Pybites Podcast

#165 - Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Integrating Python + AI in Education and Other Areas

Julian Sequeira & Bob Belderbos

Welcome back to our Pybites podcast. In this exciting episode we talk again with Kelly Schuster-Paredes about teaching Python, Pycon's education summit, how we are all learners and teachers, AI in education and for learning, how coding / programming skills evolve your brain far beyond their initial aim, exciting tech trends, mindset, wins and books. Phew that is a whole lot so make sure you tune in and get inspired!

Welcome back to the Pybites podcast. In this exciting episode, we reconnect with Kelly Schuster-Paredes to discuss the dynamic world of teaching Python.

We delve into PyCon's education summit, the dual roles of learners and teachers, and the transformative power of AI in education.

Discover how coding skills can evolve your brain, explore the latest tech trends, and gain insights into the right mindset for developers.

Plus, Kelly shares her recent wins and book recommendations. There's a lot to unpack in this episode, so tune in and get inspired!

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Teaching Python podcast

Book tip: Artificial Artifacts

Reach out to Kelly:
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- LinkedIn

The coding class for lawyers versus the kids who took the non coding class were actually deeper thinkers, more analytical. They were thinking through these law situations differently. And it was an interesting take because we fully believe, Sean and I, that by implementing coding, not necessarily coding for developers, but just that coding, the concept of learning how to code and changing your brain patterns and the way you think about problems is really like a beneficial take to other subject areas. 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 Baldebos. 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. Hello and welcome back, everybody. This is Bob Baldeboz, and I'm here with Kelly. Kelly Schuster. Paretis say the spanish way. Yeah, spanish way is great. Great. How are you? I'm good, thanks. Yeah. I cannot believe we have not spoken on this podcast since episode Zero Zero nine, which. Wow. Why didn't we do this earlier? I don't know, but I like to believe that that's because we're kind of like your first and your bestest friends. Recently, we got to meet again, pycon us, and it was a lot of fun and. Yeah, so you do a lot with Python. You teach, you host teaching Python for the people that don't know you yet or need a refresher, can you do a quick intro? Yeah. So, Kelly Schuster paredes. I'm a 6th grade, 8th grade computer science teacher. Teaching Python to 1010 year olds is always fun. Started learning Python when I was told that I had to teach Python, and that was scary. And that's kind of how we met you, because we were doing the code challenges. I think Sean put me on a couple to try to beef up my python knowledge, and then Julian's newbie bites were great, and I was doing those, trying to refresh and have a different way of teaching kids. And, yeah, that's me new Python Easter for, I think, now six years, seven years. Six years. Six years, I think. And we followed that journey closely. Right, because I think you started around 2018, and we met up at the Pycon, then at Cleveland, and you were just getting started, and since then a lot has happened, so. Yeah. And you host teaching Python. Maybe quickly share what that podcast is about. Absolutely. So, teaching Python podcast. Sean and I, Sean Tybur and I, we started it shortly before we went to Pycon in 2019 in December. I think 2018. We started it, and it was because we started having really great conversations. Sean is a really amazing coder. He picked up Python and I think, like, two weeks, just like, he's picking up terraform with no problem. Um, and. But he was a new teacher, and I am an experienced teacher, been around teaching for about 26 years. So we mentored each other and we were having these really great conversations. Me as a newbie coder and him as a newbie teacher. We started to cross our intelligences, how you, I guess, sum it up. And we mentored each other, and it just. We started talking around the lake and we said, you know what? We need to go in the classroom and record these. And that's how the teaching Python podcast came about, so that's awesome. We spoke with Sean here as well in episode 93. And. Yeah. How many episodes have you done so far? We just recorded a 138. We're. Right now, we're on a good schedule. We're recording live streaming on Mondays during the summertime. But when school starts and. And all the sports happen with our kids. He has two kids, I have two kids, and trying to match soccer and lacrosse and volleyball and basketball is. Is a fun time, so. Yeah, 138, though. Nice. Congratulations. Yeah, it's hard to fit it in, but also to stay consistent. Right. Because you always have to come up with new, new things and. Yeah, I think the new things. The new things are easy. The more I'm digging in, the more I'm seeing different takes on how Python is taught. So we're always trying to stay current on that, is just trying to find the time to squeeze that in. Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Like, as long as you're coding and building stuff, then it's relatively easy. Well, and you're teaching it. Right. So you constantly see what the students are doing and the questions they're asking. I think that must be a very fertile ground, right, to get topics from. Yeah. And then, like, they're pushing the boundaries with AI, so new things come up all the time that I have to, you know, Google or something or search on chat, GPT, because the kids are like, how is this working? Why is this happening? And I'm like, oh, I don't know. That's a great question. So it's always, always something popping up. Yeah. By the way, for, before I forget, good news for you and the students. We just expanded the newbie bytes from 25 to 50, so they're going to be so, so excited. But I saw Irene in there, but they do like them, right? Well, the 6th graders, they start off, it's a little bit of a trick, right? So the first seven, they're like, these are easy. And I'm like, that's because I'm a good teacher, because I always teach them a couple, you know, two weeks before and then they hit number eight with string methods and they're like, but you know, and then it starts going and going and you know, it gets increasingly harder, as it should, and then they get a little stuck and, and they, they do it though, after they're done, they're really excited. Have to tell them there's an extra, extra 30 for them. We'll save those for the 7th graders. Nice, nice, nice. Um, yeah, so before we go into the four or five questions I have, uh, do you want to share win of the week? Yeah. So I shared this on our episode on Monday, but I think it's a good one and I'm still working on it. I always play around with projects that never really come to full fruition, but they're still fun just to like keep my, my coding brain going. Um, and couple, like last year, year before I started working in flask, because I had taken a data science course and I wanted to practice on what I had learned from data science. And I was making an app, a really bad app in flask, coding it myself. And then recently someone was telling me about Django and oh, how I should go to the Django conference. And I said, yeah, but I know nothing about Django. And so I took my app from Flask and I said to chat GPT, I said, I need to, I want to convert this to Django, but you have to do everything in one step at a time, which is really important to tell Chat GPT because it'll spew out about 20 steps at a time. And so I'm building it and it's really interesting because I didn't realize it came fully packaged with Sqlite. And the whole foldering system was, I had to stop for a second. I was like, explain to me what's going on with this main project or my project and this other project and these two separate folders and the folder system. But it was cool. I have a somewhat working app. It's ugly, it's got a great overlay over the, over the, over the writing, which I have to dig in and figure out what's going on in the HTML. But it's cool because I'm using this documentation that I put into chat GPT to make sure that I'm pulling at least from that, from the memory. Yeah. And it's just been a fun little project that I've been doing this week and I'm going to keep finishing it because it was really cool having a form, putting it into database. I could access my database. Big learning curve, though. I know maybe about 0.09% of Django, I think. Probably a bit more. Yeah. Batteries included. Right, so you have your orm, your templating and migration system, so. But yeah, at the cost of a bit of a learning curve at the start. But what's really cool about AI tools is that you can make your own custom tutorials, right? So instead of having to go through a lot of docs and you can give it context. Right. So you gave your flask app and then you made a tutorial based on your app. So I think because of that it made more sense already because you're building what you want to build. Right, exactly. And I had already had this document of what I wanted, so I had this whole list of I want to have this form, I want to have all these things in it. And I think that's like a huge, huge twist with AI. And some people who use AI, they just say something like, I want to build a Django app. Well, that's going to be a complete disaster. But I gave a lot of pre information from my flask app and then my list of objectives to cover, so it makes it with a few twists and a few errors, but it's pretty good. Yeah. And you made an important point as well about the step by step. Like, it's very greedy in bouncing the steps over and over again. So you have to really ask it, like, to go one step at a time, be concise, and those kinds of hints will matter in just lost in a sea of information. Right. Yeah. And did you notice, I'm sorry, I digress, but did you notice in settings with the memory of chat GPT there, you can go in there and say one step at a time, this is my memory and I don't want you to give out ten steps. It forgets. But if you go back and ask it a couple of times, it stores it in its memory. It was a really cool feature that they. Yeah, I've not used that yet. I should. It's kind of setting a profile. Right. And sort of context from the start. Yeah. You can see everything that if you've had memory saved on with your settings, you can go in and delete what it saved about you. Now it knows everything that I started learning python in my forties. So that's like, it's a