This was a bittersweet assignment for me. I am totally psyched to find what I would “like” for my students: a classroom bundle of raspberry pi laptops with accessories  and an XO Kids Tablet for my kindergartner. However, this is beyond my budget right now. So, I will probably sit with the devices I have and wait for the prices to drop or the technology to improve (or save my pennies for next year).

A little background…

Last year, I actually spent quite a bit of time looking at options for my two, possibly three, oldest children.  Previously, most of my children’s educational needs could be met by sharing one desktop computer, as they tend to be doing different things anyway. However, that changed when my boys started taking a Scratch computer class, which meant that we ideally would have had at least two working laptops which they could bring to class.  This wasn’t really in our budget, but we received hand me down lap tops from family at various levels of functionality. We used those and one other laptop from the teacher during the class. We also could use laptops for presentations outside the house, and simply so they can program when we are out in places which bore them

At this time, my budget was probably $100 per child, and this really didn’t work. The new tablets, chrome books, etc., which were coming out at the time either didn’t support scratch at all, or made it painfully slow. I was excited by raspberry pi, which gives kids a chance to cheaply create their own computer. Not a lap top, but it would at least give us more work stations at home. However, it didn’t yet support Scratch, so wasn’t really worth it for us yet. So, I figured I would wait until either prices on new (working!) laptops came down, or for Scratch to be developed to work on cheaper devices (which they were working on).

So, with this week’s assignment, I can take a restock of both where we are, and where the technology & market is. At home, we are better supplied, as we have two desktops, one laptop, and an ipad the children can use with permission. We also have a camcorder, which they use for video film making, along with the ipad. The ipad seems harder to get the same quality, but safer for small children to use, so we use both. The ipad gets used for apps, the video & movies. In general, I find it more helpful with the younger children. The lap top I already have, is not ideal for them, as scratch gets laggy, and the sound only works with headphones. This means that we don’t really have a functional laptop if we want to make a presentation somewhere, although in a pinch I might be able to borrow my husband’s. They haven’t had a group class requiring lap tops this year, so they have been pretty much set. However, that could change at any moment. In fact, the older three started going to a writer’s group, where laptops aren’t required, but would surely be useful.

Alright, when I researched what was out there now, I found some exciting developments. First of all, from what I can tell from the search boards, chrome books and tablets still don’t work with scratch (although scratch junior now works on ipad, no one seems so interested in that though). One exciting exception is the XO kids tablet, which was created for one laptop program. Looking at it, it looks like it’s a different version of scratch, so I would probably not use it for my older kids as they are expanding their abilities and need more powerful computers, not less. For my younger kids, this seems like a great find though.

Next, I checked to see where raspberry pi was at. Yippee! Scratch is now supported. Of course, now I don’t really need more work stations in the house, although I would still love my guys to have the experience of building their own computer. I wonder how much of a pain it would be to just bring a desktop raspberry pi to places (it’s very small), and then I wonder if anyone has turned it into a laptop.

Bingo! Set to be released in May 2014, a company has created something called pi-top, which is a do it yourself laptop kit, using raspberry pi. Not really cheap, over the $200 mark, but educationally so very interesting. It gets better though, as that there is an add on kit which you can use for robotics. (So now I am very excited, because Lego Robotics is so very expensive and my kids would definitely lose the parts.Plus, I would prefer them to build a Robot in a more organic way than just using fancified legos.)

So that’s where we’re at. I’m guessing, we’ve spent enough on technology for this year. (one new desktop, and hubby’s laptop getting replaced). Last year, we got the ipad and digital camera which has been great fun. Perhaps next year, we can have the goal of raspberry pi laptops for the older kids, and we can milk it for all it’s worth, incorporating robotics into the curriculum.

Of course, who knows what next year holds….

As a side note, I like having different devices as they are good at different things. I can easily see how this could turn into a logistical nightmare. In some ways, having one (or two) new thing a year is kind of nice as you get to know the capabilities of what you have.

One question I have for everyone… When using different devices, having documents stored locally can be a bit annoying. While I’ve tinkered a bit with having documents on the cloud so they can be shared between devices, I haven’t made a total switch. I wonder if anyone here has made that switch and how the transition has worked for them?

References

"One Lap Top" [web page]. Retrieved from: http://one.laptop.org/

"Pi-top" [web site and video]. Retrieved from: http://pi-top.com/

"Pi-Top in CNET and TechCrunch" [video]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U6JCqx7tuY

"Pi-Top Indigogo Page" [web page]. Retrieved from: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/pi-top-a-raspberry-pi-laptop-you-build-yourself/contributions/new?perk_amt=1000&perk_id=2388917

"Raspberry Pi" [website]. Retrieved from: http://www.raspberrypi.org/

"XO tablet" [web site]. Retrieved from:http://www.xotablet.com/