5 ms·

Whilst I applaud the effort, I'm cynical. I have three children at two good but different schools and my wife is a teacher. From observation, they will either

by meaty 14y ago

Whilst I applaud the effort, I'm cynical. I have three children at two good but different schools and my wife is a teacher. From observation, they will either be locked in the cupboard because the staff won't know what to do with them or are uninterested or are too lazy to adapt them to the curriculum, or they will be stolen or broken within the week. This whilst cynical is probably realistic. The only thing that has ever survived schools is the BBC micro because they weren't cool, were indestructible and you could screw them down.

kenjackson 14y ago
I had recently visited an elementary school (private) where they were actively using 3D printers and Arduino boards. That said, they are certainly not the common case, and I fear that your cynicism is well-placed. What might be better for many such schools is to give the boards as a reward to the "top science" or "top math" student for a given grade level. I suspect it would get a lot more use.
- meaty 14y ago
  Sounds like a good school! Good to hear, even if it is private. My comment only stands for state schools. State school usually have swathes of kit (mine had CNC lathes, mills and other nice stuff) but it is never used other than to show off at parents evenings. As an ex-top math and top science student, we probably already would have one. Back in my day I had the equivalent - a BBC master, a Casio FX-7000G and a well stocked cupboard of desoldered electronic components :)
- alan_cx 14y ago
  Best chance I think it has in education is in small after school clubs for those interested. But its always going to need a decent teacher to lead it. Well, maybe not a teacher but knowledgeable parent?
  - NickPollard 14y ago
    One of the organisations mentioned is Code Club[1], who do exactly that - they run small after school clubs, with volunteer programmers running them (and with a teacher to monitor the kids). One of the founders, Linda Sandvik, spoke at HN London a couple of months ago. They're always looking for volunteers, so anyone here with some technical knowledge who would like to help kids learn computer engineering, give them a look! [1] http://www.codeclub.org.uk/ http://www.codeclub.org.uk/
fidotron 14y ago
What mystifies me is back in the 80s there was a relatively successful amount of programming at school using mainly Logo but also BBC Basic (which doesn't suck nearly as much as other basics). The real tragedy is Logo fell out of favour so quickly for no particular reason.
- meaty 14y ago
  Well logo didn't really have much potential other than for drawing stuff with a turtle. This wasn't because it wasn't capable of glorious things (which it was) but more that it was hard for the staff to understand compared to BBC BASIC.
- oftenwrong 14y ago
  I did Logo programming in elementary school around 1997/1998 using MicroWorlds on the Mac.
- Zenst 14y ago
  at high school we got taught CECIL and basic and touched upon a the other languages and there feild of usage. Also taught the history part as well. Had a 380z research machine, BBC micro in the final year and also access to a 2903 ICL mainframe running george over a 300buad acoustic coupler and then would take upto an hour to get a good connection. Sometime later computer studies got turned into a secratary skills on a computer and called ICT. Logo was great and in some way we still have it at toy level with the various programable toys via mobile phones and let us not forget we still have bigtrax. Though Lego are doing things now we could only dream of as children. Computer back then also came with a programming language interface, nowadays that is a optional extra sadly and is akin to a generation knowing how to drive and how a engine worked so they could identify a fault and fix it to those that can just drive.
  - meaty 14y ago
    Nice - I remember the 380z. Had a bus which was a simple IDC ribbon cable, weighed a ton and sort of barely coped with CP/M.
keithpeter 14y ago
I work in education as well, FE. Yes, the stock will need to be managed and support given to get them actually used. (I also have fond memories of Acorn Archimedes A310s which were also pretty solid.) Having said that, we had a couple of class sets of netbooks (Asus 7 inch ones) that lasted well and were really used for independent study/class work using wifi. And they all came back each day.
citricsquid 14y ago
