Picademy USA will give 100 K-12 educators free, in-person professional development related to tinkering, coding and supporting project-based learning.
Four Picademy USA workshops will take place in 2016 at venues across the United States during its pilot year. The first workshop will take place in early 2016 at the Computer History Museum. The museum’s own Education team will be some of the first Picademy USA instructors and will lead subsequent Picademy USA workshops.
“We’re excited to be working with the Computer History Museum to take Picademy outside the UK for the first time. Our partnership with the museum will allow us to reach educators across the US,” said Eben Upton, CEO of Raspberry Pi Trading. “We will be working together to augment the Picademy curriculum with material taken from the museum's educational programs, helping us to place the principles that we are teaching in their historical context."
Over the course of each two-day workshop, teachers will get hands-on with computing and discover the many ways in which the Raspberry Pi can be used in the classroom. The foundation’s Education team will help teachers discover practical ways in which Raspberry Pi can support and further their use of technology in educational settings. At the end of the two days, attendees are pronounced Raspberry Pi Certified Educators and will join an active network of teachers from around the world.
"The Raspberry Pi puts the awesome power of modern computing into the hands of every learner," said John Hollar, president and CEO of the Computer History Museum. "Through this partnership we can now help hundreds of teachers each year learn how to tap into that power and inspire their students for the future."
The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a registered educational charity with a mission to advance the education of adults and children, particularly in the field of computers, computer science and related subjects. The foundation offers a $35 computer board called Raspberry Pi, which can be used in electronics projects, and for many of the things that a desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It’s designed to be used by kids all over the world to learn programming. To further that goal, The Raspberry Pi Foundation offers free resources for teaching, learning, and making with the board. With over 5 million Raspberry Pis sold worldwide, the learning computer has reached beyond just education. Hobbyists, makers, tinkerers, prototypers, and professionals alike have utilized Raspberry Pi in their own work.
The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, is a nonprofit organization with a four-decade history as the world’s leading institution exploring the history of computing and its ongoing impact on society. The Museum is dedicated to the preservation and celebration of computer history and is home to the largest international collection of computing artifacts in the world, encompassing computer hardware, software, documentation, ephemera, photographs, and moving images.
The Museum brings computer history to life through large-scale exhibits, an acclaimed speaker series, a dynamic website, docent-led tours, and an award-winning education program. The Museum’s signature exhibition is “Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing,” described by USA Today as “the Valley’s answer to the Smithsonian.” Other current exhibits include “Charles Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2,” “IBM 1401 Demo Lab,” “PDP-1 Demo Lab,” and “Where To? A History of Autonomous Vehicles.”
For more information and updates, call (650) 810-1059, visit www.computerhistory.org, check us out on Facebook, follow @computerhistory on Twitter, and read the Museum blog @chm.
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