constant thing because I guess it's pulling from the Internet as well. But, yeah, it's pretty fun. Yeah. Cool. Awesome. So, yeah, let's move on to a couple of questions then. So at Pycon, you did the education submit. Yeah. So I'm just curious what it is, how you guys approached it and some of the takeaways stories. Yeah, tell me more about that. I love the education summit. If you've never been, which you need to come one time when you guys get there early, it's not held on the Thursday before the main conference of Pycon. And Sean and I co host. This is. That was our third year of co hosting the education summit. We're going to do it again next year and it's just a great time. We have so many people from unique backgrounds that come in to the education summit. We had Nick Tolliver and Anaconda's team come in and talk about Pyscript and how that can be incorporated. We had two lawyers from Duquesne University come in and share their experiences of introducing Python to non coders in the law. You know, the law profession. These kids that come in to be lawyers and they think they never have to code, they now are taking Python courses. I think they have like two or three. And they're going to end implement an NLP course next year, which I think would be really cool. I told the lawyers, I'll test it out for you. We had another one come in about using the rag and AI in order to dissect a book and use it as a tutorial. Just so many great robotics. We had Doctor Chuck severance, who's the coding python for? Everybody. Everyone. Everybody, everyone. Coursera teacher. So it was just great. And education summit, we have a couple of speaking times, we have birds of a feather and a lot of interactions. So everyone gets to come in and just talk about teaching in python. And it's a fun experience, basically. You get together with a lot of teachers of different backgrounds and interchange experiences and see how overall we can improve as teachers or the teaching of Python. Right? Yeah. And it's not just for K twelve or our university. We had Reuven Lerner come in, so it's also adult teachers. It's just. It's just a fun time. We talk about pedagogy and methods of teaching Python and. Yeah, good, good times. And the lawyers were there as well then, right? Oh, the lawyers were there and they came back the next day and they really liked it. They're going to come again, I think, next year. Just. Yeah, just fun. Lots of fun. So if you haven't checked it out, you have to get. Come into the Ed summit. We will. I was going to say everyone's a learner, everyone's a teacher when it comes to python. We all have some form of educator in our, in our, our personality and Persona when we're doing Python because we're always sharing information. So. That's a good point. Like, even if you label yourself as just the Python developer, you still have to be mindful. Mindful of that. Right. Because you probably are teaching other developers or junior developers or you do teaching in your code reviews in a sense as well. Right. So even if you don't see yourself a teacher, it's. It's probably a good skill to have or to be aware of that, right? Yeah. Like Sean has interns, so he's still really actively teaching with the interns that come into his company. So everyone's a learner and a teacher. Yep. No, I like the inspiration you got from there. I like the lawyers. NLP is big in that space. We had a client in PDM that was building these kinds of apps and automating his work. And it's, it's, it's wild. It is wild. Lots of things you can do with it. So were there any specific takeaway you want to highlight or was it just mostly the inspiration in new ideas? There was a lot of, a lot of inspiration. We had Dora Palfy from I'm trying to think of her company, but she has these little gadgets and she's trying to get girls into coding more. She's about getting everybody in, which I think was the underlining theme. So if you have these lawyers talking about getting kids into coding and you have Doctor Chuck talking about everyone can, can be a coder regardless of your background. That whole theme of we truly believe that everyone can be a coder regardless of age, race, gender, whatever. And that's kind of like that underlying theme that came across this year and it was really powerful. Yeah, it's just a great experience. Makes me smile every time I think about it. In just twelve weeks, pivots elevates you from Python coder to confident developer, build real world applications, enhance your portfolio, earn a professional certification showcasing tangible skills, and unlock career opportunities you might not even imagine right now. Apply now at Pibit Es PDM. I'm happy to hear that. I think it also nicely ties into the next item we have on the list. The integration of Python and other subject areas at school, something you're passionate about. Do you want to tell me more about that? Well, it's always been our thing. Sean and I, we always try to pull python into other courses, but it's. It's often difficult because in the middle school situation, teachers want to get through their content. But I had almost like an epiphany on Monday when we were talking to these lawyers, because they found out some of the other teachers in their. In their tract, in their diploma tract, were saying that the kids who took the coding class for lawyers versus the kids who