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Lessons were learned from the Raspberry Pi and were applied very effectively to the micro:bit. It's a $16 development board based around a Cortex M0 microcontro

Lessons were learned from the Raspberry Pi and were applied very effectively to the micro:bit. It's a $16 development board based around a Cortex M0 microcontroller with Bluetooth LE, an accelerometer/magnetometer, a 5x5 LED array and alligator clip compatible IO. I think it's the best platform for teaching the basics of CS - simple enough to be understandable, but powerful enough to be useful. Pupils can get started with a browser-based drag-and-drop code editor, then graduate to Scratch, Python, C or assembler. http://microbit.org/ http://microbit.org/

TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
But both the Bit and the Pi fall between two stools. 8-bit micros like the Spectrum and BBC were powerful enough to get useful work done, but simple enough to offer simple instant gratification. You could learn everything you needed about BASIC from a fairly small paper manual, and after that - or sometimes during - you learned the rest by example from monthly magazines. The monthly format worked very well, providing a digestible amount of information on a regular schedule. The Pi is a complete different experience. Command-line Linux is completely unsuited to most beginners, and desktop Linux really needs command-line skills to be usable. The Pi tries to teach Linux, basic electronics, Python (etc), and simple web tech all at the same time, and that's too much ground to cover at once. Meanwhile the Bit is too simple to be useful. You can make LEDs flash on and off, but that's not nearly as exciting as being able to write and play a complete game. I'm occasionally surprised no one has built an 8-bit-like neo-micro booting into the Python interpreter, which is probably the closest thing to BASIC we have today. Although given that everyone has a phone now, and most people have tablets and desktops, the ideal modern environment would probably be something like a more accessible version of Swift playgrounds - if only because that "You too can access incredible technology at home" thing is an historic relic now.
- jdietrich 8y ago
  The kind of software you can write on an 8-bit micro just looks pathetic to kids who were raised on iPhones. Teaching kids to write application software is a long and painful slog, because of the huge gulf between expectation and reality. Removing the screen is the essential concept that makes the micro:bit such a great teaching tool. Moving the turtle in Logo is deathly boring, but blinking an LED or turning a motor with code is weirdly magical. Micro:bit is remarkably similar to the programmable badges you get at conferences like Defcon, which is no accident. It's tremendous fun to have a little gadget that you can tinker with and show off to your friends. Kids are natural hackers. Every time they grok a basic concept, they have twenty different ideas about what they could do with it. The micro:bit isn't a primitive computer - it's the brain of a robot, it's a burglar alarm, it's a fitness tracker, it's a million different things just waiting to be built. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35824446 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35824446
- jonhendry18 8y ago
  Perhaps someone should write an "8 bit shell" for the Pi, something curses-based, with a selection of programs available to run, a limited view of the filesystem, and with a programming REPL built in.

TheOtherHobbes 8y ago

But both the Bit and the Pi fall between two stools. 8-bit micros like the Spectrum and BBC were powerful enough to get useful work done, but simple enough to offer simple instant gratification. You could learn everything you needed about BASIC from a fairly small paper manual, and after that - or sometimes during - you learned the rest by example from monthly magazines. The monthly format worked very well, providing a digestible amount of information on a regular schedule. The Pi is a complete different experience. Command-line Linux is completely unsuited to most beginners, and desktop Linux really needs command-line skills to be usable. The Pi tries to teach Linux, basic electronics, Python (etc), and simple web tech all at the same time, and that's too much ground to cover at once. Meanwhile the Bit is too simple to be useful. You can make LEDs flash on and off, but that's not nearly as exciting as being able to write and play a complete game. I'm occasionally surprised no one has built an 8-bit-like neo-micro booting into the Python interpreter, which is probably the closest thing to BASIC we have today. Although given that everyone has a phone now, and most people have tablets and desktops, the ideal modern environment would probably be something like a more accessible version of Swift playgrounds - if only because that "You too can access incredible technology at home" thing is an historic relic now.

jdietrich 8y ago
The kind of software you can write on an 8-bit micro just looks pathetic to kids who were raised on iPhones. Teaching kids to write application software is a long and painful slog, because of the huge gulf between expectation and reality. Removing the screen is the essential concept that makes the micro:bit such a great teaching tool. Moving the turtle in Logo is deathly boring, but blinking an LED or turning a motor with code is weirdly magical. Micro:bit is remarkably similar to the programmable badges you get at conferences like Defcon, which is no accident. It's tremendous fun to have a little gadget that you can tinker with and show off to your friends. Kids are natural hackers. Every time they grok a basic concept, they have twenty different ideas about what they could do with it. The micro:bit isn't a primitive computer - it's the brain of a robot, it's a burglar alarm, it's a fitness tracker, it's a million different things just waiting to be built. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35824446 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35824446
jonhendry18 8y ago
Perhaps someone should write an "8 bit shell" for the Pi, something curses-based, with a selection of programs available to run, a limited view of the filesystem, and with a programming REPL built in.