would essentially have to start over every single year, and we didn't know what skill sets kids were coming in with. And so starting next school year is going to be the initial cohort for our design and engineering academy, where every 6th grader who is in the design and engineering academy, we'll have Alex for math and science, and they'll have me for the coding computer science elective. And so now we have a group of about 70 students who we know what they're going to be covering in 6th grade. And then as they go on to 7th grade, they'll have me for a math class, and they'll have Alex for a standalone elective class with the makerspace. We've also invited a third colleague to be a part of this, and she teaches language arts and social science. And so now we're even expanding past math, science makerspace and coding, and we're saying, okay, well, if you're studying ancient Japan in your history class, how can you use the computer science and the makerspace technology that you learned in the 6th grade to demonstrate your understanding of ancient Japan? Right? And maybe that's, I think the example that we have in our brochure is a kid made a topographical map of Japan on the CNC engraver or on the CNC router and the laser engraver. And so it's just this beautiful project that uses that. And so by having this academy where they have us in 6th grade and then 7th grade, and then in 8th grade, they have a capstone project that is kind of the culmination of all of these skills. We now have a cohort of kids where we can expand upon, like those individual projects. The most popular 6th grade project in mass science class is an aquaponics projects, where kids engineer their own aquaponics setups. We look at biotic and abiotic ecosystem factors and how they relate, and then we try to biomimicry healthy ecosystems in nature by building our own aquaponics setup in the classroom. And then we monitor for the nitrogen cycle, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. And then we also look at how we can effectively biomimic abiotics. Well, to do that, one amazing thing is to build sensors. So if we can use Python to code everything from temperature to light level to, to sensors, and then to collect that data for us, that makes an amazing project, like light years beyond what it was before, right? So before a kid sitting there, maybe with a thermometer, putting it in the water every day to measure the temperature, and instead, now they're getting, like, real time monitoring, and they're actually getting, like, telemetry from their setup, like, feeding into their chromebooks. It changes everything. It brings it to a home. That's what I'm most excited about, about working with Russell and learning more about Python. So that's just one example. But I think there are countless examples of how every project that we do can be enhanced by the computer science aspect, by, in particular, Python coding. So, yeah, that's an amazing, a very concrete example of how your side of the teaching will be enhanced by Russell's side of the more Python enhanced skills. Right. So, yeah, that's really cool. And that can have a great impact. Yeah. And I think the goal is to not even. It doesn't always have to be Python centric. It's just that Python is what I'm the most comfortable with. And I think that it's probably one of the most. It's one of the easiest languages to learn right now, that it's easy to learn. But if you compare it to some of the more terse languages, it's lights and ears, lights, light years, just different. Right. And so another example of a project is, in 6th grade, they manufacture wind turbines, and then they're going to collect data where they collect all of these different data samples, and they run through and they'll calculate the range of the data sample, and they'll calculate the mean of the data sample, and they'll do all these different things that are 6th grade math and science standards. In the 6th grade, you learn what the mean is, I'm sure, before as well. But it's one of the things that you have to cover in 6th grade. And so they'll do the data collection, and they'll do the engineering on the laser engravers and the CNC machines, and they'll do all of that with Alex. But now, starting next year, they'll definitely have him and they'll definitely have me. So now they come to a computer science class and they say, well, hey, remember when you, like, hand wrote all of those data points and you had to calculate the mean by hand? We can put that into an express, an Excel spreadsheet, and it will calculate the mean for you and organize it and print out a very beautiful chart of your data that then you can take back to Alex's class. And now you have a professional level chart for your wind report for science class. Right? And then by the time that gets to maybe the end of 6th grade, into 7th and 8th grade, maybe we do all of that directly in python with something like pandas and Matplotlib. Right. And so it's this gradual progression of using computer science tools to enhance whatever else you have to do, right, because you're probably. My guess is that most of our students are not going to become professional wind turbine engineers. That just doesn't play out with the numbers. But it's probably really important for whatever our students go on to do that they know how to use the tools that are around them to make whatever they have to get done better. That whole vertical integration piece is key, right. So that we know what the hard skills are that kids have coming in. If you know that 70 students in front of you all know how to solder, or if you know that 70 kids in front of you all have basic computer science skills, you can then adjust your projects based on that. You can still have what we call low floor, high ceiling in education, but it's at least in the same room, whereas right now we have some kids coming in who have basically zero experience in any of the disciplines and other kids who've already mastered significant amounts of them, and it makes it very challenging. So this design and engineering academy should provide more continuity, a really strong vertical integration, and allow kids to do things in 6th and 7th and 8th grade