Google Funds Raspberry Pi And CS Teachers For UK Schools 165
nk497 writes "Last year, Eric Schmidt slammed British computer science teaching, saying the UK was wasting its computing heritage — since then, the Government has agreed to re-examine how the subject is taught. 'Rebooting computer science education is not straightforward,' Schmidt said. 'Scrapping the existing curriculum was a good first step — the equivalent of pulling the plug out of the wall. The question is now how to power up.' To help, Schmidt has now promised funding from Google to train 100 teachers as well as give classrooms Raspberry Pis, via charity Teach First."
The simpsons say hello (Score:4, Funny)
"...Welcome to maths. If I have three Pepsi and drink one how refreshed would I be?"
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1. Good will. Google are the good guys here.
2. A better trained workforce. They'll need engineers in ten years time, after all.
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So why didn't they push one of the new ultra-cheap Android devices?
Why only English Schools get the funding? (Score:2)
Why should UK get all?
How about school kids from other countries?
Isn't UK still considered a developed country?
Why pour funds into schools of an already developed country while hundreds of millions of under-privileged school kids from not-yet-developed countries all over the world don't get nothing?
What kind of "Good Will" Google hopes to get by doing so?
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Because we asked nicely.
If only... (Score:3, Funny)
If only I could buy one.
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Just got my "Purchase Code" from RS on tuesday; I signed up minutes after they went on sale back in febuary. Be patient, you'll get one eventually.
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I just bought a Raspberry Pi at Newark Electronics. $44.xx with shipping and taxes. Whoo Hoo!
to train 100 teachers (Score:4, Informative)
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What, are you suggesting Google should be responsible for the entire UK education system?
Presumably this is a pilot project, and if it goes well, more teachers will be trained and more hardware purchased. At least that's how I'd expect this to work in a sane world.
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Training 100 teachers probably means a 2 hour lecture on plugging the thing in. Google is just after cheap publicity & karma.
Re: to train 100 teachers (Score:5, Informative)
Training 100 teachers probably means a 2 hour lecture on plugging the thing in. Google is just after cheap publicity & karma.
Or if you RTFA:
Schmidt said the funding would be handed to the charity Teach First, to put 100 recent graduates through a six-week training course and give them equipment - including the Raspberry Pi - before sending them into schools to teach.
Rubbish (Score:3)
Eric Schmidt has done exactly the right thing. It's a pity that it takes
Re: to train 100 teachers (Score:5, Informative)
What I don't understand is, why not give them real computers? Surely Google has some old desktop & server systems that are being retired that could be donated, or hell, write a check and buy a couple Linux servers, install Android SDK and relevant tools, and send some of your engineers in for intensive "here's how to hack your phone" training with the teachers. Probably wouldn't cost that much, and would probably have far more "real world" application than these ridiculously overhyped RPis.
Did you notice how the subject being taught is "Computer Science", not "IT"? There's a reason the names are different.
Re: to train 100 teachers (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you notice how the subject being taught is "Computer Science", not "IT"? There's a reason the names are different.
I really wish people would stop making this mistake...to the point that I think we should come up with a name for CS that doesn't have the word "Computer" in it.
"Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes, biology is about microscopes or chemistry is about beakers and test tubes."
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Maths?
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That works for the theoretical aspects. (Soft|Hard)ware Engineering covers the practical aspects.
The problem is Information Systems, which is basically IT with extra maths, but is often taught by CS departments.
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Slightly off topic (Score:2)
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Just like teaching math doesn't require a pencil and paper. Or a graphing calculator.
(And just so it doesn't go over your head, here's my point explicitly: Some concepts are easier to teach with proper tools.)
Re: to train 100 teachers (Score:4, Interesting)
Loads of older, substandard computers will have their own problems -- they won't be a monoculture, so they'll be harder to administer and maintain, especially at a school where IT is often the typing teacher and his smartest student. They'll be on their way to failure and will need to constantly have parts replaced, probably at great cost because, as a government entity, the school will probably have a preferred vendor where they'll buy $100 250 GB drives and $20 case fans. They'll cost more to ship. The Pi costs $7 to ship. A 30 lb. computer would cost closer to $25 or more.
