Raspberry Pi: The Tech Teacher's New Textbook

Eben Upton

Eben Upton is a founder and trustee of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and serves as its Executive Director.

Computer technology teachers have a new teaching tool that has given students the foundation for a mass of invention and innovation.

The Raspberry Pi — a circuit board the size of a credit card — has served as the starting point for computer science students to build an astonishing number of complex devices, learning the basics of programming in the process. And the cost for this incredibly small tech tool? Around $35USD. 

The small and economical computer was first developed by faculty members at the University of Cambridge in Britain who had noticed their incoming computer science students were ill-prepared for a high-tech education. They decided to build an inexpensive device that students could learn from.

The Raspberry Pi is an ultra-low cost, credit card-sized computer designed to fill a much-needed technological gap in communities that cannot afford more traditional computing hardware and to provide children around the world the opportunity to learn programming.

Learn more at www.raspberrypi.org

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Steve Lansing & Julia Watson: Water Temples Forever

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Ken Banks: Freedom from Money

Ken Banks recently launched Means of Exchange to look at how everyday technologies can be used to democratize opportunities for economic self-sufficiency, rebuild local communities and promote a return to local resource use. “I think we need to remember that we are more valuable as individuals than the sum of the notes in our pocket.”

David Bellwood: Quality Not Quantity

David Bellwood, a marine biologist and an internationally recognized expert in coral reef fishes and systems, combines skills in such disparate fields as ecology, palaeontology, biomechanics and molecular systems to understand the nature of reefs. “The argument would be that if you’ve got a reef with a thousand species, it is a lot more resilient, and a lot more capable of maintaining itself than a reef with a hundred species. I don’t think that is true.”

Dean Karlan : Poverty Measures

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Peter Kareiva: Reframe & Rethink

Peter Kareiva is the chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Kareiva is often noted for his emphasis on nature’s resiliency, rather than its impending doom. “Totally unnecessarily we get into a conversation where it is farmers versus conservation, where it is loggers versus conservation, where it is fishermen versus conservation.”

David Eagleman: We Are Our Biology

David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. His areas of research include time perception, vision, synesthesia, and the intersection of neuroscience with the legal system. He is a pioneer on the power of the unconscious brain. "Are we free to choose how we act? Is the mind equal to the brain?"

Margrét Pála Ólafsdóttir: Adapting & Learning

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Bill Shore: Break the Rules

Bill Shore is the founder and chief executive officer of Share Our Strength, a national nonprofit that is working to end childhood hunger in America. “Those of us who are passionate about social change and social innovation, we have got to find ways to break the rules. I believe it is a strategic necessity and a moral imperative.”

David DeSteno: Compassion Science

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Vicki Arroyo: Climate Disasters

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Amanda Ripley: Where the Smart Kids Are

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C.J. Huff : Resilience in the aftermath of the unthinkable

C.J. Huff is the superintendent of Joplin, Mo. schools who led his district of thousands of employees and students through the recovery effort that followed the infamous Joplin tornado. “We had children in the rubble...and there is no worse feeling in the world,” he said about the moments after the storm. “I can tell you, at this time in my life, I had 7,747 kids that I was responsible for, and I could only account for my two children.”