that they typically would not be doing until they got to the university level. It sounds pretty advanced and complicated and a bit more about the background then. So it seems like it was a bit disintegrated or the knowledge was sparse or the cohort. The students were not really well aligned. What are other motivations behind this shift or this change where you're going to? What's the backstory? Oh, man, that's a really great question. I think that we were kind of doing things individually that were pretty cool, right? Like, my plan was to integrate python with the mathematics learning, and Alex has been doing the project based learning in the math and science class for years now. And so the motivation, by taking it to the next step with this academy, is that it's no longer going to be happenstance that you had Alex in 6th grade, and then maybe you had him in 7th grade or maybe you didn't. But we can actually offer a true choice to students. If computer science and making is something that you're interested in, you can now still come to de Anza, which is the overall school that we have. But now you have a pathway for three school years where you can go as deep as you're willing to go. Right? So however much effort that individual student wants to put into this there, we can actually, you know, increase that by having that three year pathway where you start in 6th grade with your fundamentals. 7th grade, you continue to explore, and then 8th grade, you're really like, the. The onus is on the student now, right? That 8th grade capstone project is a design and implementation of a project that they've created, and it's still open ended, where they can go more of an entrepreneurial route and make partnerships with local businesses. Or if they're really into the software side, instead of physically making projects, they can design websites or they can write software. And so that was kind of, at least for me. And maybe Alex can add on to this as well. For me, that was the main motivation. Right. How can we. How can we offer the greatest amount of opportunity to a bigger selection of students than a student who happened to have us kind of just through chance in the system? I would echo that. I think for me, too, there is a selfish component that I really wanted to work with other teachers who. Who inspire me so that I could continue to learn. I also felt troubled by the fact that I would have students in my class who didn't really want to be there at the same time as there were students coming up to me in the hallway saying, can I please get into your class? I wanted to have some semblance of control over that. And then I think maybe the pie in the sky reason is, you know, I'm 50 years old, I've got maybe another decade in, and I feel like I've been pushing for change my entire career. And this seems like a great way to provide a model for some systemic change. Not saying everybody should do exactly what we're doing, but that there are definitely some key components to what we're trying to accomplish here that I think could vastly improve the education system overall. And I would like to prove that with the help of these amazing guys who I'm working with, Russell and Monica. Cool. And related to the previous question, was this initiative purely from you two, or was it, like, from higher up and go implement? Or was this purely, like, we have this idea and we bring it to management, and you got that freedom. I can't believe they're letting us do it. We're so happy. Right? So we've been wanting to do something this for a long time, you know, and in the educational bureaucracy, there have always been some challenges, but we've got some great leadership now, both on the site level and higher up superintendent of schools who are just kind of willing to say, look, if you want to try and make something happen. We're going to support you. And I don't know. What are your thoughts on that one? Yeah, I totally second that. I would actually say before September, October of this school year, right. So I don't know what it's like in Europe or what it's like in Australia, but we start school in August. Right. And so by even by September October, this wasn't even on our radar. Right. This wasn't something that we were going to put together. And our, we have a new principle this year. And so he actually gave us, he opened up the opportunity to any teacher on staff if they wanted to go take tours and look at other programs in the, in the area that were doing things. And he, he, I don't know, made the mistake of letting us on this committee, maybe, and we just kind of ran with it. And he, our principal has been really empowering from that standpoint where he's like, yeah, as long as you have a game plan and as long as you have something that you can demonstrate is viable, I'll do whatever I can on my end. And then he's actually put his money where his mouth is and he's held meetings with district level and we're putting together budgets for next school year. And he's okayed it through the master schedule, which is the set of classes that are going to be available for next school year. And it's just kind of come together in the last six months, give or take. I would add that I think we both have a really strong entrepreneurial mindset. We went out and recruited kids for this program on our own, been writing grants forever and bringing in tens of thousands of dollars into the classroom. So it's not like we just suddenly came up with this maybe this specific idea. Yes. But this has definitely been 20 years in the making as far as building relationships with businesses, getting corporate support, building our own programs sort of independent of the traditional curricular pathway. And all three of the teachers who are involved in this program that's kind of the through line is that I feel like every one of us has always taken ownership of all components of the classroom and not been afraid to do things in non traditional ways. What's new here is that we have leadership who just says, yeah, okay, if you guys come up with a plan and you can make it work, I'll support it. And that's really exciting. Yeah. Happy to hear that. And that's super inspiring how you took initiative