Two out of the three workshops I attended this semester were the “Intro To Python” two-part series hosted by GC Digital Initiatives. As someone whose only coding experience was a 10-week long Intro to Python course that I took as an undergraduate about 4 years ago, I thought this was a great way to refresh my understanding of Python code. I think now that I have access to AI tools like ChatGPT that can write pieces of code for me, I’m more interested in just being able to read and understand the code as opposed to mastering the art of writing it myself completely. This workshop definitely helped me with that since I had forgotten a lot of the basics in these 4 years. I also hear often that Python is the easiest to understand programming language and/or the easiest to learn so I’m glad that this is the resource made available to students at the GC who want to learn how to get started with coding. I’m still learning about all of the things that I can build using Python code / what uses it can have in my life. I think that’s something that wasn’t necessarily covered in these two workshops but it would be nice to see a more intermediate workshop on that in the future, or even one that specifically shows us how to use AI to write code for us.

For example, I recently have been using ChatGPT to start building something that can help me practice and continue learning P’urhépecha, my ancestral Indigenous Mexican language. It’s a language that isn’t available on any of the popular online language learning programs / apps and all that students like myself really have to work with is lists of words with their Spanish translations that we can find online or obtain from P’urhepecha community members who teach the language. I’ve mostly been relying on making Quizlet flashcards from these lists of words but it can be very time consuming, even with the new AI feature that can turn digital notes into flashcards. I started using ChatGPT to write Python code that will allow me to skip a lot of the tedious work of gathering all of the information I have about different P’urhepecha words into a usable spreadsheet that I can later use to code different types interactive features such as flashcards, quizzes, and learning games. I liked the “Learn” feature on Quizlet that already has similar features to what I’m looking for but I didn’t like the actual making of the flashcard sets and the way those flashcards hold information is limited to a “front” and “back” (two variables) when I could use a lot more variables to make a more dynamic quizzing features and more effective learning process. If anyone knows of any resources that can help me continue this project please let me know, thanks!