Sean Tibor: Hello and welcome to Teaching Python. This is episode 140. This week we're talking with Renee Noble, who by day is a Microsoft cloud advocate and by nights, weekends, any free space she can find at. She's also the CEO of a nonprofit that helps women and non gendered people learn to code and has been teaching thousands of people all over Australia each year how to code and how to make something out of their lives with coding in Python. So welcome, Renee, to the show. Great to have you here. Renee Noble: Lovely to be here. I'm a fan of the show. I've watched a few episodes of like, oh, I'm learning things even from people who are my colleagues in my team. I was like, I didn't know that about you. So it's a nice place to get to be on. Sean Tibor: Very nice. And I actually skipped over one of the best parts of our show, which is saying, I am a coder who teaches. And Kelly, you are. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: I'm a teacher. I'm Kelly Schuster Prez. I'm a teacher who codes. I was like, I'm just going to wait and then I'll let him redo it at the end. Sean Tibor: I'll fix it later. It'll sound like we planned this from the beginning. Renee, are you more coder, more teacher? Where do you fall on that spectrum? A little bit of everything. Renee Noble: I'm really in the middle. Yeah, My whole spiel is like, I live at the intersection of tech education and community. So I've been a software engineer. Like, I accidentally became a software engineer. Really? Like, I went to university, do chemical engineering and chemistry. I accidentally learned to code and then, you know, went into a career in software engineering. But while I was doing all of that, like, you know, becoming a coder, I got involved in the girls program network, which we'll talk a bit about later, I'm sure. And then, yeah, that's kind of how I've done a lot of education. I really love. I've loved teaching since I was like a kid. Whether it's teaching gymnastics, I helped my friends with their, like, you know, assignments or whatever. So it's like, I love teaching, you know, became like, it's like coding's a superpower and I'm kind of like, I want to give that superpower to other people. So that's kind of how I ended up in edtech. I started an education tech, tech education business on the side as well. So, yeah, I'm kind of sitting in between and like, I think I just got to have a bit of both in my life. I've even been. I've even worked as a teacher at a school for a couple of years while I was starting the business. I think thought it might be useful to earn any money. So they needed a teacher for computer science. They were in the middle of the term and they didn't have a teacher or like, they were in week one of the term. Like, we don't have a teacher for this thing that doesn't require Australian degree to do. I'm like, I can do that. I've been preparing this for the last eight years. So I've done a bit of everything. And I, yeah, really liked being in that middle, middle point of the three. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: You're like, what's it called? A triple Venn diagram. What is a Venn diagram that has triple three circles. Oh, triple Venn diagram. Come on, English people. Renee Noble: But I have to enable it. Sean Tibor: He's got. She's got the trifecta, I think is the best trifecta. Renee Noble: Triple threat, you know, Triple threat. Sean Tibor: I like that too. The hat trick of all this. Renee Noble: That's fun. Sean Tibor: Very nice. Well, why don't we jump in with wins of the week and then let's come right back into the conversation about what you're working on, Renee, and what you're interested in. Um, so we'll make you go first. Actually, the. So the win of the week is something great that's happened inside or outside of the classroom. Take your pick. It's all yours. Renee Noble: Yeah. So on the classroom kind of front, I would be. So, yeah. Girls Programming Network is a really big beast. It's grown a lot and it's too much for one or two people to manage. So we've been working on training a committee to run our Sydney events. So me and my partner in crime, Alex, don't have to do it all by ourselves. And on the weekend they ran out. Tutor, practice, party, everything. A cheap hands a party. And I basically didn't have to do anything. So they've done all their training and they're just doing it. So that's. My window of the week is I didn't do up. Other people did it and they did it amazingly. And they're making the whole event come to life. And it's like, you don't even need me. So being obsolete is my win of the week on the professional front and on the personal front. I'm finally. I'm getting married in October and it's. The wedding is finally coming together so that it's like, yeah, finally we've got a trello that We've set up, we've got deadlines. It's all like, we know what's happening. So we've booked most of the things. So it's finally not like, oh, my God, is this even going to happen? It's so we've got people doing work over there, and I'm doing wedding work over here, and it's all balanced out. So that's that work life balance. Right. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: That's awesome. Maybe those are two huge ones. Huge wins. I gotta. I remember the wedding planning. That was very stressful. And then having to have know that your other part of your life is well looked after. It's gotta be very Zen. Renee Noble: Yeah. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: For a little bit. I mean, what. As much as it can. Renee Noble: Yeah. You're going to check in, make sure that the baby's okay. But, like, they've taken care of the baby well. They've learned well. They've done all their lessons, they're training and they got this. So I'm like, I can take a step back. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Nice. Sean, you're on your win of the week. Sean Tibor: I mean, I have several things that are amazing that have happened over the last week that I'm just really excited about. First, my kids came home from summer camp and I was at the. They've been gone for seven weeks. And so when they came home, it like, I was just counting down the minutes until they stepped off the airplane and I got to hug them and welcome them home. You know, like any kids there, there's a lot going on. Right. There's a lot of things to do and a lot of things to manage. And I think after an absence like this, it just means that you appreciate all of those little details more. All the little annoyances become sweet instead of sour. And it was. It's been really nice to have them home. And we've been spending time together, running around, getting ready for school. My daughter is going into middle school, which I still can't believe. And. But I've told her also, and this is the benefit is I've told her, look, when you were in lower school and when you're in upper school, like, there are parts of this that I'm not going to get, but middle school, I got you. I can help you with this. I know middle school, and I will help you every step of the way, even when that means I'm not going to help you. So I also told her that Kelly would help her. So I think it's all going to work out. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Isn't that like the bittersweet that you Know what to expect. All the rest of the parents are just freaking out, some of them because they don't have that, that knowledge of what middle school is. It's. It's golden. It's a nice feeling of, of sort of security. So yeah, she'll be good. Sean Tibor: She will be. And I, I know she. And I've told her several times now. Like I've seen, I've seen that progression with sixth graders that they come in that first day and they're just so wide eyed and eager and they're ready to go and, and also terrified at the same time. And watching them get, you know, make that transformation from the beginning of the year to the end of the year and gaining their confidence and finding their groove and being able to learn a little bit about who they are and what they, what they stand for in the world. It's a really remarkable experience. And I'm. I'm still glad for all the moments I got to see that happen. Good, bad and otherwise. Right. Like the kids who really screwed it up and pulled it out, the ones who. I'm still waiting for them to pull it out and get back on track. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: I get my sixth graders on Friday, so we get to see them. And I'm all ready for them to see how they behave. I'm already trying to think of how can I tweak a little something that's already so good in the sixth grade curriculum. But we'll see. I'm gonna try some new things. I'm gonna try. I. I just stick with what really works until it doesn't and then. Then divert. Yeah. So any other wins? Sean Tibor: No, no. I mean, I could go on, but I won't. Go ahead. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Okay. So I'm gonna do a shameless plug. But my win is because I just started reading this book. The world I see, Dr. Fay Felix. So when I. When you look and talk about women in AI and you. You really wanna say who is a woman that did her part in AI? This, this professor I just got recommended this book by Bob from Pybite and I ch. It just came in the Amazon. I don't know why it took so long. It's like a week almost. But yeah. So I opened it, I started reading it and I saw Sean was like Kelly. And I was reading it while I was waiting for Renee to join and Sean to join and I was like, oh, not really paying attention. So I'm excited about that. I feel like that's a good. When I love both. I have a whole bunch of them. So Every time I get a new book, it's like another. I have to find more spots to put them. And that's not even. That's like just my decorative ones back there. So good win. Sean Tibor: I think we have. We have a really great set of wins this week and I think it's setting us up nicely for the conversation and talking about education and what's ahead and what, what we've done or what more specifically what Renee has done. So, Renee, why don't we start there? Talk to us a little bit about girls programming, network and kind of your pathway to get to there. You know, you've been doing this for about 10 years now, as I understand it. So you've got quite a bit of knowledge of how it works and how it proceeds. But talk to us a little bit about the program and its origin. Renee Noble: Absolutely, yes. So its origin. So it started about 16 years ago and lived in a few forms. By the time I started volunteering with it about 12 years ago when I was in fourth year of university, I think it was just like, it's still a little itty bitty little program just down at Sydney Uni. Maybe like, let's say 30 girls come each term for a workshop and there's like a handful of tutors, let's say six tutors that are volunteering to teach them for the day. Like, I come in because I took a long time to actually volunteer because I was like, I don't know, I can't possibly teach someone to code. I've just started learning to code myself. But a secret thing about gpn, as we call it for sure, is that it's actually designed for the volunteers, so the women. And now we of course include gender diverse people. You know, over the life of gpn, we've, you know, learned a lot about gender and like, who needs to be in this community? This is who needs to be in this community. And it was designed with the idea that by teaching, you actually develop your own technical confidence. And so you have these, you know, at the time, women were coming in to volunteer and to build confidence and to build leadership skills and things like that. So I, you know, I guess I was the target market for that and I just didn't know it. So eventually I was convinced that I could go along and I could volunteer. So I'm like, okay, cool. Hi, I'd like to get involved in gpn. And they're like, oh, my God, thank you so much for being, like, involved. Like, great. On the day we're going to have, you can you do the lecture on dictionaries and also can you run the FOIA greeting area? I'm like, I don't, I guess so. I don't know. I've never done a lecture before. I don't, I've never been. So I don't know what's happening. But, like, you're going to do great. Terrific. Like, and like, that's kind of how I learned parsley also through like previous like university experiences. That anything that's a volunteer run thing, it's not about like being the best person, it's often meant about being the only person who is available to do this and then leveraging that and being like, I don't think I'd ordinarily get this opportunity to give a lecture. Leaning into it and then going, I did a great job with that actually. I just never would have known because I hadn't done it before. So I accidentally, I got involved in that. I got thrown into these jobs and then a couple, like a year or so down the line, the person running it at the time needed to step away for personal reason. What I thought was just that one terms workshop and she's like, I don't want to have to cancel the workshop. If anyone could run it, that would be great. And oh, I guess, like, doesn't seem too bad to run this one workshop. Put on my hand, I'll ask what's involved. I've written a bunch of stuff for university, the residence I was living in. So I was like, what's involved? She's like, just send a few emails and turn up early with the fruit. And I go, oh, that's easy. That's way easier than the stuff I've been doing. So I'm like, I'll handle it, don't worry, don't cancel the workshop. And then so I take over, take on doing that. Obviously there were some things that were left out in terms of running a workshop because I've mentioned nothing of like, educational materials or printing anything out, et cetera, et cetera. So there were a few things that were left off the list, but we got through it. I found out who was the person who was actually making this content. There was someone on it and it's like, when's that happening? Is, can I print it yet? Et cetera. We got there, we ran the workshop and then I was like, this was the best. Like, I love doing this. It's going to be sad when the other person comes back and have to give it back. But, you know, anyway, she never came back So I thought it was return and it turns out I've been running it. It will be 10 years next March. So she's not come back yet to take the reins back. But that's okay. In that time I have done a lot of work and made a. Made a couple of changes and it's no longer 30 girls coming along to the workshop each term. It is, I don't know, we get about 2000 girls a year around Australia. So we've got Sydney, we've got Canberra, Perth, Melbourne. We're hoping to get our Adelaide and Brisbane nodes up and running again. Covid obviously does a bit of a number when you're normally getting about, I don't know, our Sydney events, we're getting 150, 180 girls. We actually had to run two workshops because too many girls wanted to learn to code. That's the problem with girls in coding. Too many girls want to learn to code. So yeah, we, we've gone all over Australia and we've had even some nodes in regional Australia. So we've got a little one running in Bernie Tasmania, which you might not have heard of, but they're going strong. They had 15 girls come along once and the local news team turned up to like showcase what was going on in Verde. So it's going, it's going great all over Australia and we're looking to make it go further. But yeah, that's kind of how far we've gone. But to get there did take a lot of work from translating from. There's a handful of like people who've been involved in this program from the start it and then working out how to transplant that culture to different locations as well as how to transplant the like a scalable educational experience as well. So I've done actually a couple of Pycon a you talks if anyone's interested in my differentiated learning methodology that we put in place at gpn because we actually have every project we advertise, hey, come along on the day and we're going to make, let's say tic tac toe. And we want everyone to come in and then at the end of the day have made tic tac toe. But we have goals and genderverse kids are coming. They may have not never coded before or they may have been coming to GPN for five years. So how is everyone going to have a challenging and accessible experience? We have three copies of tic tac toe, different projects with different concepts. So we've got one that's like tic tac toe but only nine variables. So we have tic tac toe. Now we're using lists or tic tac toe and Ewing oo. So it's like everyone made tic tac toe. Everyone's excited, and nobody knows that they did a project that was different to anybody else. So having that kind of way to, like, differentiate each other and even within each classroom, having things that like, oh, you're getting ahead of the class. Do this extra bonus activity or you finish the whole workbook, have this extra sheet that goes with your. Your project on the end. So having those kind of addendums, et cetera, to make sure everyone has a fun time the whole way through, as well as having heaps of support from our volunteers. We have about three kids to one volunteer, which is, I know, insane for any classroom anywhere. But it means that kids who never coded before can come in and build a thing in a day and be like, I can code. So it's really about giving them the mindset. They're like, I did code, so obviously I could code. Especially like, I'm sitting in a university. I coded. Maybe I could sit in a university when I'm 18, 19 years old and do a computer science degree. I've already basically done coding in universe. Giving that experience. Sean Tibor: You're Kelly. You're on mute. Renee Noble: You're Kelly. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: My kids were making ice cream. There's, like, so many positive experiences. Experience all these positive things. I'm like, try. I was thinking I was going to write them down. So first, let me recap. So one never taught, and you just got there and you had that mindset that, hey, I'm going to try it. Who cares about, you know, okay, I could fail, but what do I got to lose? That's like, cornerstone for teachers I and teachers getting into computer science because we're finding out it's hard to get a computer science teacher in the class. And we just need someone to say, hey, yeah, I'll give it shot. I can do it. I'll learn. That's what happened to me. That's what happened to Sean when he became a teacher. That was 1, 2. With the whole girls in code code shutting down. You guys are on the flip side, like, bringing in girls, the code and that. I just say kudos to that because I feel not just girls, but all underrepresented communities need to have an opportunity to have their voice, to be ethical in AI. That's why I'm excited about this book and kudos to that, and I'll come back to how you Marketed that because I think that's really important to how we get people out of the school environment and into another environment. And then. Oh, I had a third one and I forgot. Go ahead, Sean, you read my mind. Read my mind. Sean Tibor: Well, I think the differentiation. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Oh, differentiation. There you go. Sean Tibor: I like that's always something that's so tricky to pull off, you know, because there's always a constraint that makes it hard to be able to have three different lessons in the same time space. Right. And so I love the fact that you're doing that because, you know, we, we saw so many opportunities for that. It was always like a little bit limited, like how can we get there, how can we make this work? And, and the fact that you're able to do that and able to serve all those different needs at different levels is such a wonderful thing. And it really does make the experience much more rich and rewarding for, for people when they get to do something that they feel really mattered and was substantial. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: That's what I was going to say. I see. He reads my mind. So then that digs into it. Like how, I guess where do I want to go? How do you get people to come volunteer? Because I think that's a lot of, a lot of the people that we're talking to. Brianne from cap. Brianna Kaplan, code your dream. I was talking to Jay, like, how do we get people to get with their time? How do you guys get the people? Is it just because you're all wonderful people in Australia? So nice. All the people I know in Australia are super nice and I only know like five. Renee Noble: But I think my attitude is to give everyone, everyone who volunteers should get out more than they put in. So they're giving up. Like this workshop is a eight hour day. Like the kids 9:30, the kids go at 4. But the tutors are there before and after that, of course. But making sure that we saying like this is your opportunity. Like GPN did start from that idea of like giving underrepresented people the opportunity to build their confidence in coding, etc. And get leadership skills and like just making sure it's apparent like you can do this job. And like if, no, if you don't do it, no one will do it yet. Creating more of those opportunities and then more and more support to like step up into higher roles that we've had to add as we've grown to, I guess like at the moment we're running six classrooms and you have done eight, nine before, et cetera. Pre Covid. So just having a Lot of opportunities and just having it be a pretty chill time. Like, we do have so many volunteers that it's not like, come in, you're going to be leading a classroom of 30 kids by yourself. It's like, okay, come in. There's going to be seven of you in the classroom. You've got a leader in your classroom. So if you don't know the answer, that's fine. In fact, it's great to say I don't know the answer to the kids. Let's ask someone else for help to show that it's fine that you don't know the answer. That's part of the learning journey. Rather than be like, I know everything and you don't have to know everything because like you can't know everything in technology. And communicating that to the kid is actually part of their own lesson as well. So I think, yeah, just making sure. It feels like you're giving them a gift to be invited to this community rather than be like, could you please do free labor for me? It's really welcoming them in. And then we have our street of practice parties. Everything's a party for this reason at GP and you come to the tutor practice party or maybe you come to the content testing party or things like that. This is extended into everything we do. Even when we like founded the charity Tech Inclusion around it. Now when we write policies, we have a policy writing party. So it's always a fun time. There'll be snacks and like the tutors get free pizza on the day, just like the kids. And there's snacks in the classroom. So just making sure it's a nice place to be with nice other people and yeah, just a warm place. And we have like our core values to GPN as well, which are, remember them off the top of my head, our values are fun, social challenge. Is that accessible challenge there aspirational and relevant because we do lots of people like, you can be anything. You can be an astronaut. And it's just like, okay, what's this first step to becoming an astronaut? It's like, I don't. You can do it. It's like, I don't know what it is. What we have is like our full pipeline on showcase, which is like we've got our kids coming in at all like levels in high school and we've got GT and junior program now as well. But then in our tutors we've got, you've got your first year uni student, second year uni student. Everyone throughout the various stages of uni into Their careers and et cetera. It's like the tutors who are coming along, they also have that chance to see other people in the pipeline being like, oh, that person, they're at my uni, they're doing so great. I could be doing what they're doing. Or like, I'm in third year uni and I've just met this other friend, Sally, and she's doing her internship at this place and I could do that too. And seeing all the steps of the way, rather than just like, you can do anything, be an astronaut, like, I could do anything. And I can see a bunch of different role models, which is one of our other values, which is diversity. It's a bunch of different kinds of people doing of different interests. But seeing all these different steps along the way and like, yeah, I've laid out a path for me and I had so many options to choose from. And you meld your own path of the different role models you have around you. So I think just being part of that community is kind of part of the thing. Sean Tibor: I really like that. And I suppose I had never really thought about having a graduated set of role models. Right. When Kelly and I are teaching, you know, we're older. Me, you know, Kelly, not so much, but me, I'm older, right. Than the students by a significant amount. So when they see me write code, they see me, you know, the version of me now 25 years into my coding career where, you know, I can usually spot the errors that I'm making or know how to fix them really easily. So it looks like I'm. What I'm doing is magic. But they didn't see the version of me that was just a few years ahead of them in the coding journey that was struggling and banging my head against the keyboard and saying I'm never going to get it. And I. So I love the fact that you've got this kind of built in set of role models at different levels so that kids not only see the destination, but they see the journey along the way to get to that goal that they might have. And also the exposure to a lot of different kinds of goals. That is also really important because there are so many different career paths out there in technology that students don't even know exist. Renee Noble: They can not made yet that it's appearing all the time. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: And I love the idea of that for the volunteers, right. So there's always the talk of imposter syndrome. I don't think I would be, I would not be a coder if I wasn't forced to teach it right. I had to go through that practice of saying something over and over again, which was lucky because we have it four times a year and I have two classes. So I have, you know, eight and eight times a year I can teach a new library. Mess up on the first quarter and by the fourth quarter I'm like, I, I know beautiful soup, I taught it. And I think that is often overlooked. I feel like in the college situation, when we're right before we're getting ready, even in high school, if they're not going to go to college, let's put them in. Let's put people in a situation where they have to teach and they have to prepare. And I have to learn that for tomorrow because guess What, I have 30 kids depending on me. And you know what? If I don't know it all, it's okay because I have all the documentation and I know how to read it at least. So it's going to be quite all right. And I think that's important in the classroom too. You know, we talk a lot about, they do payer programming. That's great, but isn't it better to be the kid that's not really knowledgeable and say, hey listen, I saw you just did that if statement or those conditionals. You got this, can you go explain it to take your code, don't just show them the code, but take your code, take your computer, go over there and explain it to Sally. In kids terms. I always say kids vocabulary because apparently I'm not explaining myself well to that kid. And so that builds on the confidence. And I see that a lot in the classroom, especially with the girls who come in thinking. And I'm not just going to put the girls in a lump, but usually they're the more vocal one that say, I can't do this, I'm not smart, I'm not good at math. My parents said I'm bad with computers and it's that kid that you always. By the end of the quarter, after the parents have called and said, my daughter is failing your class, I'm like, no, she'll be fine, trust me, trust me. And at the end of the nine weeks, they get that confidence and I think we need that. So I love that and thank you for reminding me of that. How question after that spiel, how do you guys come up with all your activities? Like where do you go? Just make them up or yeah, we. Renee Noble: Just make him up. Basically being like, okay, we want another text based game. What can we do? Like we want Another microbit project. What can we come up with? And we've got like a really dedicated like core group of tutors who operate at like the Australia wide level and like all the heads of the different locations. Like, okay, what would be fun? What have they liked before? I. It's been a long journey as well. So like along the way like I've done like, okay, a bunch of people in Sydney come to my apartment and we're just gonna like put post it notes in the board and like I still have like that's, I don't know, eight years ago. And there's somewhere that that poster is in my cupboard. It's moved house with me just, just recently. Oh, I saw. I found this. Maybe I'll bring that out. Because we are looking for some new projects. But yeah, I think it's just thinking about like what's a good interactive thing for them to do. Yeah, so that's kind of coming up with the core idea and there's a lot of people have lots of different ideas and then I've actually created like a calculator of sorts to work out. Like, is this something that we can teach in the time slot that we have available that's in my Python AU talk as well that I mentioned. How do we know, like, will this work? Because like some people like, oh God, I just, like, I've just been to this bootcamp and I've learned react and I've done this, that and the other and then we should teach it to the kids. And like, I don't know if that's going to work. That's a lot of content. And we're. And so we haven't thus far gone down that route and done that whole activity. But being like, okay, can you write some code? Like then can have a lot of people be like, I write this cool program and let's run it through the calculator and then like break it down like by concept. Because sometimes you write a bit of code and it's this long and you're like, it's so short any kid could write it. And look at every line you like. It's got an if and then it's got like a len and a this, that and the other in just one line. And then it's got this string concatenation or something like, oh, we just made it short. I was like, no, I want long, like but not too long because I got tiny little hands, they don't know how to type very well. I want lots of variables. I want lots of if statements and a loop and like if you can just build something with those concepts that sound, that'd be great. So yeah, seeing where we can pull those from. We don't make that much new content because as I said, for every project we make three workbooks. So every time we make something, we make three, three times over and then all the teaching resources, et cetera. So we try at this stage we're trying to do one new workbook each year, one new project set and then we recycle them every three years. So finally we're getting close to our set of 12 that we want to have. So we have a full three year cycle so we can make sure everyone's coming in and by the time if they're still coming back after three years, which we hope so they're going to have gone for a level to our intermediate level or maybe already been now advanced levels or like they're going to be doing new stuff no matter what. So yeah, we've had, yeah, lots of cool ideas come out over the years. We've even had like a hackathon kind of thing. I can't remember what he called it. It was basically like a hackathon. But the idea is to code a project that a kid could make and then like run it through the calculator and see if it was a good, good bit. And we've had a really great one. We have guess who that came out of that like the, when you flip the other things. So yeah, it's like you can make that with code and like that's a fan favorite as well. Yeah, that's kind of how we come out with some of our different ideas and like teaching people about this system like to what to look out for. Like, oh, I wrote this code. It's like, oh, that dictionary's got a whole like it's a list inside the dictionary and it's a bit tricky there for like you know, a 12 year old who's just getting, getting started. Sean Tibor: Well, I imagine also that let's say you have someone come in who's already at an intermediate level if they were to stick around for three years and they outgrow the, you know, hey, have you thought about being a volunteer? Right. Like there's this natural progression also, I would imagine. Have you had a lot of students or attendees of the workshops come back and act as, you know, tutors and counselors and volunteers in the program as well? Renee Noble: Yeah, 100% that is part of the system. That's also where we sourced our volunteers from so like at the end of year 12 we go, hey. Like we make them do a survey at the start of every workshop so we know like where they're sitting and what names. Also to find all the year 12s and go from letter for you. It's like your Hogwarts letter kind of thing to be like, you are now a tutor if you so wish to be. But we do, we don't let them volunteer until they have finished year 12 because we do want them to take this opportunity to learn all the stuff. Because you can't go back once you've graduated, you can't be a student at gpn. You can come into the tutor practice party but you're not going to learn as much as you do if you stick around in the highest level classroom where we give them a workbook. But if you finish that, it's like, don't worry, put some shooters in here. Like you ask them a question, you're like, I finished the things like, well, here's an extension, extension, extension for you to try and figure out by yourself. So. And if you need help with that, I'm here and I'll, I've got you back. So. But yeah, we do have that graduation process in place and we do have a lot of people and a lot of the people who are like really involved now who are like running our new programs and things like that and like helping start up the location around the country haven't come through that process over the like last five, ten years as well. So it's really exciting. At the start of every tutor session, whatever it's about, we do do like what's your name, where do you work or go to school, like university, et cetera. What's your relationship with gpn? And then obviously what's your favorite dessert? Because you go to have a fun and. And then a lot of them like, yeah, so I came to GPN when I was in year 10 and I've been here ever since and now I work at this organization. So it's like you see the full journey there and like what people who are first time students who've just come in like, wow, this thing is like, it's a big thing, a cool community to be a part of. And we do, I should say we do have an opportunity for our high school students to volunteer. Our year 9 to 12 students to volunteer in our new program called GPN Junior. So getting them volunteering earlier. So they're helping teach our year three to six students which is on a separate day. So the girls and kids get to stay in the program. A GPA for high school kids. And then on a different day they can go and do their tutoring so they don't miss out on the learning. But they do get those extra, extra experiences like teaching and for leadership, et cetera. And then they're already ready to become volunteers as soon as they graduate. They're like, I'm already doing it. So like, why would I stop now? Kelly Schuster-Paredes: That's cool. What, like, what type of students are. Is this on a Saturday, Sunday? Are these like it's Saturday and Sunday and then is it the kids want to go or is it start off with the parents are. I'm forcing you. I'm putting you in this girls who Code program and you're going to do it. And if it's that, how do you, how do you make it less intimidating and more engaging to keep those kids that are maybe forced to go to code? Renee Noble: Yeah, so it's only once a term. So they do only have the one day. It's either a Saturday or Sunday when you try and alternate it. So like some kids have like soccer practice and games on Saturday and