I understand if you think the Pi is underpowered for Excel, but it's perfectly adequate for its purpose: To teach basic computer science skills. Can it run Python? Yes. Can it compile C? Yes. Can it hook up to a keyboard, mouse and TV? Yes. (Note: It was an informed decision to choose TV over composite or HDMI over VGA. Yes, I own VGA monitors. Yes, they can be found cheap. Everyone with a TV has a composite input though and more people have a TV than have a monitor.)
Just because you don't want some small charity to successfully disseminate cheap computers and just because you're butthurt you can't get one for yourself right now (*wah, I want it /nooowwwwwwwwwww/*) doesn't mean it is of no value.
The OLPC failed because they couldn't hit their price point, not because it's underpowered.
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At $35 a piece it's not that big a risk to send it home with the kids. Those textbooks they take home are $100 jobbies.
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That must be why that generation of programmers who cut their teeth on the ZX81, Spectrum, Vic20 etc - all of which were underpowered compared to a wristwatch - don't exist.
Fuck, I'm imagining myself! Gotta go, some guy called Descartes on line 1.
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The Raspberry Pi as a tool for teaching Computer Science is definitely high up there on value. Teaching it in the closed system of Windows while still completely possible can lead to some things having to be missed, due to closed administration policies and such. If you're using the Windows machines to store important work and run software used by other subjects then you can't simply have a class of Computing students come in and start re-writing the Operating System (not that they could in windows of cours
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Half of k12 schools are elementry schools. Kernel internal commands are not appropriate at that level. Even in the highschool level, student need to learn Office and spreadsheet tasks and photoshop work for graphic art classes.
I am not a troll here, but I do wonder if these things have the ram to run LibroOffice or OpenOffice? What about the Gimp? 256 megs is not a lot. A simple import of 250 megs of pics off a student SMMC card can KILL these things easily!
Now if they had a 2nd CPU and maybe 1 gig of ram they could run more software. Is there even an ARM port of LibraOffice or OO available? It runs Java, so I doubt it as no JRE of ARM are available for Linux that are not the crippled micro edition.
These things are useful for very simple websurfing and that is counter productive for students. The little ones use flash intranet and internet sites and that is another thing these machines can't do.
These are cheap and that is the only reason they are talked about. Maybe a $199 netbook program would be more ideal with Windows Starter edition or Ubuntu. A middle school in Alaska uses these with Ubuntu (Dell 9 mini) and they have 1 gig of ram, decent video, and the ones that boot Windows 7 Starter can run flash apps and Office. These would be more appropriate for those who swear by Linux.
I think your missing the point. The schools will still have macs and PCs for teaching office skills, these are there to teach computer science. The y allow the kids to have access to a whole system, that they can bootstrap, hack, interface to devices, etc. Your question is a bit like asking whether the Bunsen burners in the science labs will be adequate for the cookery classes - of course they are not they are for something completely different.
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Would you use it for tweeting?
Re: to train 100 teachers (Score:5, Insightful)
These do Python and C as well as GPIO. Those are far more valuable in a Computer Science course than an office suite would be. We don't want to train kids to be secretaries, we want to train them to be engineers.
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You can learn what you need for Excel in a week of basic classes and maybe a week of specialty instruction. Actually, all of it can be learned online if the student is motivated.
This is teaching the basics of CS. HOW and WHY a computer and software work, not can I calculate and graph the equitable division of the lunch check.
While the latter may be useful, the skill sets are not mutually exclusive.
Think of it as the computer educational equivalent of survival and inquiry, not sophistication. [Bonus geek poi
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And there are more jobs shovelling shite than there are in plumbing, and more in plumbing than in medicine. And the way things are going there'll be more jobs shooting at foreigners (and getting shot at in return) than all of them put together.
Your point was what?
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From what I've read Google doesn't retire servers, they use it till it breaks and then replace it with something better.
