I am teaching UK school kids to program, and I will be adding Pi0 to the toolkit for the things its great for (wearables, robotics and other mobile or small things), I will still use the other Pi’s for other things but what this really gives me is 1 platform from which my students can build out from in multiple ways.
We only have 2 years to teach the Computing GCSE, so we need to pick technologies that can do everything that might come up in the controlled assessment, and also allow for a wide range of real world scenarios to keep it interesting. And that is what is unique about Raspberry Pi, my students can write desktop, CLI or web based software, simple physical computing and embedded concepts all in one ecosystem.
I don’t have to teach the kids or other teachers lots of ways of working. But if I can I expose the kids to more than one language and 1 form factor I would want to. So using RPi lets me use Javascript for some projects and Python for others and even FreeRTOS & C. Which means I can diversify when the students are ready without being forced to be a limiting technology.
Pi is not perfect, the SD issues alone drive me mad but they were designed to make lots of things accessible but not so easy that you don’t learn. So if you are developing something important (for you) and the SD corrupts you quickly want to backup or git things.
From inside a UK School, I have to say the Pi0 looks like an excellent addition to my ability to get kids learning and making technologies for themselves, which is the point of my job and the Pi Foundation. And I'm very grateful for their and the RPi communities help.
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I am teaching UK school kids to program, and I will be adding Pi0 to the toolkit for the things its great for (wearables, robotics and other mobile or small things), I will still use the other Pi’s for other things but what this really gives me is 1 platform from which my students can build out from in multiple ways. We only have 2 years to teach the Computing GCSE, so we need to pick technologies that can do everything that might come up in the controlled assessment, and also allow for a wide range of real world scenarios to keep it interesting. And that is what is unique about Raspberry Pi, my students can write desktop, CLI or web based software, simple physical computing and embedded concepts all in one ecosystem. I don’t have to teach the kids or other teachers lots of ways of working. But if I can I expose the kids to more than one language and 1 form factor I would want to. So using RPi lets me use Javascript for some projects and Python for others and even FreeRTOS & C. Which means I can diversify when the students are ready without being forced to be a limiting technology. Pi is not perfect, the SD issues alone drive me mad but they were designed to make lots of things accessible but not so easy that you don’t learn. So if you are developing something important (for you) and the SD corrupts you quickly want to backup or git things. From inside a UK School, I have to say the Pi0 looks like an excellent addition to my ability to get kids learning and making technologies for themselves, which is the point of my job and the Pi Foundation. And I'm very grateful for their and the RPi communities help.