some kids go to church on Sunday. So this way we can have like people all have an opportunity to come, like one term or the other, etc, hopefully. And then largely the kids all want to be there. Like, like, especially pre Covid. Like it was tough to get a ticket to GPN at the time. I used to say it's like, it's as hard to get a ticket to GPN as it is to get a ticket to Taylor Swift. But now Taylor Swift has out. At the time it was mostly true. But yeah, we used to have our ticket, like the tickets all free, but the positions would go available four weeks in advance. And then I don't know, an hour, hour or two later they'd all be gone. So we had to go extend, expand, expand our workshop to have two different sessions on Saturday and Sunday in Sydney because there were so many kids. We get kids calling up crying or their parents. Like I was at the dentist and I didn't get the email because I was in the dentist chair. And now a little Sally's missed out on a place at GPN and she's so upset. So we wanted to make more spaces for that. And largely, like I did a little bit of legwork going around like, like Young ICT Explorers competitions and various things. I used to go around and kind of do some of those things. And before I joined there were people like going to local high schools. But I think once we kind of hit a critical mass from that, people just told a friend and they told a friend and like we just had to stop advertising in any way because we already had kids calling us up crying, saying that they didn't get a spot. So we're trying to get back to that point. Hopefully not the crying children. Hopefully we'll just make it really big and have more spaces. But to that point, cause like starting up again after Covid, like a lot of the people who were coming during like before COVID are still coming along but they're all like in second year university now because in that time period they grew up and they're like, yeah, I'm going to come back to gpn but now I'm going to be a tutor. So we just need to kind of like I'm the pipeline again, saturated with girls that want to learn to code. So that's what we're working on at the moment. So yeah, if you're in Australia, sign up your kid to rent A code. Sunday 25th at UTS, we're going to be making Susan's paper rock and we have spaces because currently our mailing list is broken and it's going to span. So if you haven't heard about it yet. So yeah, that's my plug for the, for the day because I've just been. I did spend a lot of the weekend when I wasn't helping the lovely tutors who already know how to run the event. I'm now the social media manager. Seemingly trying to spruce the event for our spam classified mailing list is not helping us out to reach all the people. So yeah, that's. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Oh my goodness. So here's a crazy question. What's the environment like you teach in? Is it all desks or is it sounds really. I always think about my. Our classroom environment, how Sean and I initially set it up and I like to think it's very unique. We have the apple bar and I. It was something that we believe really helps everyone get comfortable because they're in a school, they have to be there. They don't have a choice. They have to go to computer science. So because you have to go to this class, we're going to try to make it super fun. But now you have kids that really want to be encoding with you and go to gpn. But how is the environment? Is it a classroom setting or how do you make it? I want you to share with teachers how you can make it so that the kids want to be in Your classroom give some advice. Renee Noble: Yeah, I guess, like, we do have lots of aspects to the day. So I'll start with just the classroom. Like, look, we have a lot of people be like, come to GPN with me. There's free pizza and snaps. And, like, that's something you can't necessarily do in a school, which is the downside. But within just the classroom context, we do have the snacks up the front and we do bribe the children. Be like, you. You ask a question. Like, like, we have the mini lectures throughout, like, workbook, mini lecture, workbook, mini lecture, etc. So they can, like, learn the concepts as they go along. Rather than like, we're going to teach you everything and then go be quiet and do your work. It's like, okay, let's all come together. We're going to learn a little bit of stuff. So you can now do part three of the workbook. And then you ask a question, like, to just kind of get the class happening and, like, working together and like, being a little bit, like, a little bit rowdy. Like, you want to be able to chat to your friends. You got to be able to, like, you got to. We don't want a quiet classroom at gp. And if we. If I walk in, I'm like, why is it so quiet? I'm like, is everything okay? So, yeah, we get them hyped in the morning when they come in, they're playing, like, person bingo and things like that. So, like, this is not school, which is, like, not what you can do at school necessarily, but I guess you can make school less like classic school. Like, and then, yeah, having. Yeah, I think making it not feel like you're going to get in trouble and having everyone just be very approachable. We have all these lovely volunteers. They're going around and they, like, seeking you out, like, oh, how's your program going? And, like, just kind of being around and having a little bit of a more casual chat and then working with your friends. And something they really like is the cheat sheets. Giving them a cheat sheet. Like, we do a survey at the end of the day. Like, what did you like best? And sometimes it's just really weird stuff. It's just like, I really like the for loops or I really like this. So just. Yeah, I think having specific kind of resource. They like the workbooks because they can work at their own pace. It has got the steps set out and give them the slides if they want to look through it. Like, get too fast, too fast. Then get. Get ahead of the class or they get behind the class. Like I paid attention to the lecture but it wasn't up to that point yet. So I want to go back and have a look. So letting them have that self directed opportunity, but also still the same opportunity to be part of the class happening as a whole. So yeah, and I think, yeah, those are some of the things. And just having, yeah, the class work as a team and opportunities. Like I know school is more difficult in terms of like you do have to make sure things are like accessible in some manner some of the time. But a lot of the time it's just about learning the thing happening. A fun time. So when that's an opportunity, making sure, like, okay, cool, everyone do part one and part two. And then like, like, okay, nearly everyone's done part two. Let's like do like a cat's, like, let's do it on the board together. So like we'll all make sure we're done. Part two, actually done. We had to add parts to the workbook because sometimes kids be like, well, why friends up to part four. So I'm just going to skip to that. So every section, at the end of every section we have like a tick off. Like, like, can your program like print out your name? Can you program do that? So they have to tick it off before they go on to the next part because they were just like, I'll just do part four. It's fine. I don't need to do parts two and three before I go to four. So making it colorful, friendly so they can do all those things. I can share my resources. All our resources are available on GitHub. Oh, that's the classroom. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: We'll put that in the short show notes. You were talking about cheat, you were talking about cheat sheets. And we have the wall of knowledge in the back of the classroom. But this year I just put it into the our show notes and we'll post it online. These cool coding placemats. My teaching partner found them and I was like, she had bought only one on her desk. And I was like, excuse me. So she's like, what do you want one? I'm like, not. Which is one. You need to buy like 20 of them. Put them in. So now we have them laying out. And I, I keep saying, thinking to myself, this is too good to be true. There's going to be an error. So we'll let Sean see if he can spot the error. Sean Tibor: You have to send me a photo. I'll see if I can find it. