One Million School Children To Get Free BBC Micro:bit Computers

Mickeycaskill writes with this news from TechWeek Europe: Every Year 7 student in England and Wales, Year 8 student in Northern Ireland and S1 student in Scotland will be handed, for free, a BBC micro:bit computer specially designed to help pupils learn to code. Micro:bits, which are smaller than the size of a credit card and can be hooked up to a mobile app or accessed via the Internet, will be delivered nationwide through schools and made available to home-schooled students over the course of the next few weeks. The students are able to keep their devices as their own, meaning they can work with the device for homework, in school holidays, and use it for more applications as their grasp on coding increases. The initiative follows on from the BBC's Micro programme that was introduced in the 1980s, and sees a partnership between the BBC and some of the world's most notable technology companies such as ARM, Microsoft, and Samsung. The computer will hope to emulate the Raspberry Pi, of which more than eight million have been sold. A BBC story explains a bit about the project's ambitions, and points out a few "bumps in the road"; originally, the hardware was to be in classrooms several months sooner. The BBC's own micro:bit page features more on programming the device, as well as many sample projects.

Comments

I still have me BBC

[serviscope_minor]

I've still got my BBC Master from last time around.

The last BBC computer education initiative worked amazingly well. Having the BBC in a classroom is what got me into programming when I realised I could make it do what I wanted.

Re:Microsoft Education

[hughbar]

Yes, exactly. I've worked on/off as a BBC contractor and watched the top of BBC technology swing from open-source(-ish) to Microsoft, in the time of Ashley Highfield and especially Eric Huggers: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/ent....

I agree with the Guardian commentator here: http://www.theguardian.com/tec..., that calls the initiative 'hugely dickish':

This is a hugely dickish move by the BBC. The Pi is already solidly and explicitly established as the reincarnation of the ideas behind the BBC Micro, and the BBC should have just got on board and supported it. While there's a case to be made that a tiny embedded board like this doesn't compete with a Pi in hardware terms, it does compete with it for class time, attention and support.

Like most older Brits, I have a lot of affection for the BBC, but in the last 10 - 15 years, it has lost its way both for technology and TV output.

Gentle introduction

[itamblyn]

As someone who has worked with young students, high school teachers, university students, and university faculty getting Pi's into the classroom (e.g. http://clean.energyscience.ca/..., http://rpi.science.uoit.ca/ I can say that the micro:bit may be a better starting point for really young kids and their tech phobic teachers than the Pi. From what I can tell, the micro:bit isn't really a computer (unlike the RaspberryPi), but rather a peripheral that enables some physical computing.

There are some ugly sides to the Pi for the uninitiated. I'm not saying one is better than the other (I really like the Pi), but I do think the micro:bit could be a welcome addition to the ecosystem.

I'm disappointed that BBC isn't making them available to the general community from the get go (or even before release to schools). We have a way better chance and troubleshooting (and populating stackoverflow) issues than they do. Despite the fact that this is intended to be plug-and-play, things never are (especially when they involve locked-down machines like those present at most schools).

In any case, I'm looking forward to getting one of these things!