Techways

Events

March 5 | 7 | 13 | 14

AI in Action: for Teachers

Join us for an AI networking event at multiple locations in Jozi/PTA/DBN/Somerset. You will get to hear from experts, explore and test different AI tools, and network with other educators over barista coffee and snacks. Spaces limited to 30. 

More info

5 June 2024, 8-3:45pm

IEB-TechWays AI Hackathon

Teams of 2-4 learners in Grade 7-12 will have the chance to tackle social issues, while learning about the power of artificial intelligence. The top 10 teams across South Africa will be recognized at the National IEB AI Awards on 7 June.

More info

Past Events

Thurs 25 May

ChatGPT webinar for teachers

Our resident ChatGPT expert - Francois van Niekerk - has been talking to fellow IT teachers to find out their concerns, how they're using ChatGPT (or not) and tips on ways to incorporate ChatGPT into classes from the ground. Join us to share and learn.

Book now

1 April - 10 May

TechWays AI Hackathon

Join this years TechWays AI Hackathon during the April holidays as a team of 1-6 and compete in the global Microsoft Imagine Cup Junior Competition!

We have prepared a course with live webinars that will give you step-by-step support and feedback in completing competition. 

More info

Thurs 21 September

Careers TechTalk for high schoolers

 Due to popular demand, we'll be running a second Career TechTalk looking at a few new tech career pathways like Automation, cyber security & data science. Join us to find out more about the skills, job realities and steps you can take for your tech career. 

More info

Thurs 3 March

Future Skills: Game Dev

Brent George, a Canadian Animation Director from GetSet Games, Ubisoft and Warner Bros will be sharing lessons on what it takes to build a career in the game development world.

Rescheduled

Thurs 17 March

Careers TechTalk for high schoolers

Calling on all high schoolers interested in tech as a career. Join us to find out more about the skills, job realities and steps you can take for your tech career. 

Recording

Thurs 2 Dec

TechWays #WOW Awards

#WOW - What Outstanding Work - join us to learn from our students. Learners presented their final projects. Come celebrate their successes and lessons learnt with us at our TechWays #WOW Awards.

Recording

Thurs 4 Nov

Future-Skills TechTalk with Noelene Kinsley

Noelene will be sharing what the future of healthcare will look like, the kinds of jobs that will be available and how technology is going to disrupt this industry. 

Recording

Thurs 7 Oct

Future-Skills TechTalk with Jason Suttie

Let's hear more about the trends in the software and programming industries, where jobs are moving to and what kind of skills you'll need for this exciting world of tech.

Recording

Thurs 29 July

Future-Skills TechTalk: Sherrie Donaldson

Sherrie Donaldson, from BRICS Future Skills Group, will be sharing insights into some of the exciting new tech jobs of the future.

Recording

Thurs 16 Sept

Career TechTalk with TechWays

Calling on all high schoolers interested in tech as a career. Join us to find out more about the skills, job realities and steps you can take today to get a headstart.

Recording

29 July

Sutherland High Careers TechTalk

We had great fun with the Sutherland High techies talking about their dreams, their career questions and giving insights into lucrative career pathways. 

Recording

Wednesday 5 May

Future-Skills TechTalk with Rapelang

Serial Tech Entrepreneur, Thought Leader and Speaker, Rapelang Rabana of Rekindle Learn talks about her journey into her career, the challenges and results.

Recording

15 June

Future-Skills TechTalk with Jason Gurwitz

 We speak to the Head of IT Infrastructure at BSG  -  @jason.gurwitz.
He shares more about his 25 year journey into IT and cyber security with tips for young people starting in this career.

Recording

25 March

Future-Skills TechTalk with Merelda Wu

Data scientist and entrepreneur, @mereldawu of Melio AI tells us about her story of becoming a data scientist and what her life looks like now...

Recording

4 March

Future-Skills TechTalk with Brent George

@BrentGeorge of GetSet Games has over 20 years experience in the gaming industry. His insights are truly encouraging for young people starting out in game development. 

