E2BN Blog

As with all great new ideas (and the Raspberry Pi is a great idea) there are lots of misconceptions and half-truths. So before you buy a Pi, read this first!

If you threw away your PC based machines when you fell in love with the iPad (or similar device) the Pi might be a good way to get your students interested in what actually happens inside a computer. For older students doing Computer Studies, the Pi is great because they can experiment with a computer that is separate to the main school network. You’d never allow students to ‘mess’ with the OS on a curriculum machine.

The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. It’s a capable little computer which can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, such as spreadsheets, word-processing and games.

It also plays high-definition video. The RPi can also be used to give students opportunities to create programmes that control devices.

Mr Gove believes it’s the “kind of initiative which will give children the opportunity to learn the fundamental of programming.”

With Google Giving providing Raspberry Pis for 15,000 school children and the Raspberry Pi Foundation reporting that it sold its millionth Pi in April, there are plenty of these devices in classrooms.

There’s a slide that appears in every E2BN e-safety presentation. It’s a simple message. It reads “On the Internet: there’s no such thing as privacy, there’s no delete button so post like your enemies are watching!”

This article looks at the first part of that message. Privacy: a state in which one is not observed or disturbed by other people; the state of being free from public attention.

Imagine if every book you read reported that you had read it, how long you looked at it, which bits you re-read and what you read next. You can learn a lot about someone based on what they read! This is what happens online. Cookies on web sites track your browsing habits and web servers store this data. If you combine browsing habits and some bits of personal data quite a detailed picture or profile will emerge.

Over the last few years there has been a disturbing rise in the number of high profile information and data-security breaches. Information such as patient records and case files on vulnerable children have been lost, stolen or inadequately protected.

A study by East Anglia and Plymouth Universities surveyed 1,059 schools. The survey revealed that t pupil records detailing addresses and routes to school, whether they have special needs, are known to social services or even if they have relatives who are on the sex offenders register are at risk of exploitation because nearly half of the schools have no policy for handling personal data. The report also showed that 45% of schools did not meet minimum requirements for password security and 40% had insufficient measures in place for the security of their computer systems again problems such as viruses.