took the non coding class were actually deeper thinkers, more analytical. They were thinking through these law situations differently. And it was an interesting take because we fully believe, Sean and I, that by implementing coding, not necessarily coding for developers, but just that coding, the concept of learning how to code and changing your brain patterns and the way you think about problems is really like a beneficial take to other subject areas, everyone thinks, okay, yeah, science makes sense. We can do python and science, it's very easy because, you know, graphing, data collection, research, that's great. Math, of course, we can put some math in there and do visualizations or computational tools. Just even thinking about, for kids, how to set up a math problem, even in the 6th grade, like, how do we put parentheses and multiply it out to get the answer correct according to the equation on the paper, that's an obvious take. But when you start thinking about, how can I take Python and put it into the humanities classes, or how can I put it into the english classes, talking about text analysis, linguistic research, creative writing, all these little things with, you know, like you said, the NLP, it can really change their insights and get a better understanding of literature. I'm just thinking, if you. It could take to comparison of books to find sentiments or some sort of connection between the themes of the book or history patterns, what a powerful thing that you could do as a humanities teacher. So two things I'm hearing there, right? It can enrich any discipline, can make you more powerful, historian, biologist, whatever, right? That's really interesting. You often think, we want to learn coding Python to solve XYZ, and then we focus really on the coding, but it's actually expanding the mind and makes you better problem solvers. So those are more generic skills that are far beyond the initial goal of Python per se. And wasn't it you that you mentioned at least a couple of times that book, mind from numbers? I think something in this context even, you know, I have. That's been a long time since I've read that and I think I only skimmed that book, but. Yeah, but it's the idea. I think. I just think and I don't. You'll have to refresh my memory on the mindful for numbers because I think I have it in my bookcase, but I don't know. But it's the idea that it's just. I don't know how to explain it really well. But in cognitive science, you know, we have these certain paths between our short term and our long term memory. And normally our paths go always on the same route, like not mine and yours, but mine in particular would go on this route, and yours might go on a different route. And when we put in a different situation completely new to our brain, something that's difficult, something that's challenging, our neurons have to kind of reset and make these connections. And Barbara Oakley always talks about how these new pathways can enhance our learning and really develop our brain patterns. And it's just a new concept in this context. We had another episode as well, 84 lessons learned from the programmer's brain, which is a book ad manning by Hermans, I think. And that's interesting in this context as well, like how programmer's brain work and these long term, short term memory and these pathways you're describing. But anyway, not to derail, but yeah, I think that's interesting. And is there anything specifically you're working on with that, or is it just a promotion of the endorsement of that, or is there specific initiatives you're leading there? I would love to get back in the classroom and do some activities. Really would love to get into the math classroom right now, but our initiative pretty much is anything AI, just helping teachers get through how to use AI, but there's always option. I brought up using Python with the art teacher because we were talking about pixels and drawing and how we can do generative art and maybe use something that's hand drawn and try to replicate it with Python with a couple different things, or look at pixel art. That's project that I'm hoping to do in the new school year, just getting art teachers. I think the kids realize that you can do a lot of cool art with code, but it's the teachers, it's the older generation that have a hard time seeing the connection. Work on that a little bit. I always want to go into english classes. I think the fact that now we have generative AI and that whole process of predictive text is something that pythonistas kind of knew was always possible, but a lot of the educators dont really understand how it works. And I think that if you can get Python into the english classroom and really open the doors with some NLP, some simple predictive text or sentiment analysis, people will start to understand how AI and the transformer library came into play. So those are always my wish lists for the school years. Yeah. And makes me realize that when we said, like integrating Python into other subject areas, you are basically saying integrating Python plus AI, right. Because it's very likely that when you do that, you get into AI both for the theme of the projects, but as well how we learn it. So do you. I mean, I know you use AI for your own learning, but do you also use it in your teaching? And how do you think the teachers overall? Are