Recording

Whitespace – basically empty space (like spaces, tabs, or enter button) that makes the code look neat and organized, but the computer doesn’t care about it.

 A User – is any person that interacts (by inputs) with a program without having to write the code directly. For example, you are the user to the code that makes your browser/website run. When you clicked on this pop-up, that was the input that made this explanation come up when the code detected it.

To book your spot – click here

All learners who are aspiring web developers will have an opportunity to build a website for a live NGO or charity client as part of their community service hours. This project will be run jointly with Community Hours – so all your time spent counts towards your LO credits. This event is suitable for learners, parents and their teachers.

TechWays will be providing the WordPress course and web dev resources for free to any learner wanting to participate. 

Besides the amazing community service you’ll be doing for a charity in need – you’ll also be building your portfolio of web dev skills. Who knows – web dev could become a side hustle for extra income?

Book your spot HERE

Indentation – In the written form of many languages, an indentation or indent is an empty space at the beginning of a line to signal the start of a new paragraph.

Text editor – is the part of the IDE where you write the code. Most text editors highlight words with different properties like functions to help you distinguish them from one another. 

Homogeneous – of the same kind; alike throughout.

Heterogeneous – diverse in character or content; containing different things

Prompt – to  cause or bring about; to make something happen. For example making someone to say or write something.

Troubleshooting is a form of problem solving, often applied to repair failed products or processes on a machine or a system. It is a logical, systematic search for the source of a problem in order to solve it, and make the product or process operational again.

String Built-in Functions/Methods

There are a lot of strings functions/methods in Python. Find full list in course manual. Here’s are some that you find useful in this course:

Functions

  • len(varName) – Returns the length of a list, string
  • join(varName) – Converts the elements of an iterable into a string.

Methods 

  • varName.capitalize() – Converts the first character to upper case.
  • varName.center(length) – Returns a centered string
  • varName.count(“?”) – Returns the number of times a specified value (?) occurs in a string (varName).
  • varName.endswith(“?”) – Returns true if the string ends with the specified value.
  • varName.find(“?”) – Searches the string for a specified value and returns the position of where it was found.
  • varName.format(placeholder = value) – Formats specified values in a string.
  • varName.index(“?”) – Searches the string for a specified value and returns the position of where it was found.
  • varName.isalnum() – Returns True if all characters in the string are alphanumeric.
  • varName.isalpha() – Returns True if all characters in the string are in the alphabet.
  • varName.isascii() – Returns True if all characters in the string are ascii characters.
  • varName.isdecimal() – Returns True if all characters in the string are decimals.
  • varName.isdigit() – Returns True if all characters in the string are digits.
  • varName.isidentifier() – Returns True if the string is an identifier.
  • varName.islower() – Returns True if all characters in the string are lower case.
  • varName.isupper() – Returns True if all characters in the string are upper case.
  • varName.isnumeric() – Returns True if all characters in the string are numeric.
  • varName.isprintable() – Returns True if all characters in the string are printable.
  • varName.isspace() – Returns True if all characters in the string are whitespaces.
  • varName.istitle() – Returns True if the string follows the rules of a title.
  • varName.ljust(value) – Returns a left justified version of the string.
  • varName.rjust() Returns a right justified version of the string.
  • varName.lower() – Converts a string into lower case.
  • varName.upper() – Converts a string into upper case.
  • varName.strip() – Returns a trimmed version of the string.
  • varName.lstrip() – Returns a left trim version of the string.
  • varName.rstrip() Returns a right trim version of the string.
  • varName.partition() – Returns a tuple where the string is parted into three parts.
  • varName.replace(“old”, “new”) – Returns a string where a specified value is replaced with a specified value.
  • varName.rfind() – Searches the string for a specified value and returns the last position of where it was found.
  • varName.rindex() – Searches the string for a specified value and returns the last position of where it was found.
  • varName.rpartition() – Returns a tuple where the string is parted into three parts.
  • varName.rsplit() – Splits the string at the specified separator, and returns a list.
  • varName.split() – Splits the string at the specified separator, and returns a list.
  • varName.splitlines() – Splits the string at line breaks and returns a list.
  • varName.startswith() – Returns true if the string starts with the specified value.
  • varName.swapcase() – Swaps cases, lower case becomes upper case and vice versa.

