Founder: no Raspberry Pi for every student

Interesting admission

"There's nothing specifically educational about this device. The only reason it's applicable is it's cheap."

If this is the case, when will there be a review of the Raspberry Pi Foundation's charity status? It wasn't granted tax breaks so they could create a cheap computer but to educate...

"THE OBJECT OF THE CHARITY IS TO FURTHER THE ADVANCEMENT OF EDUCATION OF ADULTS AND CHILDREN, PARTICULARLY IN THE FIELD OF COMPUTERS, COMPUTER SCIENCE AND RELATED SUBJECTS"

http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/Showcharity/Re
gisterOfCharities/CharityWithoutPartB.aspx?Registe
redCharityNumber=1129409&SubsidiaryNumber=0

All I see on their Twitter feed is Linux experts who have got hold of a cheap computer and have modded it to watch the football, etc. Education? It's not happening.

David.

By artiss on 12 Jun 2012

Listen to Eben on recent video, seems to me that Education is exactly what they're talking about doing with more of their time now that they no longer have the hassles of manufacture.

By robgreen3 on 12 Jun 2012

Re: Interesting admission

"All I see on their Twitter feed is Linux experts who have got hold of a cheap computer and have modded it to watch the football, etc. Education? It's not happening."

I would expect to see this at the beginning as much of the initial demand is those seeking a cheap computer for personal projects. But keep in mind, when a lot of these projects are being undertaken, there is some learning by some to get these projects working.

But the initial demand will be geeks buying a geeky product to build a geeky project. As time goes on when the supply keeps up with demand, then more people will be buying these as a learning tool more than a tool for a personal project.

But I have seen people using this more than personal projects as well.

By mtux96 on 12 Jun 2012

@artiss if this was my first computer and I saw people hacking it to watch football I think that would inspire me to try and hack around with it myself. If all I saw were some crusty tutorials about how to write "hello world" apps I don't think I'd be that interested.

Speaking from my own experience I got into programming because I was fascinated by the things other people were doing and creating. I started teaching myself and then got more of a technical boost at university (though I wouldn't say this was enough for a career). I agree with the article. Programming isn't going to be for everyone so there's no point forcing everyone to program. The main issue is providing inspiring teaching and resources. With something like the raspberry pi this would give people a common "safe" platform to focus their attention on.

By magicmonkey3 on 13 Jun 2012

@ artiss

"
If this is the case, when will there be a review of the Raspberry Pi Foundation's charity status? It wasn't granted tax breaks so they could create a cheap computer but to educate..."

And how is making a ridiculously affordable computer *not* helping to achieve that aim?

By making the Pi cost barely more than a new-release Blu-Ray, they've managed to make buying a computer just for hacking around with and seeing what you can do with it eminently affordable to almost every spectrum of society.

I can't think of anything else which will enable more adults and children to start messing around with programming and hardware mods than that, particularly as it has the potential to become very popular in a short space of time; leading to a large community of programmers, hackers and modders all sharing what they've managed to do.

One of the main barriers to computing education has been cost - if you restrict the hardware to only those able to afford items costing hundreds if not thousands of pounds, then you limit the number of people who can participate. The other main barrier is getting people interested who otherwise would not be and as mentioned above, people hacking it to watch the football is an excellent way of inspiring those who usually couldn't give a monkey.

By bioreit on 13 Jun 2012