Why does the Raspberry Pi exist? Here's a quotation from
Since all schools have computers for their pupils, why not use those to teach computing? Put Python on them, and teach children to program. The Raspberry Pi seems to be redundant.
-- I think I am an Elephant, Behind another Elephant Behind /another/ Elephant who isn't really there.... A.A. Milne
I think it's because it's cheap.
-- Blah blah bleh... GCS/CM d(-)@>-- s+:- !a C++$ UBL++++$ L+$ W+++$ w M++ Y++ b++
The school computers are generally running Windows, thanks to the "generosity" of Microsoft, and support departments (short on budget and scared of "hackers") have generally locked them down so that no outside software can be run on them. (The cost and delay of reimaging a Windows machine can be nontrivial, so this is not entirely unreasonable.)
Also, it's quite hard to build a robot that carries around a typical desktop PC case.
But not as cheap as the already existing (and therefore free) PCs. Though I grant the low cost is remarkable.
-- I think I am an Elephant, Behind another Elephant Behind /another/ Elephant who isn't really there.... A.A. Milne
They can be made to dual boot. Even I, whose ignorance of these matters is great, got an off-the-shelf PC running XP to dual boot Red Hat 6.2 which was free with (iirc) Edition 4 of the BURKS CDs.
Good point!
-- I think I am an Elephant, Behind another Elephant Behind /another/ Elephant who isn't really there.... A.A. Milne
at
oThere is *much more* to computing than bashing out a few lines of code to say "Hello World" in twenty differnt fonts.
The Pi possibly gives the childrens inate curiosity a tweak and will get them interested in how the hardware works and what can be built and interfaced to it to do somthing else. Maybe count the number of visits and when the Bluetits nesting in the school nest box make and how that information ties in with the stages of next building, egg layin, incubation, feeding and fledging.
Yes one can probably grab all that information off the web but the kids will get a much better learning experience recording their own data and making their own discoveries or having to deal with real world problems. Like a cat getting one of the parents or a sensor falling off.
It's also cheap so if it get blown up it's not going to be a big drain on the schools budget. £30 v £200(ish) for a basic PC...
It also exposes them to different operating systems. Much of recent school "Information & Communication Technology" teaching has been little more than how to write a letter with MS Word, create a graph from provided data with MS Excel or do period from history presentation with MS Powerpoint. Nothing about the technology, history or science of computing and modern digital communications.
-- Cheers Dave.
Nothing in my post suggests that I think otherwise.
I bet school PCs have been replaced a few times since schools first acquired the, so turn the older ones over to hacking.
Elsewhere in the thread I suggest dual booting Win-something and Linux.
None of which requires the purchasing of a Raspberry Pi. Btw, doesn't the teaching of Powerpoint constitute child abuse?
-- I think I am an Elephant, Behind another Elephant Behind /another/ Elephant who isn't really there.... A.A. Milne
Look they could be teaching computing on a 30 years old BBC micro.
The PI is not needful, BUT something is, and the problem with it being a Microsoft PC is that they will them thing that is ALL there is. Which is why Microsoft give em away. And all they will be able to do is surf the net, use word and excel, and think that's all a computer does.
The Pi is in many ways a solution looking for a problem. BUT whe the fisrt 'pic' boards came out they were meant to be a way for designers to have a handy platform for incorporating ATMEL chips into their custom designs. Intstead the development boards sold like hotcakes because tehy are cheap and hade enough pereipherals around them to be dead useful in their own right. R9obnot wars probably runs on em.
Now I don't have an application for a Pi yet, but I could have. I mean if i could find the right sized display I could use it as the basis for an active car dashboard for example. I could envisage building a web enabled intsrument based on one, that would do remote data collection powered by a battery and maybe send it by 4G back over the net .. The point is you have a full computer and OS admittedly NOT in a box, but which costs $50 instead of $300.
You can afford to waste a couple where normally you might have had to use a PIC ..
In short its a nice step between a PIC board, and a small PC.
Its a COMPONENT, not a product.
And its value is in BUILDING things , not in 'being used'
who wants to learn to program when you have a PC that works already?
No kid does., BUT if you ant to build a ROBOT, then you want to learn.
My whole career path was set when I stared building electronics for the simple reason I was fed up with chasing my model aeroplanes. 3 years later, I had learnt enough to build a radio control set, out of pocket money, and never looked back.
The challenge is for teachers to get the kids to build stuff, and show them how thinghs like Pis can actually help them make stuff they cant buy in the shops at all.
-- Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc?-ra-cy) ? a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.
I read the rest, but this:
seems to be the significant fact. Thank you.
-- I think I am an Elephant, Behind another Elephant Behind /another/ Elephant who isn't really there.... A.A. Milne
On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:01:48 +0100, Peter Percival wrote in Message-Id: :
Hi Peter,
I think the Pi's role is perhaps better described as "in schooling" rather than "in schools". The cost per unit makes it accessible to pupils, both in the classroom environment and in the home.
Programming certainly needs a slot in the education system but our future programmers will probably want to dedicate far more time to it than the school environment can cater for. My personal experience was one of total obsession from the moment the BBC Micro appeared in the classroom. I couldn't possibly have fulfilled that obsession without access to a machine at home.
Another consideration is that computing is becoming more and more distributed in nature. It's frequently not enough to have a single development/test server. In fact, it's quite common to want a simulated Internet to fully test a new system. The Pi makes this a feasible option both in schools and the home. Of course, the ability to do that also exposes students to the world of networking; another bonus!