One of the very good things you can do with a bunch of cheap computers that you can't do with a few very good computers is create large test networks.
If you want old-but-still-serviceable desktops check out www.discountelectronics.com , they mainly carry retired Dells that can barely run Linux Mint using the LXDE desktop. I'd rather half a dozen Raspberry Pi's than that.
Donating failing old equipment not a solution (Score:2)
Shipping end-of-life hardware and dumping it in rural and small town schools does not make a sustainable or well thought out pedagogical approach to providing computer science training to 11-18 year olds.
Africa is full of rusting unsupported hardware like tractors. We don't need to join that model with a bunch of out of date PCs and servers.
Teachers are very busy people. They can't drop everything because The Great Google Engineer has come in to town.They have lessons to plan, kids to teach, exams to get st
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It should go reasonably far. Each of the 21,000 primary schools (of which I know more about than secondary) are within an administrative area. Generally, the people who head ICT training in these administrative areas are not developers. Furthermore, in the UK primary sector, there exist quite advanced mechanisms for transferring "best practice" from one school to the next. The UK gov't spends real money on this and gets real results in turn. If you train 100 teachers in the current pedagogical best pra
Re: to train 100 teachers (Score:4)
"Furthermore, in the UK primary sector, there exist quite advanced mechanisms for transferring "best practice" from one school to the next. The UK gov't spends real money on this and gets real results in turn."
Does it? I spent a number of years supporting "Advisory Teachers" who exist outside any one school for precisely the purpose of teaching teachers how to teach and the level of ineptitude was frankly astounding.
In fact, it was from an IT Advisory Teacher that I got my dumbest, most ridiculous ever technical support call once - "Hi, there's no paper in the printer, and an orange light on it and it wont print, can you come and have a look at it?"
Yes that's right, it wouldn't print BECAUSE IT HAD NO FUCKING PAPER IN IT. Her colleague wasn't any better, phoning up almost on a weekly basis to point out that she couldn't get sound on the training suite computer - oddly enough because she hadn't turned the fucking speakers on.
Honestly, Advisory Teachers are a prime example of a non-job, it's a high paid role (£40k - £60k p/a) and it's where teachers who were shit at teaching basically go to die.
It's these people those 100 slots Google is promoting should replace. I cannot describe how inexplicably terrible advisory teachers are. I even made the mistake of engaging in discussion with a maths one once, thinking we may have shared a common interest in maths, but no, her maths qualifications seem to just about extend to counting to 10 and nothing more.
Still it's been some years, maybe things have changed, maybe there are other mechanisms that bypass advisory teachers or something so perhaps you're right. But my experience was that local governments tended to throw literally millions of pounds a year down the drain on these people who - and I say this literally, not figuratively - weren't even fit to pass some of the most basic computing courses out there, which cover things such as doing a mail merge with Word. Bad just isn't a powerful enough word to describe how awful these people were at their jobs.
It sounds like I'm ranting, it sounds like I'm going over the top in my critique of the situation, but it really is quite unbeleivable how much of a train wreck advisory services were in the UK at least some years back - I'd be amazed if they've had a complete turn around since.
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"Hi, there's no paper in the printer, and an orange light on it and it wont print, can you come and have a look at it?"
That might not have been quite what you thought it was. I've worked in a nearly all female environment for a while now (extremely stable job, company actually started growing when the economy fell apart).
We all had it beat into our heads during the ninties with shows like Home Improvement that males are all lunkheads who are too prideful to ask for help or directions. Naturally, females were portrayed as flawless, rational, civilizing influences that just have some kind of higher existence than a man c
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Sorry. I wouldn't be the misogyinist I am today without having been forcefed an adequate amount of drivel from you females about how all men are rapists, etc and being told to know my role enough.
I'll know my role when you get in my kitchen and make me a sandwich.
Again, as I've been saying lately, I wish I knew how to get to your parallel universe. It sounds like a better one than mine.
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I hit submit too fast. I used to believe what you're saying. It would seem basic logic.
I guess you get worn down after a while.
