15 ms·

I'd be elated to see a school program which just gives out PI Zeros. At 10$ each kids can lose or break em. Now I'm imagining some super programmer origin sto

I'd be elated to see a school program which just gives out PI Zeros. At 10$ each kids can lose or break em. Now I'm imagining some super programmer origin story, where a old Unix coder gives a poor kid a PI and said kid ends up at Google later. Back before I got my first salary job I was building apps on a old laptop. While struggling with Windows , Ubuntu ran like a champ. I largely learned to program on that thing, got my first salary job and now I can buy whatever computer I want.

smtibor 5y ago
Check out the BBC micro:bit origin story. It's a fantastic little board that was given out to about a million 7th graders in the UK starting in 2016. It would be great to get more devices out so kids can learn to tinker and code. We are fortunate that each of our students has access to a computer that works well for coding. And Python runs on just about anything. :)
- 999900000999 5y ago
  That's great ! Did they run a study to see how many students went on to pursue compsi ?
  - smtibor 5y ago
    I'm not sure. Given that it was in 2016, most of those students are just probably going on to University this year. So I'm hoping we'll see some of that data come out soon.
tdeck 5y ago
The Pi is an excellent environment for learning to program - I love how it puts programming front and center. I imagine many poor kids couldn't do much with it until they got a keyboard, mouse, and monitor from the school as well. Some of these items can easily be found for free but perhaps not as much in poor neighborhoods.
- smtibor 5y ago
  It's really tough in a lot of places. The good news is that there are some new Pis that address that. For example, the Raspberry PI 400 looks like it could be a great way to get a computer in front of a student and all they need is a TV or monitor. (just like an old Commodore 64 or Apple II like I first fell in love with) There are some amazing after school programs that are trying to address the uneven distribution of resources in computer science education, but we definitely need a more comprehensive approach in the US.
  - tdeck 5y ago
    I have a Pi 400. It's a lot of fun but it's also $100 - a big jump up from $10. Also it's not really intuitive to navigate Raspbian without a mouse as a beginner, although mice are dirt cheap.

smtibor 5y ago

Check out the BBC micro:bit origin story. It's a fantastic little board that was given out to about a million 7th graders in the UK starting in 2016. It would be great to get more devices out so kids can learn to tinker and code. We are fortunate that each of our students has access to a computer that works well for coding. And Python runs on just about anything. :)

999900000999 5y ago
That's great ! Did they run a study to see how many students went on to pursue compsi ?
- smtibor 5y ago
  I'm not sure. Given that it was in 2016, most of those students are just probably going on to University this year. So I'm hoping we'll see some of that data come out soon.

tdeck 5y ago

The Pi is an excellent environment for learning to program - I love how it puts programming front and center. I imagine many poor kids couldn't do much with it until they got a keyboard, mouse, and monitor from the school as well. Some of these items can easily be found for free but perhaps not as much in poor neighborhoods.

smtibor 5y ago
It's really tough in a lot of places. The good news is that there are some new Pis that address that. For example, the Raspberry PI 400 looks like it could be a great way to get a computer in front of a student and all they need is a TV or monitor. (just like an old Commodore 64 or Apple II like I first fell in love with) There are some amazing after school programs that are trying to address the uneven distribution of resources in computer science education, but we definitely need a more comprehensive approach in the US.
- tdeck 5y ago
  I have a Pi 400. It's a lot of fun but it's also $100 - a big jump up from $10. Also it's not really intuitive to navigate Raspbian without a mouse as a beginner, although mice are dirt cheap.