Creating IT Futures Webinar Gives Teachers Beginner Lesson on Raspberry Pi
Free Webinar Shows Teachers How to Teach their Students about IT
Free Webinar Shows Teachers How to Teach their Students about IT
DOWNERS GROVE, Ill., Nov. 9, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- CompTIA and its philanthropic arm, the Creating IT Futures Foundation, created a free, on-demand webinar based on Raspberry Pi technology to help teachers make classroom-based technology more accessible and fun for students.
Through a program sponsored by the Illinois IT Learning Exchange, CompTIA and Creating IT Futures have been teaching Raspberry Pi technology in professional development workshops this year to teachers across Illinois to help them offer basic computer science education and skills to their students. The foundation took a recent workshop and turned it into a webinar so that teachers both inside and outside of Illinois could learn about Raspberry Pi.
Raspberry Pi is a palm-sized, single-board computer developed by a non-profit foundation in the United Kingdom. Costing less than $50 each, millions of Raspberry Pis have been sold worldwide and are making their small-but-powerful presence known in STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — educational circles.
"Raspberry Pi is a great and inexpensive tool to help get kids playing with technology. Teachers can create lesson plans that work with various subjects and projects – from watching seedlings grow to building news stories," said Joan Matz, senior grants manager, Creating IT Futures. "The workshops were the first step in teaching teachers about the technology. Now we've created a webinar based on one application taught in the workshops, and next spring we are running a contest for students to show us applications they've built using Raspberry Pi. We hope that Raspberry Pi will increase student interest in tech and creative problem-solving both in classrooms and after-school clubs."
The half-hour-long webinar incorporates peripheral devices such as a camera with Raspberry Pi to make a video. The webinar aims to provide guidance and commands to get the device configured and create the web platform to store a stop-motion video.
Teachers nationwide can view the webinar at http://comptia.mediasite.com/mediasite/Play/e93ccddf472f46608019e39275ddd9d71d.
The in-person workshops by the Illinois IT Learning Exchange continue throughout the 2015-2016 school year. One hundred and twelve teachers from 54 middle and high schools attended the spring workshops. Illinois teachers who wish to attend the workshops this school year should email Joan Matz at [email protected].
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SOURCE Creating IT Futures Foundation
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