You can wear pants the day I can go outside in one of my nice, long skirts I like without needing to worry about what gender someone is going to assign to me and the ensuing drama of someone gendering me male in a skirt because I was forced through male puberty, which left a good number of unerasable features. Usually, though, people gender me female until I speak and the wron
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Possibly, but when the reams of spare paper were kept right next to the printer, the printer had a simple top loading tray with a big picture of a piece of paper and an arrow showing where to put it, coupled with the fact it's the same printer she'd been using for about 3 years, I'm not convinced.
It may not have been incompetence I suppose, it could've been laziness - easier to pick up the phone and ring me than engage her brain but either way, it's clearly not a person anywhere near competent enough to be
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I don't have an Engineering degree and I know more about computing than someone who just finished their Master's degree in CS straight out of undergrad. It's called 20 years of practical experience. Degrees are good and all, but let's not get hung up on them.
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Tbh I think it's almost criminal how the PGCE currently operates. That you can teach a subject with out even a related degree just seems wrong.
I am afraid you are mistaken: to begin a PGCE you need to demonstrate suitable subject knowledge - the easiest way to do so is having a degree in a related subject. If your degree is not relevant , there exist two-year conversion courses where the first year is spent at university learning the requisite subject knowledge. If you don't have a degree you can't become a teacher in the UK.
Of course, once you are a qualified teacher you can transfer to teach other subjects at the discretion of your school - If a
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I didn't realise that there was a test as I haven't started applying for mine yet.
Exactly how each teacher training institution decides if your subject knowledge is good enough is up to the individual institution. Some have an entry test, some a list of specific degree title's they will consider, some assess it during an interview. I did my PGCE at St Martin's College (now part of the University of Cumbria) and they primarily looked at your degree, but if that didn't pass muster would discuss it with applicants during the interview.
I was basing what I knew on having a Science teacher with an English degree (at least that was what I heard maybe that wasn't true).
That doesn't sound ideal! I take it the teacher in quest
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This is news to me, unless things have changed. The rule, based on who taught me, can be summed up as "one level below".
Thus a Biology grad could teach A level biology; if he had A level physics he could teach that to O level to.
Of course it's not 100% clear cut; an engineering grad (at least a good one) would count as an honorary mathematician & depending on s
Re: to train 100 teachers (Score:4, Informative)
For heaven's sake, it's a start, and a start is better than a slap in the face with a wet fish.
Sadly, I think it's England only. Those of you outside the United Kingdom think we're all one country, but we aren't - we're an international union just like the EU. There is no 'UK' educational system. However, we should all of us be supporting initiatives like this where ever we are.
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Notice that they're not working with the government, they're working with Teach First [teachfirst.org.uk]. Teach First is a charity (working specifically within the English education sector, not the UK) which places graduates into schools for a two year on-the-job qualification (as opposed to the standard one-year university-based course that has a significant teaching practice component).
Teach First took on 770 new teachers for the 2011-2012 academic year, and a large percentage of them would have been going into secondary s
100 Teachers (Score:1)
100 teachers - 4364 secondary schools .... Maths is obviously not his strong point ...
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The idea is that he has put his money where his mouth is, now the government should do the same.
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This is the internet. An opinion must be an exaggerated parody of an opinion, or it is considered worthless and derisory. I demand that either you agree that they should train the entire UK population to be CS teachers, or that they should shut up and do nothing!
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Ah, you're missing the big picture : thanks to the power of google's MapReduce algorithms those 100 teachers can easily spread the (home) work over those 4000-ish schools !
(I know, I know...)
Re:100 Teachers (Score:4, Insightful)
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The way this lot are going - that's exactly how they'd have everything done (so they can get a lovely directorship once the electorate have turfed them out)
It's a start (Score:5, Funny)
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I was not sure if this guy was evil or a genius.
"Or"???
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I was not sure if this guy was evil or a genius.
"Or"???
"Not"???
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"OR" in the logical sense, as opposed to "XOR"
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That would bring the total number of specialist Computer Science teachers in the UK to...100.
Yeah and of course those Google bastards use the binary system. So they get credit for one hundred teachers, but only deliver four.
