Student engagement is a top priority for the Callysto team. It’s a good way for us to improve our curricula-based models and understand how students are interacting with them. One way we engage students is encouraging them to get involved in the back-end development of the Callysto project.
So, let’s introduce you to one such student! Ewan Brinkman is a Grade 11 student at École Dr. Charles Best Secondary School in Coquitlam, British Columbia. He’s part of the beta-testing group for the Callysto computational thinking course, which will be rolled out soon.
How did you learn about Callysto?
“A professor at Simon Fraser University, Dr. Veselin Jungic, decided to introduce me to Callysto after working on some math problems with me. I was using Python to solve various challenges, so it seemed like a great fit.”
Why are you interested in being involved in Callysto?
“I love programming and logical thinking in general. Even better is getting the chance to help others learn these valuable skills for our modern world. This learning is made even easier with Jupyter notebooks, which are an intuitive way to share code and text together.”
You’re taking the Callysto computational thinking course; what have you learned so far?
“The basics of Jupyter notebooks! Beforehand, I had absolutely no idea such an organization even existed with Jupyter – I’m thankful I do now. I’ve learned how to manage files on the Callysto hub, including uploading and creating my own files. It’s great how you can have a seamless blend of different elements that you would not usually find together. I’ve learned about using markdown language to create subtitles, bolded text, and much more. Plus, you can input code between all your explanations. I’ve been introduced to creating highly customizable graphs, as well as embedding YouTube videos. This has shown me how flexible these notebooks are.”
Have you tried using a Callysto notebook?
“I’ve done a few: web scraping, flipping coins, and the introduction to open data graphing . Overall, they really demonstrated how simple it is to integrate code together with text in Callysto notebooks. It was wonderful to be able to read through the explanations, which were formatted using Markdown to be more structured and easier to follow. I also loved how I could peek inside to see the code behind everything. When the code seemed excessively long, it never got in the way as it was minimized by default when appropriate. I never had trouble keeping up with what was being presented.”
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
“I’ve had a lot of fun working with Callysto so far, and I’m curious to see where it will go from here!”
How to get involved with Callysto
If you’re interested in supporting the development of Callysto, including trying our online course, drop us a line! Email contact@callysto.ca for more information