Definitely realistic. During Y11 I had a fantastic I.T teacher who genuinely cared about technology, at some point the I.T department acquired a couple of LEGO Mindstorms[1]. They were only allowed to be used after school because if they'd been out in the classroom with the "normal" students (those that didn't care about technology) they would have been destroyed. The only reason we (the students that enjoyed technology) got any value out of them was because the I.T teacher put his free time towards teaching us about them and supervising our usage. He was the only teacher that had a clue about technology and they would have been destroyed or rotted in the cupboard if it weren't for him. Hopefully with the rise of technology in recent years teachers are getting better, the teachers I had (aside from the aforementioned good teacher) were all teaching since the early 90s and I'm pretty sure their qualifications were "has the ability to type" which put them ahead of the pack back then, but now they can't even come close to knowing what a hobbyist 15 year old programmer knows. That good teacher left the same year I did (he went to Switzerland because apparently they don't have a hard-on for following the shit curriculum there), I wonder if the Mindstorms ever left the cupboard after he did. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Mindstorms#LEGO_MINDSTORMS_NXT_Educational_Version http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Mindstorms#LEGO_MINDSTORMS... edit: saw your comment below I'm now a school governor to make sure that these morons don't take over the planet. Thank you.
LatvjuAvs 14y ago
I had a luxury to be in age when children encountering problem dealing with computer resolved to violence smashing keyboard, mouse or kicking stationary hardware. It is like kicking old car to start it up, it always works.
- meaty 14y ago
  I had the misfortune of smashing an Acorn A310 keyboard on the table at school resulting in most of the keytops falling off. My punishment was served: put the keys back on in the right order with no hints. Zen-like experience that. I now show respect for the machine (unless it's a Dell).
alimoeeny 14y ago
It says: "We are going ... to find the kids who we think will benefit from having their very own Raspberry Pi" So at least it's not going to end up locked in cupboards.
jlgreco 14y ago
Oh, I don't know. I know had my school had these when I was in highschool we would have gotten good mileage out of them in several of our school-sponsored science clubs. Certainly Science Olympiad, and likely our rocketry club as well.
alan_cx 14y ago
I have been sceptical about the educational part of the Pi since they literally said it. For a small set of kids who are already interested, yeah, great little toy. But if they think this will revolutionise computing and electronic education, I think that if serious, they will be disappointed. Like you say, who is going to teach. Thats a problem in the best of times, but given the cuts and general low moral of teachers, I dont see it. Next, I simply dont see the imagination there. On top of that, they look easy to break. But above all, given that all schools have PC, what's the point, unless some how the school gets in to clever things a Pi could control. The idea that the average school will have kids building demo clusters is , well, amusing. I really like the Pi, and see many many great uses for it. It is a brilliant thing. But this mass education claim looks to me like Pi in the sky. Should add, I would love to turn out to be completely wrong.
da02 14y ago
So the teachers should be fired and the students should teach themselves. Example: http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_t... However, feel free to call me a crackpot for suggesting that. I'm used to it.
- meaty 14y ago
  Great idea but that wouldn't work in the UK. The children would skive off and be found on street corners drinking WKD within half an hour.
  - da02 14y ago
    That can be mitigated by repealing child labor laws. 12 years in a govt building + no jobs = more boredom = increase demand for beer/robbery/pregnancies.
    - meaty 14y ago
      Ha. Sounds like north Korea.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Awesome idea! A raspberry pi case which screws down to the table top, has some LEDs connected to the GPIO pins behind a polycarbonate cover. A power/reset button, and HDMI and SD connectors on the "outside" of the case. Lab supplies are one SD Card. When its time to use them, out come the monitor and wireless keyboards, when your done, those get locked up leaving just the 'bumps' on the table that are the RPis.
- noonespecial 14y ago
  Seconded, but with circuitry like the "ruggeduino" folks have built into their take on arduino. I'm using ruggeduinos to teach an into to robotics class right now and I'm counting the wiring errors I discover that would have cost an UNO on a little tally sheet as we go. This simple circuitry has saved just over $400 in just a few weeks. Hardened = good. http://ruggedcircuits.com/html/ruggeduino.html http://ruggedcircuits.com/html/ruggeduino.html
ProblemFactory 14y ago
I'm more optimistical, and and I hope that will be realistic. First, the Pis will be given to individual students, not school staff. This means that they won't be locked in the cupboard between yearly "look at a computer" classes, but can be taken home by the kids to tinker with. Second, the entire point of the Raspberry Pi project is to make a computer so cheap that nobody cares if they are broken now and then. Broken computers are not actually the most important problem. It's worse to lock down computers in hardware boxes and software restrictions so that the students can't experiment for themselves. On a normal school or home computer, the adults will forbid any sort of tinkering, because the expensive/important computer might break. If the Raspberry Pi software gets messed up, you insert a new SDCard. If the hardware gets broken, it's just $35. Hopefully this will make the teachers and parents think that the Pis are just toys, and allow kids to break them.

