I am fairly certain my terminology may not be entirely correct in this tutorial, never having learned it myself. Hopefully it is still accurate enough to follow along for now.
- I actually don’t think I would use this to teach in front of a class. I feel like using the notebook for simple, few lines at a time thinking is harder to understand because it takes away the actual coding part of writing the code. Though for larger blocks, and function definitions, where you change bits and re-run, it would be very good for teaching.
- I think this is something that is more intended to be run individually, by oneself. The notebook allows pre-defined scenarios to be easily modified and executed, so the students can learn what happens in a very organized environment.
- The thing that struck me most from the video and essay was getting instantaneous feedback, which is just a way to “see” what you are dealing with. I think understanding the methods of the different objects in python lets you “see” the objects in a clearer light and gives you a quick feedback without needing to employ extra back-end for display.
http://nbviewer.ipython.org/4033092/
http://files.software-carpentry.org/training-course/2012/11/swc_round4.pdf