BBC digital competency initiative
Made in the UK
The BBC and partners in the United Kingdom start another program to educate young people for the digital future, but FOSS is sorely lacking.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has a history with computers. In the 1980s, they helped produce and distribute to schools, for the use of school children, one of the first micro-computers of the day, the BBC Micro. This week, the BBC announced a new initiative, Make it Digital [1], and a new piece of hardware, the Micro Bit (Figure 1), which they and their partners want to distribute to all seventh graders (11-12 years old) in the United Kingdom next September.
Although there is not a lot of solid information about the Micro Bit, the prototype for it is very small, has an array (5x5) of LEDs, Bluetooth low energy (LE), and various items like an accelerometer, taking its power from a micro USB port. It is advertised as being "wearable" and appears to be more along the lines of an Arduino type of processor, able to run one program at a time, than a computer that could run multiple programs at one time.
The bigger message is not just another small board that students can use to build things, but the "full court press" that the BBC is putting behind the Make it Digital program to try and address the 1.4 million digital professionals that will be needed in the UK over the next five years. More than 25 companies and associations (with indications that might expand to 50) are in the program. The BBC sees a shortage of trained IT people in the UK and, rather than try to import them from other countries, decided to improve the computer skills of students in the seventh grade through the Micro Bit program and in other grades through other programs.
Ten of the partner companies are called "Product Partners" (ARM, Barclays, Element14, Freescale Semiconductor, Lancaster University, Microsoft, Nordic Semiconductor, Samsung, ScienceScope, Technology Will Save Us) and the other 16 companies are "Product Champions" (Bright Future, CISCO, Code Club, CoderDojo, Code Kingdoms, Creative Digital Solutions, CultureTECH, Decoded, Institution of Engineering and Technology, Kitronik, London Connected Learning Centre, Open University, Python Software Foundation, STEMNET, TeenTech, Tinder Foundation) who will be working with training utilizing the Micro Bit. People should not look at this effort as only Micro Bit-oriented. The group also plans to train 5,000 young, unemployed people to increase their computer skills, so they can get new jobs.
I first became aware of this effort while I was at a CoderDojo meeting recently held in London. Young people of all ages were encouraged to do simple (and not so simple) programming jobs under close mentorship. Jane Wakefield, a technology reporter for the BBC, told me about the Make it Digital program (announcements had already gone out that day) while she was interviewing some of the CoderDojo students.
Later, Jane asked me a question that seemed to be burning in her mind: "Should every child need to program?"
I do not think every child needs to have the skills to write large, complex programs, but I do think basic training is useful so every person knows the basics about how to get a computer to solve a problem. Later, this will help people estimate if what they are requesting is going to take a programmer 10 minutes or 10 years to program, or whether the data needed to solve the problem would fill up a thumb drive or a datacenter. Likewise, technical people should learn more about formal areas of business, although in a lot of ways technical people are exposed to business every day, and the opposite is not always true.
The Micro Bit is a prototype at this stage, and the program itself is still a concept. The Partners have a little time between now and September for tweaking both. One thing that disturbs me, however, is the seeming lack of FOSS entities in the development of both the hardware and the software, the lack of public specifications on what might be going into the Micro Bit, and the lack of openness as to where the training might be headed. If this is simply an oversight, then I hope the BBC starts being more inclusive in their planning and reaches out to organizations such as the Free Software Foundation, the Linux Foundation, and even the general public to review and comment on their plans.
As simple as the Micro Bit is, not needing any binary blobs in its programming might be a refreshing change. And a Free and Open programming tool chain would also be nice.
Infos
- BBC Make it Digital: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/makeitdigital
- Micro Bit: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/makeitdigital/micro-bit
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
TUXEDO Computers Unveils Linux Laptop Featuring AMD Ryzen CPU
This latest release is the first laptop to include the new CPU from Ryzen and Linux preinstalled.
-
XZ Gets the All-Clear
The back door xz vulnerability has been officially reverted for Fedora 40 and versions 38 and 39 were never affected.
-
Canonical Collaborates with Qualcomm on New Venture
This new joint effort is geared toward bringing Ubuntu and Ubuntu Core to Qualcomm-powered devices.
-
Kodi 21.0 Open-Source Entertainment Hub Released
After a year of development, the award-winning Kodi cross-platform, media center software is now available with many new additions and improvements.
-
Linux Usage Increases in Two Key Areas
If market share is your thing, you'll be happy to know that Linux is on the rise in two areas that, if they keep climbing, could have serious meaning for Linux's future.
-
Vulnerability Discovered in xz Libraries
An urgent alert for Fedora 40 has been posted and users should pay attention.
-
Canonical Bumps LTS Support to 12 years
If you're worried that your Ubuntu LTS release won't be supported long enough to last, Canonical has a surprise for you in the form of 12 years of security coverage.
-
Fedora 40 Beta Released Soon
With the official release of Fedora 40 coming in April, it's almost time to download the beta and see what's new.
-
New Pentesting Distribution to Compete with Kali Linux
SnoopGod is now available for your testing needs
-
Juno Computers Launches Another Linux Laptop
If you're looking for a powerhouse laptop that runs Ubuntu, the Juno Computers Neptune 17 v6 should be on your radar.