Google provides teachers, Raspberry Pis for UK schools
updated 04:37 pm EDT, Thu May 24, 2012
Search giant hopes to reach 20,000 disadvantaged students
Google is working with British charity Teach First to provide teachers and computing equipment to disadvantaged communities. The search giant will donate funding to support 100 teachers, with the aim of increasing student exposure to the basics of computer science. As the BBC reports, the program will make use of the Raspberry Pi, a tiny, low-cost computer that plugs directly into a display's HDMI input.
Teach First puts exceptional college graduates into a six-week training program and subsequently places them in schools for a two-year teaching period. The Google program will see 100 teachers—mostly computer science specialists—deployed over a three-year period. The program will reach seven regions of England: East Midlands, Kent and Medway, London, North East, North West, West Midlands, and Yorkshire and Humber.
The project aims to reach 20,000 students in disadvantaged communities over the course of life of the program. Google has been reaching out to educational organizations for some time now, attempting to bring low-cost computing to the forefront in the education sphere. In January, the company announced that it would be providing schools with 27,000 of its browser-powered Chromebooks.
