This is the smartest intentioned educational device I've found. https://microbit.org/ https://microbit.org/ It's rough around the edges, but what it does well

This is the smartest intentioned educational device I've found. https://microbit.org/ https://microbit.org/ It's rough around the edges, but what it does well is offer a wide array of sensor inputs, and very simple text output. And wraps it in a simple API. You can compute temperature, direction, orientation, do GPIO, network via Bluetooth or direct radio, and drive it with a simple two button and marquee text UI.