Qualified staff numbers stay at zero (Score:2)
That would bring the total number of specialist Computer Science teachers in the UK to...100.
No, it would leave it at zero. As soon as the teachers become qualified in an IT topic that's in demand they'll be off into a "proper" job (you know: desk, phone, work-colleagues they can chat to, coffee when they please, unlimited surfing and a spot of working, too) that doesn't involve being in a room with a bunch of angry/hostile/bored/demotivated/sociopathic children - and the kids in the classes are even worse that the ones in the staff room.
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Parent modded 'Funny'; actually, was a slight exaggeration... it would be 101.
Funding schmunding (Score:5, Informative)
From all the gripes I see the problem is finding the little buggers.
Has anyone here actually held one in his sweaty hand?
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I now wonder if you were talking about Raspberry Pi's, at first I thought you were backordering CS teachers, and finding the little buggers has been difficult.
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I'm on a waiting list to join the waiting list :(
I might have to start looking for one of the alternatives [reghardware.com].
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Re:Funding schmunding (Score:5, Funny)
Man, I read your first line as 'the little buggers' = the school-children ... as apparently the UK has a bit of a problem with pupils skipping school.
That made reading the second line kind of weird !
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Hmm, yes.
http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/1366/raspi.jpg [imageshack.us]
I managed to get an order in on launch day, but not for one of the first 200 units, the 1st batch which I got about 3 weeks ago.
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I dunno I registered interest on both sites (farnell and RS) from two different email accounts - and I already have 2 of them and have 2 more on the way in the next week or so (already shipped)
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Two, actually :)
http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=6012 [raspberrypi.org]
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I've actually been invited into the queue twice so far, but haven't bit. I'm getting ready to move house so I don't want to be getting packages that'll get lost in the move. I'm also seriously considering waiting for the A model anyway.
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Sorry.
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I'm PReDiToR @ YO2, York, England.
I can't guarantee any degree of accuracy with that map, nor can the owner of the page (thanks Ryan) because there is no verification.
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> From all the gripes I see the problem is finding the little buggers.
> Has anyone here actually held one in his sweaty hand?
I registered with RS at 10am on the day of launch. They neglected to notify the mailing list that it was launching, so I was late. I finally got to order just over a week ago, and was told it should arrive within 3 weeks. I think they're close to clearing the backlog of orders, as the Pi's are now in serial production.
By my reckoning, you should be able to order sometime next mo
Nothing better than something? (Score:2)
Scrapping the existing curriculum was a good first step
Why not continue the existing program until you develop a replacement? I'm pretty sure even a flawed program is better than none at all.
Re:Nothing better than something? (Score:5, Informative)
There wasn't a previous curriculum. ICT was a Microsoft designed qualification in Office "skills". For one small assignment for my A-Levels I had to use every feature of Microsoft word in a single document. Yep, I had to use word art to get marks. It was unbearable documenting office software button by button and I gave up, turned it in half done. I got pathetic C in ICT... however I am now lead graphics programmer at an award winning games developers.
The current curriculum's in ICT and computing, had to be scrapped immediately before they put off another generation from learning the skills they need.
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I did a similar exam in, I guess, 1999; you could get an A+ in about 20 seconds without looking at the screen. The last sentence advised you to compare what you had done to sample.doc, so I typed:
Ctrl+O sample.doc Enter Alt+F A .doc Enter.
I then went through the paper to verify that there weren't any hidden extras or obvious flaws in the sample (there weren't) and delete any metadata (there was none).
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In 1972 I completed what would have been among the first "A" levels in Computer Science in UK. It was pretty good, ran at the local technical college, where they had an IBM 1130 with a card reader, printer and - wait for it - 4kb of main memory! We learned FORTRAN IV - and I was keen so also learned a few other languages. It was all pretty new, even exciting enough that a TV company came down and filmed some stuff (including the plotter output from one of my program - sadly I wasn't there, missing my chance
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Scrapping the existing curriculum was a good first step
Why not continue the existing program until you develop a replacement? I'm pretty sure even a flawed program is better than none at all.
