Google Giving Will Provide 15,000 Raspberry Pi's to UK Schools
raspberrypi.org
raspberrypi.org
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.
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.
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 :)
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!
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.
(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.
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...
edit: saw your comment below
I'm now a school governor to make sure that these
morons don't take over the planet.
Zen-like experience that. I now show respect for the machine (unless it's a Dell).
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.
However, feel free to call me a crackpot for suggesting that. I'm used to it.
The children would skive off and be found on street corners drinking WKD within half an hour.
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.
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.
If you ever get an opportunity to see him speak then I suggest you jump at the chance.
Eben's HN London talk: http://vimeo.com/43039279
If Apple or Google or Starbucks spent as much on UK lobbying as other multinationals, I doubt they'd be receiving any negative press.
>They're upset that the loopholes are being used by the wrong companies. //
You mean the richest, most successful, most popular, most used by the UK population and most profitable?
>I doubt they'd be receiving any negative press. //
So in your opinion the UK press is in the pocket of the government who're only highlighting morally questionable tax avoidance as part of a shake down to boost some sort of protection racket? That's what it sounds like you're saying.
Personally I think the answer lies in some sort of underpin based on gross revenue levied on all companies over the VAT registration threshold but with the option to apply to have the underpin removed if one can prove in good faith that the underpin is onerous.
Amazon could still pretend they're working out of Luxembourg (500 workers) instead of UK (15k workers) but they'd pay on their revenue anyway. That way Amazon can't put UK tax paying firms out of business (simply by undercutting and relying on the extra profit from not paying tax to stay a float) and then off-shore all the taxable profits leaving us with no UK tax paying businesses (but even more consumption).
Just think of all the high wage bills for accountants that could be saved.
> You mean the richest, most successful, most popular,
> most used by the UK population and most profitable?
> So in your opinion the UK press is in the pocket of the
> government who're only highlighting morally
> questionable tax avoidance as part of a shake down to
> boost some sort of protection racket? That's what it
> sounds like you're saying.
The obvious solution is to close the "pick any EU nation to pay taxes in" loophole so companies are required to allocate taxes based in part on the geographical source of their revenue, but this would affect the companies that paid for those loopholes in the first place, so it will not soon happen.
If the government were actually interested in punishing companies that pay taxes to Ireland for profits in the UK, they would have just done it instead of kick up a flurry of press releases.
Go on.
Google pay little to no corporation tax on profits in the UK (because they ship all of the profits overseas where Corporation tax isn't so expensive).
But Google employ lots of people in the UK so they do contribute a non-insignificant amount to the UK treasury in the way of taxes related to employees (PAYE/CGT on share option grants, NI, etc).
They do the former because they can, the do the latter because they must.
The government are quite happily coughing up £35bn of tax of our cash to "fight terrorism", yet are quite happily throwing only £32bn of tax at education.
I'd rather Google gave all their money directly in schemes like this than had it divvied up into the warmongers chests and pissed into running itself.
Source: http://wheredoesmymoneygo.org/bubbletree-map.html#/~/total
It will be interesting to see how these are used in schools though. When I was in school the ethos around IT and computers was very much "don't do anything we haven't asked you to do" which seems to be the opposite of how the pi is intended to be used.
I'm now a school governor to make sure that these morons don't take over the planet.
The kill pretty much every bit of interest there is straight away for most students.
The focus from what I remember was very much on the "computers as tools for business" angle. Databases were taught by designing forms in MS Access, not a single line of SQL.
It might be interesting to see how they use the pies though, hopefully they will assign them to students individually and let them change the Window manager/install quake3/install nmap to their hearts content.
I'd watch the blood pressure there (I've been teaching for 24 years).
As you are now on the management: Is there (safe, filtered) Internet via wifi and BYOD for the older pupils? Cheap android tablets for shiny media but also hackable? Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu/) on the PCs? Basically what policy innovation/leadership have you contributed?
Not challenging here, I'd really be interested to know. Having documented examples to point at really helps in situations where you have to be diplomatic with idiots.
