There has been a lot of attention on the Raspberry Pi recently; a tiny computer with an on-board ARM CPU and Broadcom GPU capable of decoding H.264 video. The hope is that these inexpensive devices will be used in schools and spark a new generation of kids interested in computer science.
I have fond memories of my first exposure to a computer; and programming in particular. It was Mr Cook’s Year 5 class and our classroom had one of the few computers in the school; a BBC Micro. We were given a limited amount of time on the computer, usually in pairs, and used the Logo programming language to control a small Turtle on the screen. This first opened my mind to the idea that you could give a computer a set of specific instructions and it would carry them out on command – amazing!
From that day on I knew I wanted to find out all about how computers worked, and just what was possible in terms of computer programming. It wasn’t until later in secondary school that I got the opportunity to learn a lot more about computer science. In Mr Burrow’s Computing class I had my first taste of a full procedural programming language in the form of Pascal. This class covered many of the important building blocks in computer science and put me ahead of the field when I later moved on to take a degree in the subject.
I hope devices like the Raspberry Pi, combined with passionate and knowledgeable teachers, can inspire young people with a curiosity for how a computer works. Far too much teaching in schools is focused on giving as many students as possible only a basic understanding of how to use a computer; we also need to recognise those students with the potential to tackle something much more challenging and rewarding.