by meaty 14y ago

kenjackson 14y ago

I had recently visited an elementary school (private) where they were actively using 3D printers and Arduino boards. That said, they are certainly not the common case, and I fear that your cynicism is well-placed. What might be better for many such schools is to give the boards as a reward to the "top science" or "top math" student for a given grade level. I suspect it would get a lot more use.

meaty 14y ago
Sounds like a good school! Good to hear, even if it is private. My comment only stands for state schools. State school usually have swathes of kit (mine had CNC lathes, mills and other nice stuff) but it is never used other than to show off at parents evenings. As an ex-top math and top science student, we probably already would have one. Back in my day I had the equivalent - a BBC master, a Casio FX-7000G and a well stocked cupboard of desoldered electronic components :)
alan_cx 14y ago
Best chance I think it has in education is in small after school clubs for those interested. But its always going to need a decent teacher to lead it. Well, maybe not a teacher but knowledgeable parent?
- NickPollard 14y ago
  One of the organisations mentioned is Code Club[1], who do exactly that - they run small after school clubs, with volunteer programmers running them (and with a teacher to monitor the kids). One of the founders, Linda Sandvik, spoke at HN London a couple of months ago. They're always looking for volunteers, so anyone here with some technical knowledge who would like to help kids learn computer engineering, give them a look! [1] http://www.codeclub.org.uk/ http://www.codeclub.org.uk/

fidotron 14y ago

What mystifies me is back in the 80s there was a relatively successful amount of programming at school using mainly Logo but also BBC Basic (which doesn't suck nearly as much as other basics). The real tragedy is Logo fell out of favour so quickly for no particular reason.

meaty 14y ago
Well logo didn't really have much potential other than for drawing stuff with a turtle. This wasn't because it wasn't capable of glorious things (which it was) but more that it was hard for the staff to understand compared to BBC BASIC.
oftenwrong 14y ago
I did Logo programming in elementary school around 1997/1998 using MicroWorlds on the Mac.
Zenst 14y ago
at high school we got taught CECIL and basic and touched upon a the other languages and there feild of usage. Also taught the history part as well. Had a 380z research machine, BBC micro in the final year and also access to a 2903 ICL mainframe running george over a 300buad acoustic coupler and then would take upto an hour to get a good connection. Sometime later computer studies got turned into a secratary skills on a computer and called ICT. Logo was great and in some way we still have it at toy level with the various programable toys via mobile phones and let us not forget we still have bigtrax. Though Lego are doing things now we could only dream of as children. Computer back then also came with a programming language interface, nowadays that is a optional extra sadly and is akin to a generation knowing how to drive and how a engine worked so they could identify a fault and fix it to those that can just drive.
- meaty 14y ago
  Nice - I remember the 380z. Had a bus which was a simple IDC ribbon cable, weighed a ton and sort of barely coped with CP/M.

keithpeter 14y ago

I work in education as well, FE. Yes, the stock will need to be managed and support given to get them actually used. (I also have fond memories of Acorn Archimedes A310s which were also pretty solid.) Having said that, we had a couple of class sets of netbooks (Asus 7 inch ones) that lasted well and were really used for independent study/class work using wifi. And they all came back each day.

citricsquid 14y ago

Definitely realistic. During Y11 I had a fantastic I.T teacher who genuinely cared about technology, at some point the I.T department acquired a couple of LEGO Mindstorms[1]. They were only allowed to be used after school because if they'd been out in the classroom with the "normal" students (those that didn't care about technology) they would have been destroyed. The only reason we (the students that enjoyed technology) got any value out of them was because the I.T teacher put his free time towards teaching us about them and supervising our usage. He was the only teacher that had a clue about technology and they would have been destroyed or rotted in the cupboard if it weren't for him. Hopefully with the rise of technology in recent years teachers are getting better, the teachers I had (aside from the aforementioned good teacher) were all teaching since the early 90s and I'm pretty sure their qualifications were "has the ability to type" which put them ahead of the pack back then, but now they can't even come close to knowing what a hobbyist 15 year old programmer knows. That good teacher left the same year I did (he went to Switzerland because apparently they don't have a hard-on for following the shit curriculum there), I wonder if the Mindstorms ever left the cupboard after he did. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Mindstorms#LEGO_MINDSTORMS_NXT_Educational_Version http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Mindstorms#LEGO_MINDSTORMS... edit: saw your comment below I'm now a school governor to make sure that these morons don't take over the planet. Thank you.

