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How to Contribute Examples

How to Contribute to Our Learning Python Library

We are an all-volunteer organization. So we don't yet have any paid staff to curate new content. However, we do value your input and will consider all contributions as our volunteer time permits. We especially value teachers that would like to integrate coding, data science and AI into your classrooms in new and innovative ways.

Using Standard Git Pull Requests

The best way to contribute is to send use your sample programs using a standard GitHub pull request method. This allow us to view all the changes you are proposing and give you feedback. This is a three step process. 1. The first step will require you to have your own github account. You can go to our github home page and look for the "fork" icon. When you click that it will make a "virutal copy" in your own github area. 2. You can then add your content to that repository and do all the testing there. 3. Once you have everything tested you can click the "Submit Pull Request". This process will notify our team your additon is pending. We will review these new submission and if everything looks OK we will accept your changes. We might suggest a few changes the first time you send us a pull request. Don't take this personally. We want to make working on-line togeher as semaless as possible and helping put the right sections in place to start is a normal part of working in teams on line.

Good Lesson Plans

A good contribution has some, but not necessarily all of the following:

  1. Context - where does this lession fit into our overall cirriculum? Would it normally follow after an existing lession or is it a standalone lesson?

  2. Concepts - what concept will be taught in this lesson. We try to keep to the idea of "One concept per lesson". So think about what is the minimum amount of code to learn a new concept.

  3. Learning Objective - what are the goals of this lession. These are typically written as "After this lesson the student...:

  4. Difficulty Level - is it a Beginner, Intermediate or Difficult concept? For example drawing a square with a turtle is a Beginner concept. Recursion is a Difficult concept.

  5. Sample Code - Please provide working sample code that you have tested whenever possible. We encourage you to put in in-line comments when possible. To use our test highlighter for Python code, please place your code in a block sourrounded by back quotes. Use the word "python" on the like with the first backquotes. See Examples Here

  6. Experiments - What additional experiments could the students do? Could they intergrate other prior concepts?

Using Markdown formats

We strongly suggest you submit your contributions using Markdown format. There are tools that will convert MS-Word into Markdown format. See the Markdown Cheat Sheet for tips to get started with Markdown.

Converting MS-Word to Markdown format

If you have content in Microsoft Word and you use a Windows PC, you can use the Writage plugin to convert your documents.

For Mac users you can use the PanDoc program to convert MS-Word into Markdown. You will need to open a Terminal to run the following command: 

$ pandoc -s MyFile.docx -o MyFile.md