they embracing it, or is there still skepticism because it can take part of the learning away? Right. Yeah. Yeah, that's like a mixed feeling. So, first of all, anyone under the age of 18 is not legally allowed to use chat cheapy without direct parental consent. That's something that OpenAI and everyone else kind of followed. So there are a lot of AI companies that are trying to find ways to go around the loop, whether they've brought in a model locally, that's one way. So we do have one program that we use at school that allows our younger kids to use it, and that's super helpful. So that is a, is a task. I'm going with teachers, but the thing is, they don't really understand AI. And for me, I think that's, that's the biggest hurdle. When they see, when the kids see python and when they understand the conditions, and then when we talk about data science in the 8th grade, they start to realize, when I'm explaining how AI works in the most general sense, they realize that, oh, wow, I can see now how python was used to create the chat GPT. That makes sense. And, oh, I see where all this data came from. So I think my biggest goal for the teachers is just trying to get them over that hurdle is to see the process of the python and the AI versus just using it, because once they figure out the process, then the using becomes easier. That's a good point. We probably take a lot of that for granted. Yeah. And that becomes the problem. Right. Because then they don't really understand how to prompt correctly. There's all these people that say, oh, you have to do this certain type of prompt, but no, you just really need to be able to think about the problem that you want to solve when you're prompting. And the more explicit you become with the contents and the context. Just like when you code, you need to understand your direction in code and the context of who you're coding for. And once you do that, the problem becomes easier. Right? Yeah. I like problems engineering. It's a whole discipline. There was that tweet the other day, like, the new programming language is English. It's not just type a bunch of stuff into chat. GPT. No, you actually have to formulate and articulate the problem to get a good result. Right. So it's not that easy, per se. Cool. So you already shared your django learning. So maybe a wider question. What are some tech trends except AI, I guess, you're passionate about or you want to take on. You can still go on on the learning path as well. I think they probably go hand in hand, right. Someone asked me that, like, what would something of to the fact of what would you do if you could do anything at all? And I was really lame was the fact that it's for me, it's always learning. Like, I don't have any hobbies besides looking at things online, and I don't really watch too much tv. I actually do not read as much as I used to because now I'm so in united with a whole bunch of articles and research that's coming out there, and that's like, really been a passion for me is looking into that. But, um, yeah, I think, I think just keeping up with the trends. I like the idea of really figuring out what's going on with the security and the ethics behind AI. That's been a big thing for me. I was just reading an article about cybersecurity and now how they're using AI. Hackers and stuff are using AI to completely replicate sites and emails and send these amazing phishing emails and scamming emails where the email looks as if it's coming from Chase bank and everything's trademarked and the logo is perfect. And people are having to be really careful now about that. So this is like a heightened topic for me that I've been looking carefully at. That's fascinating. And that will become super important. Like, it's such a powerful tool, but, you know, as a knife. Right. It can be a scalpel for good to do surgery. It can be a murder weapon. Right. So it can. The hackers will catch up, of course. Right. New tool. Correct. They will use it inside out. So it's. Yeah, it's pretty scary as well. Got it. You got to heighten our security with our developers and really figure out be smarter than the hacker right. Yeah, it's. I think cybersecurity is right now, and it will evolve and it will become even more important. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, no, I like the, I like the learning addiction I have that, too. Right? Like, doesn't even matter at some point what to build. You just want to learn and share and. Comes with a price, though. You're laughing at icon that we don't always get Julian's nerd references, but, you know, I happily pay that price. We leave this in as well as the mindset question, what do you think of mindset? How important is it for a developer programmer? How often are you faced with mindset challenges to be successful in this field? In any field? Right. The mindset matters. I was rewatching a TED talk about grit. I hate the word grit, but it sums it up, I guess, perfectly as a mindset. The people who were most successful, the cadets in the military, developers, entrepreneurs, they all have this mindset of, I can always do better. I can always achieve more. And I think that happens a lot with coding, and that is always my journey with, with kids. Kids come in with this mindset of coding's hard. I'm not good at math, so I'm going to be horrible at coding, or my parents