We received an update from Derek Schuurman and Dave Stienstra about their work in Zambia - serving up the credit-card sized computers known as Raspberry Pi. See below:
We visited a few schools today and got a sense of the context. Schools are dealing with very old computers (some of which are approaching 20 years old). Other schools are waiting for electricity service and need to work from generators or teach computing without computers. One lab we visited had perhaps 10 old workstations that were shared among 40 or more students at a time.
Dust is also a major issue - computers must be covered when not in use. We suspect the Raspberry Pi's will do much better in this dusty environment.When we showed them the Raspberry Pi teachers responded in amazement at the size, and were eager to try it out. Our workshops begin tomorrow.
People from the local church community have also been asking if they can attend the workshop, so to accommodate them we have offered to give a workshop for the whole community on "Faith and Computer Technology" on Saturday afternoon once the teachers workshops are done.
Some pictures from our school visits are attached (first 2 photos are from Hoya Day Secondary School, the third is from Emusa Day High School)
- Derek and Dave
To learn more, visit the project page
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