Tag: BBC

BBC gives children mini-computers in Make it Digital scheme | BBC

The BBC has launched its Make it Digital initiative with new hardware for schools and a raft of coding-based content.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31834927

Microbit prototype

This is a wonderful initiative – as I’ve written before, I grew up “next door to the UK” in The Netherlands, we received the BBC1 and BBC2 TV channels, and I managed to cajole my parents into buying be an Acorn BBC computer. It was a real enabler in terms of programming, understanding how computers work, interfacing with electronics, logic design, and much more. It’s awesome that good old BBC is launching something like that again. It shows vision and it’s very worthwhile.

It appears that some of the teaching material and content may be specific to the UK (as in, an Australian student may not connect with the references), but other than that I think it’d be awesome to basically adopt this for use here also. Even with such minor changes required, most of the work has already been done. Why not use it!