Changes so far: stopped mass iPad purchase to use as cameras (!?), different acceptable use policy (which stops people being hung without good reason), open systems policy I.e. no single vendor, fired RM PLC, halfed expenditure on consultants, new smartboards which don't fall over every 3 months, got rid of LGFL Fronter, two new IT staff.
All in 9 months.
They are basically an experiment to run a school with less dictates from local government so do not have to follow as many rules.
If there are no profits to make, how do you convince companies to get involved; most companies don't appear to be so altruistic.
I think perhaps I'm under a misapprehension on labelling, that Free Schools are a subset of Academies; see eg http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/may/25/free-schools....
Budget was already available, just misplaced to be honest. I'm sure the state managed predecessors were getting backhanders.
The stupid thing is they did a fund raiser for to fix a hole in the roof!? (£300 cost) and built raised vegetable beds for the students at a cost of £1500 which were never filled and are used for storing games equipment under tarp.
The mismanagement is why it is an academy now.
If you have evidence, you should go to the police. An example (plucked from Google)
http://www.sfo.gov.uk/press-room/latest-press-releases/press...
I personally would be interested in your (collective) big ideas about how IT can support and enhance learning. The strategy thing. With as much detail as your colleagues and sponsors feel could be released. A good write up of that would work wonders for the UK perception of the Academy programme in general and your school in particular. Especially if you include staff development and mentoring in that.
So it's great to see somebody put their knowledge to use and to hopefully create a better environment for kids to learn and be inspired.
What's your opinion of the new CS curriculum they are talking about introducing. From what I've read of it[1], it seems a big improvement over the old "learn to use MS Word and Excel".
1: http://www.computingatschool.org.uk/data/uploads/ComputingCu....
Remove the unions and hire ex industry people on a good salary with training and things will get better, but the current teaching standards across the board is just incompetent dross (bar about 5%). Teaching is not a profession at the moment. It is simply an easy career path for certain types of personality.
I include my wife in that statement as well and she would agree (she is an art teacher and there is very little space for her in society as a traditional creative person).
So summary: great idea, lacking any likelyhood of being executed unless they destroy the unions and hire better people.
No you didn't ;-)
I think "don'ts" contribute more than "do's" in discovering your limits and expanding knowledge.
Same a children, when he does something out of curiosity and you tell him "this is bad, do not do", he learns that do not do that in front of you or tell petty lie.
Let's pause for a moment talking about tax loopholes.
In January 2010 there were 24,605 schools in England alone [1]. Add more for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Then subtract the fairly small number of private schools. My guess is that that about 1 in 3 of UK schools will see even one Pi. And then, since the Pis are being given to pupils not the school, they have to identify the lucky pupil who gets to take it home. I wonder how that will work?
I'm not trying to be cynical, but is this actually meant to achieve anything that is related to education?
[1] http://www.education.gov.uk/popularquestions/schools/buildin...
Just because it does not single-handedly fix computing education does not mean it is worthless - to make such an inference is a fallacy (I forget which one; there's a particular name. Essentially the-perfect-is-the-enemy-of-the-good). Helping 15000 people is better than helping 0.
At the end of the day, even the ocean is still made of nothing but drops.
I agree that helping 15000 people is better than helping none. My cynicism relates to how the Pis are to be distributed and what can be learned about whether this works in any educationally meaningful sense. If this is an experiment and the [geekiest|nicest|poorest] kid in a school gets a Pi to take home, how do you evaluate the educational outcome?
This announcement also exists within a political context (corporate tax avoidance), and occurred on the same day that Eric Schmidt made public comments about Google not being opposed to a more restrictive corporate tax regime in the UK. If it is a PR move then I don't have much confidence that there will be any follow-through aimed at achieving genuine educational improvements. To do this requires infrastructure and ongoing commitment.
For the record, I have three Pis and I think they are wonderful. My children are going to be using them at home soon and if they had access to them in school too then I would be very pleased.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy#Perfect_solutio...
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jan/29/google-tax-...
Not too bad I suppose. Hopefully the new Computer Science courses that are coming out will make it a relevant platform to people.