The Pi might not be a breakthrough in technology terms but, at least conceptually, it puts real world computing within the grasp of children of all ages, without the need for them to sit at Dad's keyboard.
Do you mean Arduino boards? If PIC dev boards were aimed at getting people to use Atmel chips then Microchip are seriously shooting themselves in the foot...
Having said that, I've used PICs in the past and you may be onto something there... Always makes me decide to use an Atmel chip in my product instead :D
Right the below comments are based on my experiences with supplying and supporting computing related services to secondary schools, where my partner is Head of ICT and Computer upto and icluding A levels. I have mentored or been fake customer for several A level computing projects (usually 100+ page reports beyond actual 'product') and this year one of the projects actually was on a Pi. Compared to most teachers in ICT and computing she is ahead of the curve in how to teach newer stuff and does not want to do things on a BBC Model B because thats all they know.
Its classroom use is limited as unless you have a setup lab with LOCKED down parts (to stop bits being trousered), has the ability to login into existing network so work can be uploaded to central points so the forgetful students can get to their work from anywhere, and save course work, home work, assignments or even exam work to areas that staff can access easily (not by swapping SD cards).
The networks are often run and administered directly or indirectly by third parties includine LEA, they are locked down and students have username access usually that works on any computer in the school for any subject. The networks and computer systems are loosely 'specced' by senior members of staff usually on the basis of we need 30 beige boxes and what tehir support company specifies. Have seen silly setups of class of 30 plus students where each has to do their own video editing on thin clients at same time does not work. I have seen excel macros CRASH Sun thin client servers.
Upto GCSE the MAJORITY of students dont do much programming as in C, Python etc, plenty of Scratch, HTML and Flash and when they do it is rarer across ALL schools for the computers to control actual real hardware.
At A level in computing they have to deal with TCP/IP protocol and other aspects some do some of this lower or more vocatioal qualifications like Cambridge Tech.
For a class of 30+ students wasting 10-15 minutes at each end of the class to setup/breakdown equipment, count it out and count them back in and sort out the few that dont start up is not realistic. Most teachers with a 4-5 period day do not have time to set them up let alone clone
30+ SD cards.The main use CURRENTLY for main stream schools is for showing TCP/IP on an isolated network avoid internal IT support problems for network protocols and similar blocked on main network. Realistically for most programming on school networks it is done easier for controlling versions of tools used, storage of their code, staff access and FASTER on standard PCs.
The other is to use GPIO for group projects as this is not possible on the main computers.
The main obstacle to being main stram computing resource are
1/ Senior management understanding more than a glossy flyer2/ Rest of the teaching staff being able to think and work beyond Microsoft/Apple (which is a small number).
3/ IT support being able to support the product4/ Budget for cables, hubs, SD cards, PSUs etc..
5/ Rugged enough setup with limited cables to plug in and go Staff dont have time for setup and checking what has been nicked6/ Suitable setup and duplication setup for SD cards that can easily be run by IT support and/or teachers for differing setups
Headless/NOT VPN/SSH or not Samba or not IP addressing DHCP or fixed with autoincrement Expand to fill SD other packages to auto install etc,,,
The Pi is useful in ASSISTING teaching, getting uber geeks ineterested and some uber geeks cannot think beyond windows, not mainstream.
--
Paul Carpenter | paul@pcserviceselectronics.co.uk
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And the kids can pick up those computers and take them home? Can they hook their own custom hardware to them and maybe blow them up?
Come on...
They can't - and that's the real issue.
They are locked down hard. Some without CD/DVD drives and USBs disconnected. They are managed like corporate business systems - they run MS Office and that's about that. They are connected to an Internet that's heavilly filtered too.
Sadly, in the past 15 years or so teachers have forgotten (or never been taught!) to teach programming or IT skils more than word processing, spreadsheets and powerpoint.
There is nothing wrong with that, but it ought to be basic education and not specialist. Even then it ought to be generic, so the young person has the choice of "a word processor", and not just MS Word, etc.
Gordon
It's not the size, it is the ease of support. The rPi just needs an SD card with a proper image and it is up. If the student trashes the card it is easy to re-image it. The same is not so true for a PC. Or so I am told this is a large part of it. I believe it is also a matter of cost. You need some sort of screen for a display, but the rest of the rPi setup can be had for under $100US. They don't have a PC for every student. It would be easy to have an rPi for each student.
-- Rick
Why not? Provided, of course, that they replace them[*]. Its a good dual learning experience: they learn how to connect stuff to a computer and if they break or loose it they will learn that carelessness has consequences.
[*] no reason why and their parents they shouldn't sign an agreement to replace the RPi if they loose or destroy it: yet another lesson provided, this time in honouring agreements.-- martin@ | Martin Gregorie gregorie. | Essex, UK org |
ITYM "lose".
Elsewhere I remark that PC must be replaced from time to time and they could use the old ones.
-- I think I am an Elephant, Behind another Elephant Behind /another/ Elephant who isn't really there.... A.A. Milne
I think there is in the UK: school education is free. By "free" I mean "paid for by the tax payer."
-- I think I am an Elephant, Behind another Elephant Behind /another/ Elephant who isn't really there.... A.A. Milne
I used to work for a GEC company that used Dell computers that had CD drives. The company paid Dell 50 pounds each to remove them. They couldn't remove them themselves because that would have nullified the guarantee.
At least one of which should be free (LibreOffice, say).
-- I think I am an Elephant, Behind another Elephant Behind /another/ Elephant who isn't really there.... A.A. Milne
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