aren't good at technology, so I am not going to be good at technology. So for me, mindset is, is always trying to change that, that growth potential. Um, I tell my own kids, perfection doesn't exist. Unfortunately, you know, you can't be perfect, because if we were perfect, we would live in a perfect world and everything would be, um, there would be no failures. You wouldn't fall off your bike, you wouldn't miss that shot in the basketball. So mindset is. Is just about achieving greatness and. And never really getting there, but just always climbing. Nice. Yeah. I like how this always comes back to the fixed versus growth mindset, right? Like, I described some students coming in, like, yeah, my parents were never technical or, this is hard. I kind of think it's, like, fixed, right? Like, in the growth, you. You believe that that can be there, but obviously you have to put in the work. But also, coding is hard. It's a bumpy road, right? Like, one day you might be raving and it all works, and the next day you might get stuck on what seems to be, like, the most simple thing, and you will feel really dumb, and that doesn't really go away. Like, at all levels, you will have those moments and then. Yeah, that requires mindset, too. Then see it in perspective. Like, you're not dumb. No. Programming is pretty darn hard. Right? You have to. You have to acknowledge. Acknowledge that first. I think for anyone, I always tell the kids, especially when they're helping somebody else, let them ride their own bike. You're not riding their bicycle for them, so stop touching their keyboard. Yes, it's hard. Yes, they're going to fall, and yes, they may still have their training wheels on, but let them ride their own bicycle until they. Till they can ride it on their own. And. And that's huge. If you remind the kids about how it was to ride a bicycle and how it was hard and you didn't think you're ever going to do it, it was scary and there was always some sort of crutch until you got it, and then you got it and you're like, woohoo. Free. That. That, to me, is coding or learning anything new. That's a great analogy. When you learn to drive a car, you felt so stupid and incapable, and now it becomes automatic. Exactly. You still have to, of course, concentrate. But, yeah, there's. But when you were learning, it was like. It seemed impossible. Or when you're learning to drive on the other side of the road. And when. Yeah, when you go to Julian's continent, he can drive. Anyway, to wrap up, do you have a book tip or resource you want to share? So I was just given a book to read by a new author. It was. It's called artificial artifacts. It's not out yet. I'm going to pitch it for him. The author is Fennec. F e n n e c. I'm not sure when it's releasing, but it's an interesting. It's an interesting book. It's sort of like a fictional. It is fictional based, I think, in 2037, 2050. And it's just a neat take on the possibilities of where we can go with AI. So that's what I'm reading right now, just to give some. Some tip. Not tips, but feedback on the book. Hopefully that comes out this year. But I think a lot of people will like it, especially in the coding world, because it's one of those, when you start reading, you're like, I knew it. You know, kind of things. So it's a good book. That sounds amazing. Cool. We'll link that in the show notes. I don't have a specific book. I'm just reading all over the place. And as I said in the last episode, definitely some rust and python. So doing a bit more technical reading, because I want to block more. Okay, so any final shout out or parting words? No, I mean, we have a couple of great people coming on our show in the next couple of weeks. We have Pamela Fox from Microsoft. We have Doctor Chuck Python for everyone from the coursera course. And then, and then, and then, oh, we have Brianna Kaplan from code your dreams coming back on our show. So we have a good lineup this summer. It's been a lot of fun. So if you haven't checked us out, those are some episodes to definitely check out because it's a new take on just how do we get Python for everyone? So awesome. I'm excited. Yeah. So it's probably teachingpython.com or just search teaching Python in the podcast feed and you can subscribe. Right? Or also YouTube, I guess, right? Yeah, YouTube. We're everywhere. Linkedinteachingpython Fm. So yeah, LinkedIn is becoming a passion for me, so. Oh yeah, we spoke about that. How's that going? You're posting there regularly? Oh, yeah. I'm almost as many listeners as you, so if you're listening, you should just click and follow me so I can beat Bob and Julian and have more listeners. They're on my analytics and I'm like, go. Go teaching Python. Go. Awesome. Very professional. So you're not only posting, you're even watching the stats and all that? Oh, 100%. That's awesome. Yeah. Cool. Well, it was so nice to meet you again here and thanks for sharing all these cool things. I'm sure our audience will find it inspiring, and we'll link all these resources below and. Yeah, hope to catch up soon again. Yeah, it's always fun talking to you, Bob. Thanks for inviting me. All right, cheers. Have a good day. 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 community of Python programmers, go to PI Bytes community. That's Pibit es community. We hope to see you there and catch you in the next episode.