String Special Characters

There a number of special string characters that have different functions when used inside ” “. Here’re some useful and common ones:

  • \n – Newline – Everything after it goes to next line.
  • \t – Horizontal tab – creates a tab space, similar to when you use ‘tab’ on keyboard.
  • \b – backspace – deletes the character before the it.
  • \r – carriage return – same as \n

In programming Concatenation is a process of appending one string to another. 

\ – escape character is a string character that tell Python that the next character after it should be taken as a string and not as an instruction.

str ( ) is a built-in function that converts and sequence of characters (numbers especially) in to text. 

Mad Libs is a phrasal template word game created by Leonard Stern and Roger Price. It consists of one player prompting others for a list of words to substitute for blanks in a story before reading aloud.

type ( ) is a built-in function (still to cover what built-in functions are later) that determines the Data Type of any data presented. 

input ( ) is a built-in function (still to cover what built-in functions are later) allows a user to insert info into a program/the code. 

print ( ) is a built-in function (still to cover what built-in functions are later) that executes data inside the brackets. The results get printed out on the console/results section.

Integrated Development Environment (IDE) – A digital environment used to develop games, software, hardware, that offers integration from debugging to compiling. Essentially where you write, edit, and run to test your code. 

Variables

More about variables

Info about variables

To book your spot – click here

#WOW – What Outstanding Work – Awards: join us to learn from our students. 

Our top 20 learners are from St Andrews for Girls, Reddam Umhlanga, Evolve Online, Nova Pioneer and Sutherland High. 

Learners will be presenting their final projects. Come celebrate their successes and lessons learnt with us at our TechWays #WOW Awards.

This event is suitable for learners, parents and their teachers. Book your spot HERE

To book your spot – click here

 

Calling on all high schoolers interested in tech as a career. Join us on Thursday 22 September at 5:30pm.

 

We will be sharing:

  • Some “hot button/in-demand” career pathways – including Automation
  • the skills needed to access these careers
  • some of the job realities in these careers

There are only 100 spaces – so book your spot now – please RSVP here Book

To access the recording – click here

Calling on all high schoolers interested in tech as a career to join us on 16 September at 5:30pm. If you missed it, we’ll host another one on 18 November. 

We covered the following:

  • general tech career tips
  • a few “hot button/in-demand” career pathways and jobs
  • the skills needed to access these careers
  • some of the job realities in these careers

To access the recording – click here

To book your spot – click here

We will be talking to Noelene Kinsley from GC Network. Noelene has been specialised in the exciting career of Genetic Counseling and wants to share her passion for making the world a healthier place using genetics….and data science technology. 

Let’s hear more about the trends in the health/genetics industries, where jobs are moving to and what kind of skills you’ll need in this exciting world of opportunities out there. 

This event is suitable for learners, parents and their teachers. Book your spot HERE

To book your spot – click here

We will be talking to Jason Suttie from Devson. Jason has been in the tech world since he was six years old. He headed IT innovation unit at RMB and has since left to start up his own software consulting company – solving problems and building solutions for clients around the world. 

Let’s hear more about the trends in the software and programming industries, where jobs are moving to and what kind of skills you’ll need in this exciting world of opportunities out there. 

Book your spot HERE

Linux Essentials

Introduces Linux as an operating system, the basic open source concepts and an understanding of the Linux commands. Linux is crucial for cybersecurity.

Comptia
Security+

Gives you the baseline skills you need to secure a company’s systems, software and hardware. This certificate gives practical hands-on skills to pursue a career in cyber security

Certified Ethical Hacker

Will give you skills in Information Security Threats and Attack Vectors, Attack Detection, Attack Prevention, Procedures, Methodologies and more.