Operation Manual

What next?
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Notes:
Raspberry Pi-specific resources
Liam Fraser has made a series of Raspberry Pi-specific YouTube tutorials, which
you can find at http://goo.gl/MM9hA
The Magpi, the free Raspberry Pi Users’ magazine (http://themagpi.com) has
some excellent beginners’ articles and tutorials.
Python online tutorials, resources and references
The official Python site keeps a huge list of quality resources both for beginners
(http://goo.gl/MM o5G). It should keep you busy for some time.
Online courses
Free online courses by top universities have taken off recently, and they teach
many computing-related topics, such as programming, electronics, artificial
intelligence and logic. The courses are pitched at college/university level but the
beginner courses could be tackled by younger students.
The courses are typically delivered via video lectures and handouts, with
accompanying exercises. Many have definite start and end dates, with homework
deadlines and formal exams, although some – such as the Udacity CS101 course
– are now ‘open’ and you can start (and finish) any time. These courses are ideal
for people who want to do some more in-depth stuff and would like guided tuition
with a specific target.
Currently, the main providers are:
Udacity (http://udacity.com)
The Introduction to Computer Science (CS101) course needs no prior computing
or programming experience. It takes you from nothing to building your own search
engine (though we don’t think that Google should be too worried!).
Coursera (http://coursera.org)
Coursera offers 120 courses across 16 categories. Computer Science 101 is the
obvious beginner’s computing course but hasn’t started as of October 2012. One
advantage is that it has a self-study option where you proceed at your own pace
(but you don’t get a certificate).
edX (http://edx.or g)
A collaboration of MIT, Harvard and Berkeley, edX currently offers two introductory
computing courses: CS50x Introduction to Computer Science I (Harvard) and
6.00x Introduction to Computer Science and Programming (MIT) due to start in
October 2012.