Because the 'existing program', in England, literally was worse than nothing. It was teaching children to use obsolete versions of Microsoft Office.
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Maybe because it drives you to action sooner
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I addition to other points, it could be valuable to scrap the current program, even if it's positive, if its cost to benefit ratio is bad enough. Think of it like this: If you have a used car and it costs $500 a month to keep it repaired but you don't have the $3000 for a down payment on a new car it could be worth it to take the bus for four or five months over the late spring through early autumn while you save up for a new car. Instead of a constant $500 a month and being late to work because it's nev
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Not really, the existing programmes put people off of computing for life, which was far worse than just giving them a bad education in it.
DO NOT WANT (Score:2)
"give classrooms Raspberry Pis"
Uhm.. no thanks.
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"give classrooms Raspberry Pis"
Uhm.. no thanks.
Better than frosty...
Meanwhile (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft has given engineers a new directive to get Windows running on the Raspberry Pi platform.
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With 256MB RAM?
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I used to have a few HTC WinMo devices, helped along by the wonderful team at XDA Developers [xda-developers.com]. Maybe digging that old source code out and giving it to the community would help re-establish WinMo as a viable platform on devices like this?
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That's enough for Windows XP, actually. Maybe not with the later service packs installed (SP2 added a LOT of stuff), but I've run a usable XP machine on less.
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Pshh. Set it to 1x1 monochrome and adapt. Everything's just 1s and 0s, right?
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Why? (Score:2)
It can't run most educational software nor children's oriented flash websites. I do not see the value in these.
Until HTML 5 takes over they wont be that usefull and the article is looking at these as Mac and PC replacements for outdated equipment.
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It can't run most educational software nor children's oriented flash websites. I do not see the value in these.
Until HTML 5 takes over they wont be that usefull and the article is looking at these as Mac and PC replacements for outdated equipment.
The schools have computers that do that, and so do most of the kids. These are for teaching computer science, not web browsing 101.
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Desktop computing is not an all-or-nothing affair. The Raspberry Pi is definitely powerful enough to run a terminal front-end.
The last project I worked on before leaving corporate IT was to get a mixed-mode environment up and running -- some users on Wyse terminals, some on desktop PCs. The project I was on before that was maintaining a desktop suite that was backed up by specialist software on Citrix in the datacentre. The main motivation for this was so that the client didn't have to buy top-spec machin
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That works for specialized tasks.
You can't import a gig of photos from an SD card for the school Yearbook club on a Pi running VNC to a server. It would choke and the gimp would kill the graphics hardware on the server if it had to support 300 users running it.
But they're not kitting out an entire school exclusively with Pis, though, are they? They're using the Pi as the basis for a high school computing class based on software development, rather than desktop IT. When I was at high school, the Computer Studies department was kitted out with Archimedeses, the Business Studies department ran on bottom-end PCs (or possibly even PCWs) and the library had BBC Micro, Archimedes and even a Mac. Some of the other departments still had BBC Micros that they used occasi
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Because "educational software" and "children's oriented flash websites" are not the target. The target is to get kids using Python and C. You know, computer science, not computer consumerism.
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It can't run most educational software nor children's oriented flash websites. I do not see the value in these.
I agree, I see no value in flash websites either.
(quote> the article is looking at these as Mac and PC replacements for outdated equipment.
Did you read the same article as me? I saw an article talking about using them to teach computer science. While HTML5/flash is part of computer science everything you need to know to get the principles of computer science could have been learnt on an Amiga or Zx Spectrum. The platform does not matter as long as it is hackable* and interesting**.
*i.e. you have access t
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The Raspberry Pi people have made it clear that they want the initial batches of the boards in the hands of developers first and foremost.
Guess what ? thats where 90% (i imagine!) of them are ending up at the moment. I have hopes that sort of saturation there will be a substantial amount
of software appearing in the coming months. I also imagine that there is a ton of open source education software out there that will not be too much
trouble to compile for ARM. There are also distro's like Edubuntu which are