Google grant to offer 15,000 Raspberry Pis to UK schoolchildren

[menotu]

By Rene Millman, 29 Jan 2013 - itpro

Eric Schmidt heads into the UK as web giant promotes IT education.

Google has teamed up with the Raspberry Pi Foundation to provide 15,000 Raspberry Pi Model Bs for schoolkids around the UK.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation will be working alongside web giant and six UK educational partners to find the kids who it think will benefit from having their very own Raspberry Pi.

“CoderDojo, Code Club, Computing at Schools, Generating Genius, Teach First and OCR will each be helping us identify those kids, and will also be helping us work with them,” Liz Upton, communications director at the Raspberry Pi Foundation noted in a blog post.

As well as the gift from Google, OCR will also be creating 15,000 free teaching and learning packs to go with the Raspberry Pis.

“This is a brilliant way for us to find kids all over the country whose aptitude for computing can now be explored properly.

“We believe that access to tools is a fundamental necessity in finding out who you are and what you’re good at. We want those tools to be within everybody’s grasp, right from the start."

The micro-computers will go to individual children rather than schools as the Raspberry Pis may run the risk of “ending up in cupboards”.

http://www.itpro.co.uk/645373/google-grant-to-offer-15-000-raspberry-pis-to-uk-schoolchildren?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ITPro%2FToday+%28IT+PRO+-+Today%29

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/3158

[Just17]

déja vú ....

I remember when Apple did this ....  grants to schools etc

I remember when MS did this .......  grants to schools etc

So now we have Google doing it ......  and no there is no real difference due to the fact that the Pis will be going to the students and not the schools .....  the desired effect is the same ..... 

Hopefully in this last case the kids will be exposed to Libre software and not get so locked-in as in the previous cases.

[pclinmike]

This can only be good 
When my daughter was at school I tried and tried to get them interested in using Linux in there school, they said they have No interest in it.

[trustytrev]

Hello,
        I know some school kids who would appreciate these devices.How/Where does one go to be a recipient of these via the grant in the uk?
trustytrev.