WEEK 3: WHAT I'VE ACCOMPLISHED

THE FRUITS OF MY LABOUR

Ode to Learning (What I Learned About Myself)

Yes, I meant to write "ode" that was a play on words for the popular song "ode to joy". WOW, four weeks can really fly by quickly! For the last week of my Genius Hour project, I spent a lot of time reviewing the concepts I had struggled with. Along the way, I made a spectacular discovery through this process that I believe anyone learning Python should know. To understand my discover you have to listen to a little story of mine. I learned how to play the piano when I was young, about 8 years old until I was 12. I struggled very hard to read the notes and that was always the hardest part for me. After quitting learning the piano, I was left alone just me and my electronic keyboard; no instructor. At the age of 14, I decided I would try to watch YouTube videos and see if I could learn songs that way. I would play songs I loved and eventually got very good at playing the piano. Granted I never made it past level 1 when I was younger. By the age of 18, I had memorized over 10 songs and learned a very advanced and my favorite piece River Flows in You by Yiruma. How did I learn all of these piano pieces you may ask? The answer is that I practiced every day, playing as much of the piece as I could and memorizing as much as I could. Surprisingly, the first day I would be frustrated that I couldn't even play one easy part of a song, but when I went to bed and woke up the next day that part was a lot easier and more natural for me. This repetition of watching a tutorial every day and playing the same piece every day started ingraining the music and everything with it into my brain. I'm discussing this story because it is important. Repetition is the key to success. Practicing Python every week has completely changed the way my brain is working. With Python, I would be very successful for the first 1 or 2 hours but after the 2-hour mark, I could not process or understand any more information, or at least not well. There were times where I could not understand a concept and not for the life of my answer a quiz question. Then the next day I would come back to look at the same concept and it was the easiest thing in the world to me. It's quite amazing how the brain works. I genuinely learned a very good amount about Python in these last 4 weeks and the best part is I didn't just memorize things I genuinely understand the concepts that I've learned.

https://images.app.goo.gl/tUzKNNvUsMtEQz2P9

What have I learned about your topic to this point?

I will list all of the concepts that I have learned to this point:

Basic Concepts

What is Python

Your First Program

Simple Operations

Floats

Other Numerical Operations

Strings

Simple Input & Output 

String Operations

Type Conversion

Variables

In-Place Operators

Using an Editor

Control Structures

Booleans & Comparisons

if Statements

else Statements

Boolean Logic

Operator Precedence

While Loops

Lists

List Operations

List Functions

Range

for Loops

How to Build a Simple Calculator Program.

Functions & Modules 

Code Reuse

Functions

Function Arguments

Returning from Functions

Comments & Docstrings

Functions as Objects

Modules

The Standard Library & pip

My most recent learning accomplishment was learning functions & modules. Let me tell you, functions are a whole different beast on their own. Not that, that's a bad thing. I really enjoyed learning how to create and use functions. It's amazing how it ties everything I've learned so far together. I was so excited learning about functions that I spent 4 hours on them trying to learn as much as I could and playing around with code. Modules aren't as big of a deal, they're just libraries of pre-made functions, classes, and variables. Well, they are definitely a big deal but in terms of learning Python, it was very easy to grasp the concept of modules. I learned how to import them and call specific parts from them using Import and From. 

Was I able to accomplish my objectives?

My objectives at the beginning of this journey were to complete 2 modules from sololearn.com every week. I only ended up completing 1 module every week so therefore I did not complete that objective. However, my overall goal was to learn and become proficient in Python. To that end, I feel like I accomplished a lot. I can't say I'm fluent in writing Python, but in terms of reading the code, I can understand what most code is doing and probably do some successful debugging. 

Next steps?

This is most definitely not the end of my Python learning. I still have five and a half modules to complete and I feel as though I got over a huge learning curve. After learning the basics and some advanced code I am ready to tackle the rest of it. I'm definitely not stopping now when I'm on such a hot streak. I love learning new things and proving that anything is possible and that's what I plan on doing with Python. The usability of it in current society is already enormous and it's just going to keep getting more and more useful in the next 10 years. I will try to keep this blog updated on my progress, maybe posting once a month on what I have learned and discovered. I am also extremely excited to implement this into my teaching and teach students how coding can be useful to them. I still feel like I need a few more weeks under my belt before I can do that but it will come if i stay consistent!