from
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That was the orginal thought but requires the teachers to understand and computers/programming/electronics, most don't have that knowledge.
The Pi has hit a market that things like the Arduino have missed. I think because the Arduino doesn't work "out of the box" ie plug in mouse/keyboard/HDMI fit SD card with OS power up and you can have a relatively familiar desktop GUI to explore and do things with.
-- Cheers Dave.
[Snip]
There in a nutshell is (a) what has been wrong with UK ITC education for years, and (b) how our governments, since Blair met with Bill Gates, have been happy for schools to produce call centre clones instead of innovators and creatives.
-- from Tim Hill who welcomes incoming email to tim at timil dot com. * Share in a better energy supplier: http://tjrh.eu/coopnrg * Share in cheaper ethical telecoms: http://tjrh.eu/phone * Have a genuine & spam-proof address for Usenet http://www.invalid.org.uk/
I'd hope that the large maker community and commercial use in signage that sold 5m Pis (and made the foundation the all-time largest UK computer manufacturer by units sold) has given the foundation the prestige and money to actually make that work now. Politicians and educators might take note of the fact that the Pis seem to be out there in large numbers and maintaining their sales momentum, so they must be good for something.
A year back, there were articles like this: "Raspberry Pi 'gathering dust' in schools"
I don't know what the situation is at the moment.
Having worked in 12 primary schools supporting ICT for a number of years, I can confirm that while MS Office dominates, most of them made an effort to do something a little more computer related, using Economatics Control Station. (This might have been from an initiative from the parent secondary school, so may not reflect wider practice.)
Control Station is a program which allows pupils to create flowcharts graphically, and animate the results. There is a hardware add-on which is controlled by the flowchart, with lights and outputs to control motors, and switches for inputs. It connects to Lego, allowing things like level crossings to be created and controlled.
It's a start, and as a piece of software it works well, and pupils (year 5 and 6) manage to use it effectively.
The teachers who used this, in the main, would be unwilling, and probaby unable, to use RPi, since it would require learning their way round Linux and Oython to do anything similar, not to mention the need for additional screens, keyboards, mice etc. (They would be most unwilling to disconnect the PCs for this purpose, for fear of not having them working for the next lesson.)
One parent in one school was running a computer club, using Scratch, from MIT.
-- Alan Adams, from Northamptonshire alan@adamshome.org.uk http://www.nckc.org.uk/
Show 'The Lad' this: he may think its cool. 'It' is a working binary adder, made of wood that adds marbles.
For really basic experimentation I think an RPi is too fast: my first personal computer, which I still have and still works, was built round a
2MHz 6809. At those operating speeds I was able to debug the hardware using only a multimeter and a logic probe and, because the firmware was stored in an EEPROM and I'd bought a UV EEPROM eraser and an EEPROM writer, I was able to rewrite the firmware each time I upgraded stuff, e.g. the original display was a memory-mapped 64x16 display which I soon replaced with an 80x24 unit and, of course, had the rewrite the firmware: the original code recognised display EOL when the index register's bottom 5 bits were all set.-- martin@ | Martin Gregorie gregorie. | Essex, UK org |
I don't totally sympathize with that. Familiar desktop GUIs are so % ^&*ing complicated that I wouldn't want to drop a beginner in there. Even Python with wx causes the major part of my miseries.
But networking? Running servers? Perfect. Could even run an Arduino IDE.
Mel.
Most people who are interested in a Pi have access to a mobile phone and a personal computer. Their phone came with a PSU. I'm happy to include an old Cat 5 cable and remote desktop removes the need for everything else.
You don't need to know how hardware works, let alone the command line or Python, to use the Pi desktop or the web interface to GPIO.
Sounds a lot more interesting to play with than Logo or Scratch.
I think that you're missing a trick here. To me the obvious way to avoid getting new keyboards/screens/mice or nicking them of an inoffensive PC is, assuming the PC is on the network, connect the RPi to the network (must be a B of course), install a copy of PuTTY on the PC and use the PC as a terminal to talk to the Pi.
Once this has been set up, just turn the RPi on and log in to it. Job Done. As an added bonus, this also lets the RPi live in a cupboard or drawer (locked if necessary) so it doesn't have to take up desk space.
-- martin@ | Martin Gregorie gregorie. | Essex, UK org |
That is true. However as I hadn't thought of that, it is unlikely that general teachers will. It is part of the problem of adding programming to the curriculum without the necessary technical backup. The existing school computer support organisations are, in general, Windows only people, with no knowledge of Linux other that that it exists.
