
Google Giving Will Provide 15,000 Raspberry Pi's to UK Schools - whalesalad
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/3158
======
meaty
Whilst I applaud the effort, I'm cynical.

I have three children at two _good_ but different schools and my wife is a
teacher. From observation, they will either be locked in the cupboard because
the staff won't know what to do with them or are uninterested or are too lazy
to adapt them to the curriculum, or they will be stolen or broken within the
week.

This whilst cynical is probably realistic.

The only thing that has ever survived schools is the BBC micro because they
weren't cool, were indestructible and you could screw them down.

~~~
fidotron
What mystifies me is back in the 80s there was a relatively successful amount
of programming at school using mainly Logo but also BBC Basic (which doesn't
suck nearly as much as other basics). The real tragedy is Logo fell out of
favour so quickly for no particular reason.

~~~
Zenst
at high school we got taught CECIL and basic and touched upon a the other
languages and there feild of usage. Also taught the history part as well. Had
a 380z research machine, BBC micro in the final year and also access to a 2903
ICL mainframe running george over a 300buad acoustic coupler and then would
take upto an hour to get a good connection. Sometime later computer studies
got turned into a secratary skills on a computer and called ICT.

Logo was great and in some way we still have it at toy level with the various
programable toys via mobile phones and let us not forget we still have
bigtrax. Though Lego are doing things now we could only dream of as children.
Computer back then also came with a programming language interface, nowadays
that is a optional extra sadly and is akin to a generation knowing how to
drive and how a engine worked so they could identify a fault and fix it to
those that can just drive.

~~~
meaty
Nice - I remember the 380z. Had a bus which was a simple IDC ribbon cable,
weighed a ton and sort of barely coped with CP/M.

~~~
Zenst
Yip they were well built. Apparently if you entered the front panel (ctrl+F
iirc you got a hex debugger) you could single step thru the machine code, now
if your did that for the graphic panel part you could blow the screen --
luckily this did not get learned from expereience.

------
Peroni
I had the pleasure of meeting Eben when he spoke at HN London last year. His
passion is blatant and powerful and he's comfortably one of the most down to
earth people you could wish to meet and has a brilliant sense of humour. The
fact that he turned up wearing a HAL 9000 t-shirt cemented the fact that he's
a true geek who is doing something he absolutely loves every single day.

If you ever get an opportunity to see him speak then I suggest you jump at the
chance.

Eben's HN London talk: <http://vimeo.com/43039279>

------
UnoriginalGuy
If one were being cynical, one might suggest that this was a way for Google to
distract attention from it not paying UK tax (through loopholes):
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jan/29/google-
tax-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jan/29/google-tax-chairman)

~~~
jmillikin
A cynical person would note that the UK government isn't upset that the
loopholes are being used, since they've made no serious attempts to close
them. They're upset that the loopholes are being used by the _wrong
companies_.

If Apple or Google or Starbucks spent as much on UK lobbying as other
multinationals, I doubt they'd be receiving any negative press.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
HMRC change rules all the time to beat tax avoidance. They're hamstrung
somewhat by European regulations that prevent them from penalising companies
for hiding their profits in other EU countries. But it's a cat and mouse
affair and the HMRC can only be reactive unless someone comes up with a
perfect tax code.

> _They're upset that the loopholes are being used by the wrong companies._ //

You mean the richest, most successful, most popular, most used by the UK
population and most profitable?

> _I doubt they'd be receiving any negative press._ //

So in your opinion the UK press is in the pocket of the government who're only
highlighting morally questionable tax avoidance as part of a shake down to
boost some sort of protection racket? That's what it sounds like you're
saying.

Personally I think the answer lies in some sort of underpin based on gross
revenue levied on all companies over the VAT registration threshold but with
the option to apply to have the underpin removed if one can prove in good
faith that the underpin is onerous.

Amazon could still pretend they're working out of Luxembourg (500 workers)
instead of UK (15k workers) but they'd pay on their revenue anyway. That way
Amazon can't put UK tax paying firms out of business (simply by undercutting
and relying on the extra profit from not paying tax to stay a float) and then
off-shore all the taxable profits leaving us with no UK tax paying businesses
(but even more consumption).

Just think of all the high wage bills for accountants that could be saved.

~~~
jmillikin

      > You mean the richest, most successful, most popular,
      > most used by the UK population and most profitable?
    

I mean young companies that don't contribute as much to election campaigns as
older companies.

    
    
      > So in your opinion the UK press is in the pocket of the
      > government who're only highlighting morally
      > questionable tax avoidance as part of a shake down to
      > boost some sort of protection racket? That's what it
      > sounds like you're saying.
    

I'm not saying that the UK press is an organ of the government. Rather,
individual members of the government are complaining only about companies that
do not give them (sufficient?) kickbacks. The press merely reports on these
complaints, because true investigative journalism is rapidly dying out.

The obvious solution is to close the "pick any EU nation to pay taxes in"
loophole so companies are required to allocate taxes based in part on the
geographical source of their revenue, but this would affect the companies that
paid for those loopholes in the first place, so it will not soon happen.

If the government were actually interested in punishing companies that pay
taxes to Ireland for profits in the UK, they would have just done it instead
of kick up a flurry of press releases.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _this would affect the companies that paid for those loopholes in the first
> place_ //

Go on.

------
jiggy2011
I have a feeling the first question will be "why couldn't they give us an xbox
instead?"