and that entrepreneurial mindset goes a long way. I think we all should have that in any discipline. Right. It's. We tend to get bogged down in our expertise, but, you know, if you cannot market it or find partnerships, you're not going to get very far. Right? So cool. Thanks for sharing that. Then maybe diving a bit more into the technology that you use in the classroom. And also, I heard that you use a platform called pivytes. How's that fitting in? Yeah, that's been one of the really cool things. Right. I spend a lot of time reading and going through Twitter and blog posts, and as much as I can, and I just try to preen all of the great ideas that I could find. And so one of the pieces that we've used in our math class for a long time is Khan Academy. Right. And what's the beautiful part about Khan Academy is not that it's the end all, be all, it's that it's one component that helps lay a foundation where you have short videos that describe how to do things, and then you have a set of mathematical challenges. And when I came across pie bytes, that was the immediate connection that I saw was, okay, if kids need to work on these fundamental python skills, they need to do it in a way that provides instant feedback, or at least close to instant feedback, so that they can continue to work independently. If they're working on their code on the weekend or sometime after school, I'm not sitting next to them and I can't say, oh, hey, you have an error on this line where you're missing a comma in your list items. But with pibytes, they have a short challenge that you can wrap your brain around. They can address the challenge by writing code, and then they get the instant feedback from pytest. To me, that was just like, how do I get this into my coding class? And so I also listened to the podcast teaching Python with Sean and Kelly, and I think that's where I actually first heard about pivots. So I heard about it from them. Found it online somewhere, right? And it was like, how do I find a way to get this into my classroom? And again, I reached out to our principal. I said, hey, like, I have this idea. I kind of want to incorporate this for part of our curriculum. What do you think about this? It was like, yeah, I'll bring it to the school site council, and we'll see if we can get it funded. And we funded it, and I think we've been running it since January, right. Which has been just absolutely incredible. Happy you did. How did the students react to those weird PI test outputs. So that is. That is always an ongoing challenge. Right? You just see, like, a wall of red, and they're like, uh, Mister Helmson, or, my code is broken. And then they're, like, not necessarily friendly. Yeah, it's very. Not initially, I try really hard to be like, no, no, no. You guys don't understand, like, the error messages are your friends, right? If you read through it carefully, they will literally tell you what you did wrong. They haven't bought into that idea quite yet, but they're getting there. Right. But one of the great things, and I'm sure that as developers, other people have realized this, too, is, like, when you finally are working on a problem and you finally get all that green. That is such a good feeling when all those tests pass. Yeah. Gamification is there. And you shared the other day a wall of certificates. I think I counted 58 newbie certificates. So that's 58 times 25 exercises done. And those are only the newbies. I guess they're on the intros now and the beginner. So that's many exercises. They're. They're crushing it, right? Yeah, absolutely. Um, in the. In the coding class, it was the newbie bites, and the intro bytes were kind of due by the end of the quarter, and so there was a big push during grading time where everybody was flying through the pie bytes as much as they could. And then I actually assigned the newbie bites to my math students as well, because we're integrating the python with math, and so it's been really cool to see them kind of further their python journey, even though they're not necessarily quote unquote computer science students. Right. But it's been. It's just been one more way for me to help get those foundational skills for a larger group of students. Cool. But that only covers the python. Right. What are some other technologies and tools you guys use in the classroom? Wow. Okay. So I'm pretty sure I'll start with one of my favorites. We're probably the only middle school that has a water jet cutter in our classroom, so with a water jet, you're basically using a stream of water and aggregate to cut any material up to, like, one inch thick. Wow. Yeah. We also have a plasma cutting CNC, which is basically a lightsaber on a CNC machine that we can cut objects out of metal with. We have a couple of CO2 lasers, which are great for designing and cutting things out of either wood, the or cast acrylics. We've got fiber lasers, so we can do metal engraving and metal cutting. And we also have everything from vinyl to sublimation printing. Basically whatever you can can imagine. One of the ideas to bits to atoms is how we describe the classroom. Whatever you can imagine, you can go to the computer and design it, and then you can hold it in your hands, oftentimes in just a matter of hours, which is, you know, that's amazing. And they're still coding on our platform because our platform is so boring compared to that. But it's not, though. It's different. It's the connection, right. For me, for me as a teacher, you know, when I'm, when I'm hearing Russell here talk and listening to you as well, like, it makes me realize that if I'm going to be an effective teacher for my students, like, I need to learn the pie bytes platform better than I know it right now. And I need to get over my silo of like, well, I can use robotc to program these stepper motors and go, no, there's more to this. And I need to grow, too. And it seems to me that the Pibytes platform I'm very comfortable with. Kahn provides a great platform for teachers as well, just to move away from. I mean, there's nothing more ironic than using a paper and ink book to teach computer science, right? I mean, that's the same as using that same book to teach how to use a laser or