-- Alan Adams, from Northamptonshire alan@adamshome.org.uk http://www.nckc.org.uk/
No wonder you believe "they" need to use the Unix command line! Just install xrdp on the Pi then remote desktop on your PC becomes the keyboard, mouse and display for the Pi.
I bookmarked that one several years ago and regularly pull it up to show people :)
-- W J G
If a standard B or B+ is being used, the command line will be quite a bit quicker than a graphical interface, though I don't believe I recommended either desktop or command line. If I did it was inadvertent - I do all my serious development using the terminal (microEmacs/make for C and microEmacs/ant for Java regardless of what the target system is) because I find constantly taking my hands off the keyboard to click or point at something slows me down. Besides, if I need to use something non- graphical with an 80x24 green screen I can just get stuck without wailing about the lack of a GUI.
Sure, thats another way. So is using VNC, which has the added advantage that you can either use vncviewer, a desk-top app, or a browser plugin whose name I've forgotten on thre Windows PC. Both work pretty well.
-- martin@ | Martin Gregorie gregorie. | Essex, UK org |
I thought you may have missed it: I mentioned it so you'd be aware of the possibility. This way the knowledge should get back to teachers etc.
These days the RPi end works pretty much out of the box: if there's a suitable DHCP server on site the RPi can connect straight away, though the support guy may need to define the RPi MAC etc. to the DHCP server so it can be accessed by name.
-- martin@ | Martin Gregorie gregorie. | Essex, UK org |
That then leaves only the minor question of who will guide the teachers into using the unfamiliar Rasbian desktop, and the even more unfamiliar Python language.
-- Alan Adams, from Northamptonshire alan@adamshome.org.uk http://www.nckc.org.uk/
The Arduino has just 32kB of flash memory so it's aimed at something rather different. The things that I use Arduinos for are not things I would use Pis for, and vice versa.
-- Mike Fleming
On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 15:00:34 GMT, Alan Adams declaimed the following:
Then there is the problem that the school/district may have a so-called IT department that has to approve all network-connected equipment, so they can ensure it has up-to-date anti-virus, spam blocks, etc... Can you imagine their horror if some genius installed a packet sniffer on a Raspberry-Pi that was logging network traffic...
--
Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber AF6VN
wlfraed@ix.netcom.com HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/
Why bother with Python if you don't want to or don't like it? Personally, I think its a very poor cousin of Java as a practical OO language, but of course YMMV.
IMO about the best written book about getting to grips with a programming language is still the second edition of "The C Programming Language" by Kernighan & Ritchie. The obvious obvious follow-up text is "The Practise of Programming" by Kernighan & Pike.
Because of these books, and despite the drawbacks of learning to program in a low-level language, I still think C is very hard to beat for providing a solid grounding in block-structured languages.
Disclaimer: my first language was Algol 60, followed in order, by 1900 assembler, COBOL, Algol68R, Pascal, BASIC, some machine-specific languages (PL/9, TAL, RPG 3, PL/I) and more assemblers, C, and Java. I've looked at C++, Python and Perl, learned enough to write programs in them, decided that I didn't like them and that they were best avoided. I like and use both the awk and PHP scripting languages and, of course, sh/bash/ ksh shell scripting.
-- martin@ | Martin Gregorie gregorie. | Essex, UK org |
On 02/22/15, Alan Adams pondered and said... AA> One parent in one school was running a computer club, using Scratch, AA> from MIT.
I visited Powerhouse Musuem in Sydney a year or so ago and they too were working with kids using Scratch as a key tool to teach progamming skills. It looked good.
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On 02/22/15, Dave Liquorice pondered and said... DL> > Yep I understood they were developed to offer school aged children an DL> > affordable tool to use to learn to code etc. Sound right? DL> DL> That was the orginal thought but requires the teachers to understand DL> and computers/programming/electronics, most don't have that DL> knowledge.
And that's a really interesting point you make. For all of the above to work we're talking about a lot of quick up-skilling of teaching staff as well.
DL> The Pi has hit a market that things like the Arduino have missed. I DL> think because the Arduino doesn't work "out of the box" ie plug in DL> mouse/keyboard/HDMI fit SD card with OS power up and you can have a DL> relatively familiar desktop GUI to explore and do things with.
I see Arduinio as a better fit for projects requiring automation control etc. so relays on/off etc. The Pi is better geared for learning programming and with that a lot of bespoke projects you can put it to work on (with extra hardware thrown in).
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On 02/23/15, Martin Gregorie pondered and said... MG> IMO about the best written book about getting to grips with a programming MG> language is still the second edition of "The C Programming Language" by MG> Kernighan & Ritchie. The obvious obvious follow-up text is "The Practise MG> of Programming" by Kernighan & Pike.
Just noting this down now - thanks :-)
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