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: But I don't know if there is, but they're great. And I think having that there. Kids always used to laugh at us because we said, hey, you can Google it, you can do whatever. Now it's a little bit easier with chat GPT. But before in the past we would say, yeah, Google is not cheating because every developer has that little bit. So I love that. Sean Tibor: So I had a follow up question, not to put too fine a point on it, but one of the things that Kelly and I did first year or two that we were teaching together, we had a lot of virtual reality equipment in our classroom and we made it open to students to come in during lunch and just have fun with it and play. And there were games that they could play in virtual reality. And we noticed that it was a lot of boys, right? Like it was a lot of boys that would come in every single day if they could and they would play VR and they would have a lot of fun. And it got loud and noisy and clearly they were having a good time. We thought, you know, we're missing something here because like, you know, our school is not all boys. There are girls here too and they probably would want this. And I can't remember who it was, but I think it was one of the students who came up and said, like, I'd like to play but the boys are kind of in the way. Like I don't have access to this, right? So we, we made a girls only Thursday, right? Just saying, like, everybody's welcome every other day whenever you want, but Thursdays are going to be for girls only. And I was the only boy in the room. And that was just because I wanted to be at my desk getting work done and everything. And it became very popular very fast. And it was something where the fact that it was all girls and it was all available to them and they didn't have to compete with the boys for it made a, I think a really big difference. And just getting it started and then once it was started, it became its own thing. How important is it in your mind and in the program's history to have volunteers and tutors that are reflective of the community that you're trying to engage and reach? You know, is it okay to have boy tutors? How many boy tutors, right, do you want it to be predominantly all girls and gender, you know, different gendered people, right? As the tutors and volunteers versus having boys involved? And I don't know how to make that the most sensitive question, but it's a genuine question of just like, how do we make sure that it doesn't people who want help are able to help, but it also is actually helpful. Renee Noble: Yeah, it is a sensitive question and it is something that is, I've got some flack for. And like, I didn't set this up originally but like I have seen how it falls out. We have only women and gender diverse tutors exclusively. Unless a node won't run a workshop without the support of men in the room. Because we have had nodes of like, oh, like, you know, there's things happening all around Australia. I don't see everything that's happening. So sometimes you, you hear, hear at an event from someone on the ground, they're like, oh, they had boy tutors this time and then they just took over running the whole thing. They weren't supposed to be in charge of the classroom and then, but they just thought that they would help out and take over this thing. And which is as we were discussing earlier, like GPN is about that experience for women and gender diverse people to gain that confidence and experience. And, and I know I've done it like just like there's a guy in the room now. I'm like looking to them for support and I'm like, I don't need help on this thing. And I've seen other tutors do it and just kind of letting the boys take over. And it's something that is ingrained in us subconsciously. You know, we live in a society and even if we're like, this is the girls programming network and I know I've been here for years doing this thing, but seeing like young women bit like, you know, put themselves to the side and be like, oh, the boy is taking care of it. Like it's not what we want to see. So it's, it's difficult. And we do get men be like, yeah, how could I volunteer? Like, can I volunteer as like, sorry, you can't actually volunteer, but you can support your friends who are women, gender diverse people to join us and volunteer. And if you want to donate money or you want to do this and the other, like there are ways for you to help but you being there on the day isn't helping the purpose of the program. And I know that's upsetting to some people but like once we explain it to them, like we've had some people who are like, immediately like, that's exclusive. But like to create inclusive spaces, sometimes you have to create some exclusion as you did with all Girls Thursday. And we can see the difference that that makes because being your full self when you feel like you have to be quieter or smaller because there are boys in the room is. Is a problem that, like, we're trying to overcome. So we're hoping that this safe space for this minority group that, like, there's a lot of stereotypes around girls and women in tech. If we can be like, no, those stereotypes don't apply here. We're hoping that that can leach out into their other experiences of tech in the world and they can take that into university or school or wherever they go next, the workplace. And like, oh, yeah, no, I don't behave like that because I know I've got this and I know a bunch of other women who've got this too. Like, we don't. We need to step aside. Like, I never needed to step aside when I was learning to code, so why would I step aside now? So that is our principle, basically. Sean Tibor: And I have to say, I mean, if you need evidence, like, it just happened a few minutes ago here, right? Like, Kelly, there's no reason why I should be debugging the place mat, right? Like, Renee's probably a better debugger of Python than I have at this point. Renee Noble: Like, I don't know that. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: It's not because of. You're a man. It's because I just know your nuance like that. And. Sean Tibor: Sure, sure. But I mean, but like. And I honestly, I would not probably have the same perspective on it had I not seen it for myself without all girls. Because being a teacher and also being able to hang back and just work at my desk and watch what was happening, it was an amazingly different feel than when there's even a single boy in the room. And the girls were engaged, they were having fun, they were curious, they were playful in a way that I got to witness because I was a little bit of an outsider, being a teacher and being off in the corner. And so it was like. Because I saw it, I believe in it. I definitely see the value of having a space that is, you know, inclusive by being exclusive. And there's plenty of other opportunities to be completely mixed and working together and figuring that out. But sometimes creating that space has an amazing positive. Renee Noble: Yeah. And like, potentially, like, you know, place. There's lots of places for, like, any kids of any gender to learn to code. Like, we have other free workshops at, like, our Powerhouse Museum here in Sydney and things like that. But the problem is that those, like, sell out like this because there's a lot of boys who know that they want to learn to code. They're already interested. And we need to have this Space and spaces like it for people who are like, I don't know if I want to learn to code. And that's okay if you don't know yet and you want to come along and give it a try. But, like, if we were. If we let anybody sign up to the program, then we wouldn't have any spaces left. But you're offering a free program with free food and basically, you know, your kids get taken care of for the whole day. And we even pick them up from the train station here in Sydney. So to make sure anyone can get here if they need to get here. And we play games, games with the younger half of the high school kids after lunch. Like, here's how things work in real life. The older ones get mentoring to get them set up. So everyone would want that for their kid, no matter their gender. But if a boy is already interested in coding, like, they're going to snap that up and there's going to be. There's going to be no room for the girls who this is designed for. So. And same goes for the volunteers who. There's a lot of men in coding already. And, like, we could easily supply a workshop with volunteers if you're like, yeah, they'll have men. Because it would really increase the pool of volunteers sixfold given, like, the, you know, ratio of people in technology. But making sure that there's those opportunities to, like, give a lecture or whatever is. Yeah. Invaluable. Sean Tibor: So I will not hold my breath for my invite to come to Australia and participate. But you should totally bring outside. No, no, that's. That's weird. That's weird. We'll just send Kelly. It'll be. It'll be great. Renee Noble: Yeah. Yeah, that'll be great. Yeah. Come on down, Kelly. I don't know if you can make it here, but by Saturday. But our mailing list is also on the same server that is having the issues with the spamification. So that's a spot for you already. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Yeah, I would love to. Where are you again? Renee Noble: Sydney or Sydney. Yeah, I. I know all the people. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: I know in Australia are in Sydney, so my best friend lives there. So one day I will be coming. We'll have to connect on it. Sean Tibor: If you have up a plane now, you can be there just in time, Kelly. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Absolutely. Just in time. I'll just call in sick for the first day of school. No worries. Renee Noble: Okay. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Hey, change of question, change of topics real quick because I always. I. This role in tech really intrigues me and I've met so many people now who are advocate. And I always see that role, cloud advocate, Python advocacy team, like and every time I talk to somebody it's a different definition of what they do. So we're going to let you explain because I think this is the coolest real, you know, role. You get to be there and you just talk to people and you're there for them. What do they need? So what do you do? Renee Noble: That's a great question. And like whenever I'm like introducing myself I'm like, yeah, I have a cloud advocate. I'm like, that's a made up title. You probably don't know what that is, but I say that I help people learn how to do their jobs with cloud technology, get comfortable with it, show them how much fun they can have with it, what cool stuff it can do. But I think that can like, that can extend to a lot of different audiences. And when I came into this role I was a regional cloud advocate so I was focusing on Australia, New Zealand specifically. Before we reconsolidated, as any large organization likes to do. We love to move everyone around every once in a while and like you're still got the same title but now you're doing it over here or with these people. So I've done a couple of those in my nearly three years at Microsoft. But yeah, I love to work with students, like university students and early career developers and focusing on creating content that onboards them. I love to create an easy on ramp because I also have a lot of imposter syndrome having, you know, I don't know if it's from being a coming in like to a degree. Like when I added computer science major to my degree. Like I'd never done any coding before university and people had come to specifically do coding at university and I accidentally learned to code. I'm like, this is really cool. So not feeling as confident. So I want to make sure everyone can be like actually it's not as hard as you think it is. Like we just like give you these tools and we just put you in this path. You actually have a really good time. It's going to make things easier and you're going to feel better about yourself. You're just going to get over this little hurdle and I like to be like, okay, I'm going to hold your hand while we get over the little hurdles. And then actually you're going to realize that you just thought it was big and now that you like can look back and see it's like, oh, I didn't actually have to go that Far to get here. But it looked like there's a lot of jargon and things in technology and we just invert more of it every day and more acronyms and just like, I don't know all of these. So this, whenever I stream or do a workshop, I'm just like, okay, cool. So like, who has, like, you have to ask the questions upfront like who's used GitHub before and who's used a LLM, a large language model and things like that to explain like what these words are and like why they are relevant and not just be like, okay, cool, so everyone log into you GitHub, open up a code space. They'll do this, that and the other. And like, cool, now we're ready to start the workshops. Like, no, all of that is part of the workshop. And like, you can't just like do like wave your hands, make it seem like magic. It's like, no, you need to explain every step along the way. So that's kind of like the area of advocacy I like to focus on because I think it's easy to skip over that part because I'm like, yeah, I could just like, cool. I've already set up a virtual environment or a dev container and it's like, it does all the stuff that I don't want to explain to you because it's actually really, really hard to explain. The basic. I like when you're teaching kids to code explaining variables, really hard. They just don't get it for a bunch of the time and then finally they get it. And it's one of those threshold knowledge concepts where once you get it, you can't understand people who don't get it. So really taking a step back and thinking about like, that was hard when I learned Git or this technology or when I didn't understand this interface or what an API was. And we're like, okay, let's bail it all out and hopefully bring everyone along on a journey. And then hopefully, like, I think we do need a lot of different kinds of advocates because it's firstly lots of different technology, lots of people with different experiences and also like people or like, once you've got those experiences, you want to, you can use them to do so many things. So we need people on all of these little branches of the tree of technology to help people, you know, with the latest cutting edge technology. And it's always, you know, good to stay up to date. And I try to stay up to date as much as possible to be like, and new learner, you can also learn this. But yeah, you kind of have to have people once again at all steps of that journey as we were talking about with gpn be like, yeah, you can be here or you can be there and then you can always see a role model in which case is a cloud advocate helping you along, along the journey. So that's how I kind of see the job. And like sometimes I'm like, I should be more technical and be one of these people on the fringe of doing the hardcore stuff. I'm like, no, that's not where I want to live. I want to live here with people who are. Yeah. To get started. But could do a really cool thing. I would like everyone to really. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Yeah, I, I'd like that. I was just thinking because, you know, I'm also, I'm also besides computer science, an ed tech specialist. And so that puts me on a level of I'm smarter than you. Right. And I don't like that title when someone comes in and I like to sit with them. I think I should be a edtech advocate. I'm going to change my role. I'm going to tell, I'm tell my boss we're getting rid of the specialists. We're going to be advocates. I think that's nice because you're, you're, you're. Yeah, right. Sean Tibor: No, that's, that fits a lot better with what the actual work is. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Exactly. Like today someone came in and said, you need to go see Kelly. She could do stuff with funny. I'm sure she could do something with the spreadsheets and get it to do what you want to do. And she sat down to me, I was like, yes, open up ChatGPT. Let's do this. Write this prompt. Because I don't know JavaScript enough to like spew. Um, it didn't work but I was like, oh, we probably, we're probably like attacking like too much calls on the API. She's like, API. I'm like, oh yes, let me tell you what an API is. And so it was pretty cool. But I think advocate. My boss is listening. We want to be advocates. Not special. I like it. I just think it's very, it's very approachable. So it's a fun. Renee Noble: Well. Sean Tibor: And I guess my, my follow up question, the question I originally wanted to ask was how does you know your work with GPN influence your day job? And as I've been hearing you talk about both of them, it really sounds like they're, you know, they're, they're different areas but they're very blended in the kind of work that you like to do and the kind of work that you are doing in each of the roles. You know, was that intentional or was that something that you said, like, this is who I am and what I like to do and you know, this is the way I'm going to choose to approach each of them. And that happened to be different, you know, perspectives on who you are as a, as a technologist and as an educator. Renee Noble: Yeah, I think like, as I started out saying, like, I like to be in like the Venn diagram, intersectional technology, education and community. I think like the reason I, I'm going to go into how I accidentally got this job, but the reason I accidentally got this job is because it sits in that Venn diagram area. But I was, I met someone who works at Microsoft as well and she used to work in a role. Day two advocacy and the regional cloud advocate position came up and she was a GPN tutor. And then she got in contact with me being like, you have to apply for this job, Renee. Like, this is for you. And I just started my business Connect Code. The sign in the background. And I was like, I just started a business and I was teaching at the school at the same time. I was like, I don't know if I can do that. I've just like started this thing which is going and like helping school deliver the digital technologies curriculum front once again. Like, how can we connect code with. I'm trying to remember our slogan. Been doing less of it because I've been doing so much Microsoft, but like connecting code with curriculum, community and something else that also starts with C that I can't remember right now. That's a shame. Fun and children. And children. Sean Tibor: Yeah, sure, go with that. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Sure. Renee Noble: What is, what is outlaw? But it's like I'm like it's on the back of the T shirt shortly I can remember, but it's on the back of the T shirt so you can't see it when I'm wearing it. So that's it. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: So connecting context, community and curriculum. Where did I know that? See? Renee Noble: Yeah, context, community and curriculum. You think I know because they came out with it. But yeah, we were doing that because like it's great to have that context of why you're doing things. Like as I was saying, there's so many different jobs like in tech, but like you've also got like, you know, you could do it for the environment or for healthcare and all these cool things that also girls really tend to like link with Being like, I don't want to just do tech for tech's sake. I want to like help people, help animals or the environment. So we're doing that. And I'm like, I don't know if I can do. I don't know if I can. I don't know if I want to take a job. But I will talk to this job like a person casually about the job because it's always good to make a connection in the industry. And they talking to the Microsoft reactor guy in Sydney and like that's a space and they do coding stuff. Like maybe it's a good business connection. So I talked to him and like, oh yeah, this is kind of cool. I'll learn a bit more. So I talked to like that hiring manager casually as well. And I'm like, yeah, okay, this is quite cool. I guess it's cool. And like everyone's been nice so far. I'm like, I may as well get some more business connections. So yes, sure, I'll do the full interview process. And then I was like, okay, we'll schedule these four interviews. I'm like, okay, cool. I talk to these four people and then I'll then after that I'll pull out of interview. So talk to four people and like actually, and then there'll be enough another round and I won't do that because I spend enough time on it. But I did and then they offered me the job. I'm like, oh, I didn't know that was going to happen. When someone put that decision in front of you, like, I could earn money doing what I want to do. I could keep trying to do the business and not earn a lot of money right now. And who knows, It's a bit of a gamble. But everyone was so lovely in the interviews and they were so warm and there were so many women as well in leadership. Really cool. So I ended up taking the role because I started out talking to my friend Shiva, who was already at Microsoft because of what I did at gpn and she recommended this role for me. Me. She was like, this role is basically made for you. So that's kind of how I ended up here because it was a Renee shaped role. I wasn't looking for a job at the time, but like the job found me and I don't think I would have taken it if it wasn't the, you know, a Renee shaped thing in this intersection of the three, three aspects of my being. So that's how I ended up here, like to do it. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Absolutely. We have to change the title of the episode to Connection, Confidence and co Code. So that sums it up, right? It's like making connections, getting out there and talking to people, having the confidence. Just do it and, and have your voice, have your opportunity and then just have fun and code. That's the new title. Renee Noble: But. Sean Tibor: All right, I will, I will update it. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: We have been talking for an hour and my kids, my. My family have been very, very nice and quiet. You want to wrap up Any other questions, Sean? Sean Tibor: No, Renee, I say we talk about this. We mentioned this before the show that it really should just feel like a conversation among friends. Friends. And immediately felt that with you. I just felt that connection of, you know, how we, how we think about teaching and learning and technology and how this all fits together and makes something bigger than individual parts. So just thank you for sharing that with us and thank you for sharing your experiences and the journey that you've been on. We'll definitely. I'll plug it one more time for you, you know, because the server is still in spam hell. If you're in Sydney and you would like to participate in one of these workshops as a tutor, a volunteer or as a participant, please reach out to Renee. We will put her information in the comments on the YouTube channel and we'll post it on our social media as well just to get the word out a little bit more. Hopefully you have a great attendance there this weekend and a wonderful time and there's not too much leftover pizza and it should be a lot of fun. Renee Noble: That is the problem with the leftover pizza. Like you might have ordered too much pizza now. Thank you so much. Thank you for letting me come on here and be very excited and ramble a little bit about all the things that I love to do. But yeah, it's just exciting to share all these like raising opposite opportunities and things that I've learned along the way with your audience and with both of you. And it's been absolutely delightful. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: It's been great. I'm actually also we're going to put in the website for connected code. There's a lot of stuff on there as well, A lot of free resources. I think just having. Having these opportunities to get into these resources that you have to share are great. So, yeah, and your YouTube videos and everything. I love it. Renee Noble: Amazing. Yeah. You can Also check out renewable.com which is where I've got all my Microsoft live streams for like some of them will learn Python from, from the very start. Some of them, like do a Python web server and like make a Little like party invitation, website made word, all using Python, all manner of Python based activities which are fun and they're all on renewable dot com. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Love it. That's going in the show notes. Well, we'll also put the link for the placemat, so. Sean Tibor: All right. And we, we do have a call to action this week for our audience. So we are, are in the middle of kind of reflecting and revising as we are often do. Kelly and I love reflection, as longtime listeners know. And we're thinking about what's next for the show and what we do. And don't worry, the podcast isn't going anywhere. We want to think about what's next and what we can do that's more connected with our audience and in a way that grows our. And so we're looking at, you know, ways that we can add to the community and the experience. So we're asking for help, we're asking for ideas, thoughts. We'd love to have people, people provide suggestions or ways that they would want to connect with other people in the community. We have definitely created a hub and spoke model where we are recording and pushing it out. But there's a way to make this more connected and more flat in a way that gets our community of educators talking together. So we're in the early stages of that. We're brainstorming and I would love to have that email out of the middle of nowhere that says, hey, have you thought about using this or trying that, that and have it be the exact right thing that we need at the right moment. So the call to action of the community is send us some ideas. Think about what you would want to get from the broader teaching Python community if it was more than just a podcast and had that connected feel to it. So you can always reach us through our website, which is TeachingPython FM. You can also email us at infoeachingpythonfm. I think one of the things that we're also looking at is that our community that was formerly on Twitter has sort of evaporated for a lot of reasons. And so we want to bring that feel of connectedness back. And so we're looking for your help to do that. So please send in your ideas and thoughts and over the next few months you'll see us start to put some of that into action. And we already have a few ideas, I think, but there's definitely more and we'd love your help. So thank you in advance for that. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Yeah. And if you have any other, I, I've got some really good suggestions of guests. That's how we found Renee. We got that from our friend Anthony at Microsoft. Put us into connection. So if you know somebody that's awesome, like Renee, just shoot us an email. And yeah, we're always, always, we're very should say, wanting to learn, craving to learn from others. So, yeah, shoot us an email for that too. Renee Noble: Can I add to the plugin for request feedback? If you do have resources that you're like, I wish this existed. I would want to buy that for my school or something. Tell me it connected code and then we'll like make it be a thing. Cause we don't wanna make things that people don't wanna use. So then we'll. We'll do it. Yeah, cool. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: Excellent. Sean Tibor: I like it. I love it. All right, well then, Renee, thank you one more time for being on the show with us and having a wonderful conversation. I'm sure this will not be the last you're on the show with us and I think we can probably wrap it up here. So for teaching Python, this is Sean. Kelly Schuster-Paredes: And this is Kelly signing off.