something like, no, of course you don't do that. So I'm excited to better myself as a teacher through the platform as well. Awesome. So, yeah, thanks for sharing. This is super exciting. Is there anything else you want to share? Just free form. I actually want to circle back to a comment that Alex made earlier about making kind of a model program for other people to not necessarily emulate. Right. But to inspire other people to kind of make it, make whatever program they want to make. And part of that is we're going to partner with a local university and we're going to get a group of student teachers into the classroom. And so they're talking about making some type of certificated program where they'll send us, you know, teacher interns or other people who want to become teachers and they'll work with us in our program, right. Because I can tell you that there was nothing that I experienced in the credentialing program or anything like that that covered PBL at a level like this and how to incorporate technology and makerspace technology into the classroom. Right. And so if we can open up other incoming teachers eyes that this is even a possibility. I think that is an amazing opportunity. Right. When I first started at De Anza, I think Alex had been there for a couple years more than me, but had been a teacher for almost a decade or so before that. And just some of the things that he's shown me has drastically changed the trajectory of my career. It's doable to write a grant and get funding for projects. Like, oh, like if somebody tells you no, well, then repackage it and ask again. Right. And if you get the second note, you're going to go find a different person to ask. Right. And just. Just having those little mindset pieces or, you know, just dispositions really has changed who I am as a teacher and what I think of is possible in education. And if we can do that for new incoming teachers, I think that that has a ripple effect to future perspective students as well. It's kind of a mentoring thing. Right. To raise the next generation teachers. So teachers listening. Right. And they would be interesting. They need to reach out. Right? Yeah. I'll add in then, too, that teachers can certainly reach out. And if you're anywhere local. We were talking about the entrepreneurial component before I actually incorporated with a group of students back in 2017. And we were actually building a shared facility about five blocks from our school where people can come and access all of that same equipment and shared expertise and come and learn. So we'll have over $150,000 in equipment and it's just a membership model similar to a makerspace. But the added component is that we actually then pair students with local businesses and they can manufacture products and sell directly to local businesses and establish themselves as entrepreneurs as early as 7th grade. And for teachers, we offer professional development and we will repair their equipment for them and offer them all the support over time. We want to innovate, but we don't always know what we don't know as a golden opportunity. Yeah, it'll be fun. Yeah. It's going to be called the idea center in Ventura. So cool. Well, thanks so much, Russell and Alex, for joining today. Any final piece of advice or shout out for our audience? Oh, man. Advisor shoutouts I would definitely shout out to teaching Python with Sean and Kelly because I've definitely learned a lot from their program and they've been super helpful just having a little bit of inspiration. I can always count on them for something like that. And then I would actually say thank you to you and Julian for putting together pie bites because I think it's going to be a really fundamental aspect of our program moving forward. Glad to hear that. Thanks. I'm just, you know, hope your audience knows that, you know, for us, collaboration is everything and we would love to hear from them. And if anybody wants to work with us and has suggestions or questions, we'd love to work with them, too. That's been the most exciting thing for me, getting to work with Russell and Monica and other really dynamic educators out there. So hopefully keep doing that. Thanks. Yeah, maybe, maybe one more thing that we can add too is we're a fully public school, right? So we're the only publicly funded school in the US that's using pie bites, which I think is just super cool to kind of be the pioneer in that aspect. And if, if people like what they hear and they're interested in having more of this type of thing in schools, like, absolutely, please reach out to us. We're more than. I'll speak for myself. Right. Like, I'm more than happy to share anything that I put together. And I know that Alex has always been really generous with his time and, you know, he's put together professional development trainings for teachers in the years past. I think we've had at least one every summer for the last two or three summers. You know, we're just, he's literally getting machines into the hands and classrooms of teachers. And so if people are interested in that, reach out to us. And if people are not necessarily in education themselves, but they see this type of thing as important, we would love to have, you know, donations or just word of mouth or anything like that for either Alex's nonprofit that he's put together, which is called St. Ambassadors, and maybe he can give you a little bit more information or you can just email us directly and then we'll get you our emails and all that information we can put in the show notes. Awesome, I appreciate that. Yeah, we will put all these details in the show notes so people please reach out. There's a lot of opportunity. Well, thanks again for joining. Super interesting chat and yeah, keep up the great work. Really exciting to see what you guys doing. So thanks a lot. Thank you. Thanks for having us, Bob. We hope you enjoyed this episode. To hear more from us, go to Pibyte friends, that is Pibit es friends and receive a free gift just for being a friend of the show and to join our thriving slack community of Python programmers, go to Pibytes community, that's pibit es forward slash community. We hope to see you there and catch you in the next episode.