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Google Funds Raspberry Pi And CS Teachers For UK Schools

Posted by samzenpus on from the google-a-better-grade dept.

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."

30 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. The simpsons say hello by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    "...Welcome to maths. If I have three Pepsi and drink one how refreshed would I be?"

    1. Re:The simpsons say hello by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Google don't need to slap their brand all over this. They gain in two quantifiable ways:

      1. Good will. Google are the good guys here.
      2. A better trained workforce. They'll need engineers in ten years time, after all.

  2. If only... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    If only I could buy one.

    1. Re:If only... by symbolset · · Score: 2

      Google's recent acquisition may be able to help with that. I understand they know how to get stuff manufactured at scale.

      --
      Help stamp out iliturcy.
    2. Re:If only... by wed128 · · Score: 2

      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.

  3. to train 100 teachers by Chrisq · · Score: 3, Informative

    Hmm, with over 3,900 secondary schools and over 21,000 primary schools in the UK that should go far.

    1. Re: to train 100 teachers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re: to train 100 teachers by balor · · Score: 2

      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 practice for teaching software development, this will (at some level) feed into more than just their school. Ideally, you will see the head ICT trainers in an area being drawn from this initial pool of 100. Or, at the very least, advised by them.

      I think this approach, even given the small numbers invovled, is better than previous approaches from the private sector. Previous approaches have involved throwing software and/or hardware over a wall and expecting teachers to know how to integrate it into the curriculum. I'm cautiously optomistic.

    3. Re: to train 100 teachers by Simon+Brooke · · Score: 3, 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.

      --
      I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
    4. Re: to train 100 teachers by digitig · · 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.

      --
      Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
    5. Re: to train 100 teachers by ZeroSumHappiness · · Score: 3, 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.

    6. Re: to train 100 teachers by Vrekais · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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 course).

      The Raspberry Pi however you can do what you like to the OS, you can show the actual way the system handles memory and processor cycles in a much more in depth way and if a student breaks it, you simply format and stick a back up on it which takes minutes rather than the hours that a Windows PC might require. A few decades ago the Computing in Schools was taught on BBC Micros, which had almost no abstraction from what was actually going on (there was some obviously but it wasn't hard to remove that as well), you could even write programs to run from the BIOS chip.

      The current state of ICT education is a very MS Office dominated course of how to use a word processor and create excel spreadsheets. Something that perhaps might be best taught in other subjects, I'm not sure. I can see an argument for teaching that stuff, but at the moment it overly dominates the curriculum and it's pretty much what ends up being taught when all you have are common office desktops.

    7. Re: to train 100 teachers by Xest · · Score: 3

      "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.

    8. Re: to train 100 teachers by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 2

      Notice that they're not working with the government, they're working with Teach First. 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 subject teaching where computers wouldn't be considered "core" to their job. I reckon 100 is about the number of candidates they'll be placing in suitable roles anyway.

      It's also worth noting that Teach First specialises in schools in deprived areas, which generally have difficulty in attracting good teachers and aren't generally well-enough funded to get a decent IT suite on-site.

      So yes, it's a small project, but it's a worthy one. And if it works well, the government will have a hard time not following up on it.

      --
      Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
    9. Re: to train 100 teachers by Chrisq · · Score: 2

      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.

    10. Re: to train 100 teachers by PerfectionLost · · Score: 4, 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.

    11. Re: to train 100 teachers by ZeroSumHappiness · · Score: 4, 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.

    12. Re: to train 100 teachers by wed128 · · Score: 3, 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."

  4. Re:100 Teachers by Theophany · · Score: 2

    If he paid for 4364 teachers, it still would not be his strong point.

    The idea is that he has put his money where his mouth is, now the government should do the same.

  5. It's a start by jholyhead · · Score: 4, Funny

    That would bring the total number of specialist Computer Science teachers in the UK to...100.

    1. Re:It's a start by Xiaran · · Score: 2

      When I was doing Computing in High School the guy teaching us was a first year CompSci student part time. I quickly learnt that all of his homework assignments were in fact his homework and assignments for basically Programming 101. I was not sure if this guy was evil or a genius.

    2. Re:It's a start by rvw · · Score: 2

      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.

  6. Funding schmunding by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Informative

    From all the gripes I see the problem is finding the little buggers.

    Has anyone here actually held one in his sweaty hand?

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    1. Re:Funding schmunding by Quince+alPillan · · Score: 2

      They're currently highly backordered (to the point that they're limiting how many people can order and in what quantities at one time). I just ordered mine today, and I was on the waiting list since the official launch. The delivery time said ~3 weeks.

    2. Re:Funding schmunding by deroby · · 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 !

      --
      If there is one thing to be learned on slashdot, it has to be sarcasm.
  7. Meanwhile by JoeCommodore · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Microsoft has given engineers a new directive to get Windows running on the Raspberry Pi platform.

    --
    "Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
  8. Re:Nothing better than something? by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

  9. Re:100 Teachers by strength_of_10_men · · Score: 3, Insightful

    100 teachers, each training another 100, who in turn train another 100. Perspicacity is obviously not your strong point. But I guess if you can't do anything else, at least you can bitch.

  10. Why? by Billly+Gates · · 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.

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
  11. Rubbish by Kupfernigk · · Score: 2
    What do you know about Teach First? It's a scheme, very successful in the US and the UK, to persuade high achieving graduates to at least spend a couple of years in teaching. Some of them stay; my daughter and her fiance are department heads at an early age. If they don't stay, at least when they get into business they are more likely to have an insight into the backgrounds and capabilities of a lot of the people who will work for them.

    Eric Schmidt has done exactly the right thing. It's a pity that it takes someone like him to have a much better idea of how to spend money (and fix CS teaching in achools) than our politicians.

    --
    From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."