LatvjuAvs 14y ago

I had a luxury to be in age when children encountering problem dealing with computer resolved to violence smashing keyboard, mouse or kicking stationary hardware. It is like kicking old car to start it up, it always works.

meaty 14y ago
I had the misfortune of smashing an Acorn A310 keyboard on the table at school resulting in most of the keytops falling off. My punishment was served: put the keys back on in the right order with no hints. Zen-like experience that. I now show respect for the machine (unless it's a Dell).

alimoeeny 14y ago

It says: "We are going ... to find the kids who we think will benefit from having their very own Raspberry Pi" So at least it's not going to end up locked in cupboards.

jlgreco 14y ago

Oh, I don't know. I know had my school had these when I was in highschool we would have gotten good mileage out of them in several of our school-sponsored science clubs. Certainly Science Olympiad, and likely our rocketry club as well.

alan_cx 14y ago

I have been sceptical about the educational part of the Pi since they literally said it. For a small set of kids who are already interested, yeah, great little toy. But if they think this will revolutionise computing and electronic education, I think that if serious, they will be disappointed. Like you say, who is going to teach. Thats a problem in the best of times, but given the cuts and general low moral of teachers, I dont see it. Next, I simply dont see the imagination there. On top of that, they look easy to break. But above all, given that all schools have PC, what's the point, unless some how the school gets in to clever things a Pi could control. The idea that the average school will have kids building demo clusters is , well, amusing. I really like the Pi, and see many many great uses for it. It is a brilliant thing. But this mass education claim looks to me like Pi in the sky. Should add, I would love to turn out to be completely wrong.

da02 14y ago

So the teachers should be fired and the students should teach themselves. Example: http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_t... However, feel free to call me a crackpot for suggesting that. I'm used to it.

meaty 14y ago
Great idea but that wouldn't work in the UK. The children would skive off and be found on street corners drinking WKD within half an hour.
- da02 14y ago
  That can be mitigated by repealing child labor laws. 12 years in a govt building + no jobs = more boredom = increase demand for beer/robbery/pregnancies.
  - meaty 14y ago
    Ha. Sounds like north Korea.

ChuckMcM 14y ago

Awesome idea! A raspberry pi case which screws down to the table top, has some LEDs connected to the GPIO pins behind a polycarbonate cover. A power/reset button, and HDMI and SD connectors on the "outside" of the case. Lab supplies are one SD Card. When its time to use them, out come the monitor and wireless keyboards, when your done, those get locked up leaving just the 'bumps' on the table that are the RPis.

noonespecial 14y ago
Seconded, but with circuitry like the "ruggeduino" folks have built into their take on arduino. I'm using ruggeduinos to teach an into to robotics class right now and I'm counting the wiring errors I discover that would have cost an UNO on a little tally sheet as we go. This simple circuitry has saved just over $400 in just a few weeks. Hardened = good. http://ruggedcircuits.com/html/ruggeduino.html http://ruggedcircuits.com/html/ruggeduino.html

ProblemFactory 14y ago

I'm more optimistical, and and I hope that will be realistic. First, the Pis will be given to individual students, not school staff. This means that they won't be locked in the cupboard between yearly "look at a computer" classes, but can be taken home by the kids to tinker with. Second, the entire point of the Raspberry Pi project is to make a computer so cheap that nobody cares if they are broken now and then. Broken computers are not actually the most important problem. It's worse to lock down computers in hardware boxes and software restrictions so that the students can't experiment for themselves. On a normal school or home computer, the adults will forbid any sort of tinkering, because the expensive/important computer might break. If the Raspberry Pi software gets messed up, you insert a new SDCard. If the hardware gets broken, it's just $35. Hopefully this will make the teachers and parents think that the Pis are just toys, and allow kids to break them.