Re: [Hampshire] raspberry pi and educational software

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Author: Roger Munford via Hampshire
Date:  
To: hampshire
CC: Roger Munford
Subject: Re: [Hampshire] raspberry pi and educational software
Thanks for all your interest and suggestions.

I was basically doing a bit of research for the German economist. I had
always known that the prime aim of the raspberry pi was education and
part of that was making it affordable so that those interested could get
their hands on one and feel the magic that we presumably all enjoy. This
is be very important for developing countries because they need an army
of technicians to help overcome the challenges that they face. It seems
to me that the raspberry pi, and associated educational software could
be enormously useful.

My almost accidental visit to the secondary school was quite
inspirational. It was amazing to see them teaching a full curriculum
under really tough conditions. Imagine doing chemistry or Physics
without and labwork. I of course was interested to see the ICT center.

I thought that the students would benefit a lot more if they had 5 - 6
raspberry pis so that each would have more keyboard time. However a
colleague said that the powers that be might think that the raspberry pi
is inferior to windows because that's what they use in Europe.

The school had a couple of solar panels ,a charger, a 12V battery and a
UPS  with a normal PC attached to it. The solar set up was financed by
Polish Development aid and I think it could be easily extended.

They do get a lot of inappropriate stuff that they can't use because  of
the environment. They had a load of very slim continental plug sockets
that would look great in a Swedish house but they are so hard to fit
that they were just hanging off the walls. What they needed was
something much more bulky with big screws  and room to bend cables
around. Something to last.

James, the story about soldering with a heated iron bar sounded really
interesting. Can you be tempted to flesh it out a bit?

Regards

Roger

On 14/03/2022 09:30, Roger Munford via Hampshire wrote:
> I was recently lucky enough to be involved in a development project in
> a remote community in Ethiopia which involved installing solar and
> batteries.
>
> Whilst we were there we visited the local school which had an "ICT"
> centre with a single PC and a further PC used by the staff. It was
> basically a large mud hut with a earth floor. Despite this the school
> had managed to get 25 students into higher education. I thought that
> they could benefit from a few raspberry pis.
>
> On the way back I met a German development economist who was working
> for the EU in Botswana . He said they were interested in a UK product
> "the raspberry pi".
>
> I promised to send him some background info about the raspberry pi and
> how it could be used in education which I know it must but haven't had
> experience myself.
>
> Can anybody suggest resources links that would be useful to pass on? I
> haven't started yet but can imagine somebody out there may have much
> more experience.
>
> Regards
>
> Roger
>
>


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