It will be interesting to see how these are used in schools though. When I was
in school the ethos around IT and computers was very much "don't do anything
we haven't asked you to do" which seems to be the opposite of how the pi is
intended to be used.

~~~
meaty
It's still like that. Everything is locked down, locked up and entirely
filtered. It's like a computing prison. A couple of years ago, my then 8 year
old daughter (!!!!) was actually told off for using the Run dialog (to fire up
notepad) in Windows XP because they removed it from the start menu and was
accused of hacking! I literally fucking exploded like a WWII bomb at the
clueless peon who made that accusation.

I'm now a school governor to make sure that these morons don't take over the
planet.

The kill pretty much every bit of interest there is straight away for most
students.

~~~
keithpeter
"I literally fucking exploded like a WWII bomb at the clueless peon who made
that accusation."

I'd watch the blood pressure there (I've been teaching for 24 years).

As you are now on the management: Is there (safe, filtered) Internet via wifi
and BYOD for the older pupils? Cheap android tablets for shiny media but also
hackable? Scratch (<http://scratch.mit.edu/>) on the PCs? Basically what
policy innovation/leadership have you contributed?

Not challenging here, I'd really be interested to know. Having documented
examples to point at _really_ helps in situations where you have to be
diplomatic with idiots.

~~~
meaty
I calmed down pretty quickly :)

Changes so far: stopped mass iPad purchase to use as cameras (!?), different
acceptable use policy (which stops people being hung without good reason),
open systems policy I.e. no single vendor, fired RM PLC, halfed expenditure on
consultants, new smartboards which don't fall over every 3 months, got rid of
LGFL Fronter, two new IT staff.

All in 9 months.

~~~
josephlord
What is your Fronter replacement recommendation? And can you suggest good
Schools ISP or filtering solution?

~~~
meaty
Moodle+exchange (still cheaper than fronter which was £40k+. MS will bend over
for educational contracts. Exchange supports the staff better as well.
Smoothwall guardian filter

------
hilti
It's a good move Google. Just have a look at the kids happy faces. It's a gift
they didn't expect.

Let's pause for a moment talking about tax loopholes.

------
antidaily
15000 super nintendo emulators!

~~~
meaty
That actually made me laugh because it's exactly what I'd probably do with it
(or install RISCOS and play Zarch). At the same time, in the process, I'd have
to get over a learning curve so perhaps that's not a bad thing.

------
andyjohnson0
Unfortunately this seems like a drop in the ocean to me.

In January 2010 there were 24,605 schools in England alone [1]. Add more for
Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Then subtract the fairly small number
of private schools. My guess is that that about 1 in 3 of UK schools will see
even one Pi. And then, since the Pis are being given to pupils not the school,
they have to identify the lucky pupil who gets to take it home. I wonder how
that will work?

I'm not trying to be cynical, but is this actually meant to achieve _anything_
that is related to _education_?

[1]
[http://www.education.gov.uk/popularquestions/schools/buildin...](http://www.education.gov.uk/popularquestions/schools/buildings/a005553/how-
many-schools-are-there-in-england)

~~~
NickPollard
I don't know the full plan, but it makes perfect sense to start with a more
reasonable number as an experiment; if it works, it'll be much easier to raise
funding for the rest of the country. Even Google can't be expected to donate
millions of $ (or £) straight up for something in it's infancy.

Just because it does not single-handedly fix computing education does not mean
it is worthless - to make such an inference is a fallacy (I forget which one;
there's a particular name. Essentially the-perfect-is-the-enemy-of-the-good).
Helping 15000 people is better than helping 0.

At the end of the day, even the ocean is still made of nothing but drops.

~~~
andyjohnson0
Perfect Solution Fallacy [1]?

I agree that helping 15000 people is better than helping none. My cynicism
relates to how the Pis are to be distributed and what can be learned about
whether this works in any educationally meaningful sense. If this is an
experiment and the [geekiest|nicest|poorest] kid in a school gets a Pi to take
home, how do you evaluate the educational outcome?

This announcement also exists within a political context (corporate tax
avoidance), and occurred on the same day that Eric Schmidt made public
comments about Google not being opposed to a more restrictive corporate tax
regime in the UK. If it is a PR move then I don't have much confidence that
there will be any follow-through aimed at achieving genuine educational
improvements. To do this requires infrastructure and ongoing commitment.

For the record, I have three Pis and I think they are wonderful. My children
are going to be using them at home soon and if they had access to them in
school too then I would be very pleased.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy#Perfect_solutio...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy#Perfect_solution_fallacy)

[2] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jan/29/google-
tax-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jan/29/google-tax-chairman)

~~~
NickPollard
I'm sure that there is a non-zero amount of PR to this, but Eric Schmidt gave
a talk[1] in Edinburgh in August of 2011 where he specifically addressed
shortcomings in UK IT education, so this has clearly been an issue for him
before the current tax-avoidance story hit headlines.

[1]<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14683133>

------
__alexs
One per 3 kids who do the ICT GCSE. Or almost 4 per kid who does A-level
Computing.

Not too bad I suppose. Hopefully the new Computer Science courses that are
coming out will make it a relevant platform to people.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I think the idea is to encourage more kids to take up computing (as opposed to
ICT). To that end giving them to kids who're already doing A-level computing
seems misguided?

------
polshaw
Great move from google, no doubt the move will birth some future employees! I
take it at this point that the model A is effectively dead?

------
berlinbrown
This is why it is so hard to buy a raspberry pi. Google has bought them all
up.

