Please note that this guy's blog has a subtitle of Has someone just said “lowlevel”?. whitequark is discussing the Raspberry Pi from an embedded point-of-view. If you only intend to use the Raspberry Pi to teach Linux and above (or anything that's built upon an OS), then this article is not for you. This is for people who intends to use the Pi to teach lowlevel, embedded programming; teaching how a computer works on all levels.
Why Raspberry Pi Is Unsuitable for Education
31–40 of 68 posts
Re: Why Raspberry Pi Is Unsuitable for Education
#32Using this logic nearly all school computers are "unsuitable for education" It's silly to describe your one-off use case and then extrapolate that to such a degree, that this can only be called sensationalism.
Yes, all school computers are unsuitable for education of embedded programming. Yes, the title didn't say so, but whitequark didn't submit it here with that title. If you read the post and the title in the context of whitequark's blog it should be pretty clear that he's talking about embedded programming.
Re: Why Raspberry Pi Is Unsuitable for Education
#33Please note that this guy's blog has a subtitle of Has someone just said “lowlevel”? . whitequark is discussing the Raspberry Pi from an embedded point-of-view. If you only intend to use the Raspberry Pi to teach Linux and above (or anything that's built upon an OS), then this article is not for you. This is for people who intends to use the Pi to teach lowlevel, embedded programming; teaching how a computer works on…
He said "education" with any further qualification.
I'm not even sure that the pi was developed with the intention to teach "low level" stuff.
Re: Why Raspberry Pi Is Unsuitable for Education
#34Real reason: Finding a teacher who understands how to use or teach rpi is next to impossible. Unfortunately, I believe Rpis sales were hype marketing that got out of hand. People thought they were getting a tiny usable computer at a great price. What they got was a bunch of chips that knowledgable people could use, yet the details go way over the head of the majority of impulse buyers. These buyers weren't missold, t…
The lack of suitable teachers is a fundamental problem with the education system at the moment, not something the pi foundation can really be blamed for.
The "education" release of the pi itself hasn't happened yet, that's meant to be coming later this year / early next year from what I understand, and will be supplied with a lot more useful getting started documentation and software than you currently get.
Re: Why Raspberry Pi Is Unsuitable for Education
#35I can almost relate. Consider comparing Raspberry Pi to say Commodore 64 or ZX Spectrum. Anyone familiar with programming 8-bit home computers of the 80's knows how simple they were by their hardware and how easy it was to grasp them. What was(and still is) great about them, is that any kid(regardless of age, as long as they can read) was and still is able to learn how the computers work. How many kids these days get to actually count CPU cycles? How many even really what it means without taking an university course in computer architecture or microarchitecture design? Yet, this is the exact stuff the kids are interested in! They want to learn how it works. And no, explaining that CPU executes some "instructions"(what are they?) which operates on "data"(what is it?) in "registers"(what are they?) and produces results which are "pushed"(what does it mean?) to the "stack"(what is it?). Of course, one could argue that none of this matters nor it should matter. We should go away from it, and aim higher. Teach Python and functional programming and hope they become proficient. I think this is a very wrong approach to teach kids about computers and how they work. I think that demystifying the computer starts best from explaining what and how it does what it does. Programming comes later in regards to demystifying the computer, which should not be "just that box which we program and somehow turns the code to windows and buttons for us to click".
Of course, I am ignoring the point that actually getting to do any kind of programming or tinkering on Raspberry Pi is orders of magnitude harder than on say Commodore 64 or ZX Spectrum. Or even your average Windows desktop. These days there is just simply no suitable platform to actually play around with, and only universities seem to have some experimental simple hardware setups with simple operating systems for educational purposes. You really have to take a course or get an ancient home computer to see how stuff works. I think it is sad.
Re: Why Raspberry Pi Is Unsuitable for Education
#36I don't think many kids are going to be using their raspberry pi to redesign the CPU or rewrite the firmware drivers. The idea should be to make programming simple and accessible, perhaps being able to create some games or connect it to an arduino and make some fun toys. I actually think that shipping it without a box is great idea, it demystifies computers a lot if you can see that it all just boils down to a bunch…
"or connect it to an arduino" As the article mentions, this doesn't seem to be as easy as it should/could be.
not Arduino but close ...
http://jeelabs.org/2012/09/20/serial-hookup-jeenode-to-raspb...
Re: Why Raspberry Pi Is Unsuitable for Education
#37I don't think kids in high school are old enough to have neck-beards.
Re: Why Raspberry Pi Is Unsuitable for Education
#38I don't think many kids are going to be using their raspberry pi to redesign the CPU or rewrite the firmware drivers. The idea should be to make programming simple and accessible, perhaps being able to create some games or connect it to an arduino and make some fun toys. I actually think that shipping it without a box is great idea, it demystifies computers a lot if you can see that it all just boils down to a bunch…
"or connect it to an arduino" As the article mentions, this doesn't seem to be as easy as it should/could be.
Connecting a RaspPi to an Arduino:
1. Get USB cable
2. Plug USB cable to Arduino
3. Plug USB cable to RaspPi
Steps 2 and 3 can be reversed.
Re: Why Raspberry Pi Is Unsuitable for Education
#39I can almost relate. Consider comparing Raspberry Pi to say Commodore 64 or ZX Spectrum. Anyone familiar with programming 8-bit home computers of the 80's knows how simple they were by their hardware and how easy it was to grasp them. What was(and still is) great about them, is that any kid(regardless of age, as long as they can read) was and still is able to learn how the computers work . How many kids these days ge…
If you want to teach/learn low level, I think an Arduino is a better tool than a Raspberry Pi.
Re: Why Raspberry Pi Is Unsuitable for Education
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
"or connect it to an arduino" As the article mentions, this doesn't seem to be as easy as it should/could be.
Connecting a RaspPi to an Arduino: 1. Get USB cable 2. Plug USB cable to Arduino 3. Plug USB cable to RaspPi Steps 2 and 3 can be reversed.
4. Curse broken USB drivers