There is no sadder story in the world than Russian IT education in an average school
Introduction
The educational system in Russia has many different problems, but today I will consider a topic that is not touched upon very often: IT education at school. In this case, I will not touch on the topic of personnel, but will just conduct a βthought experimentβ and try to solve the problem of equipping a computer science class with little blood.
Problems
- In most secondary schools (especially in the provinces), computer science classes have not been updated for a long time, there are a variety of reasons for this, I will single out financial ones: the lack of targeted injections from municipal budgets, or the budget of the school itself does not allow modernization.
- There is also another factor, besides time, that affects the condition of the equipment - students. Most often, the system unit is located in close proximity to the student, therefore, at the time of boredom and while no one sees, some individuals can kick the SB or have fun with it in other ways.
- Lack of control over the computer on which the student is busy. For example, in a class of 20 people (in reality, this figure reaches 30 or more), a task was given in computer graphics, or in writing a program. In this case, the lesson would go much more vigorously if the teacher had the opportunity to watch what is happening with the students on the screen, and not run around the class looking at each monitor and stopping for 5 minutes to check.
Crimson Solution Path
Now: from whining to action. You may have already understood that the solution that I will offer for the above problems is raspberry pi, but let's go point by point.
- Equipment prices will be taken at retail prices. a large federal retailer - this was done solely for the sake of convenience and, naturally, in a real situation when purchasing equipment, wholesale prices are lower.
- In my imaginary class, I will make an assumption: the teacher is ready to sit and study some of the nuances associated with updating the equipment and expanding the capabilities of this very teacher.
So let's get started. The whole idea associated with the use of raspberries is based on their main advantages: compactness, relative availability, reduced power consumption.
Physical layer
Base
- Let's start with how many and what kind of raspberries we need to buy. Let's take the average number of cars for the class: 24 + 1 (why, I'll tell you a little later). We will take , that is, approximately 3,5 thousand rubles. per piece or 87,5 thousand rubles. for 25 pieces.
- Further, to place the boards, we can take a telecommunication cabinet, for example, average cost ~13 thousand rubles. At the same time, we solve the problem outlined in the second paragraph, that is, it becomes possible to remove a piece of equipment from the students and physically control it at any time.
- In most schools, to the credit of the Ministry of Education, the necessary network equipment is installed: switches, routers, etc., however, for the purity of the construction, we will include these things in the list of needs. Let's take a simple switch, the main thing is that there is a sufficient number of ports - from 26 (24 students, 1 special, 1 for the teacher), I would choose , which adds another 7,5 thousand rubles. to our account.
- Let's also take a simple router, since for us the most important thing is that it draws the number of machines at a decent speed, let's take - this is another +4,5 thousand rubles.
- Further on the little things: 3 normal network filters +5,7 thousand rubles Patch cords 25 pcs. for wiring from the switch 2 m. = +3,7 thousand rubles. Memory cards for installing OS on raspberries, a card of at least class 10 another +10 thousand rubles. for 25 pieces.
- As you understand, to train several dozen classes from different parallels, more than 32 GB will be required. to the workplace, so the repository with student work will be shared. For this we take +8,2 thousand rubles and a terabyte disk to it +2,7 thousand rubles
Total cost: 142 800 rub. (when considering retail prices).
Peripherals
Iβll make a reservation right away that the list goes on taking into account the fact that there are already keyboards, mice and monitors - only the problem of connecting them to a remote machine is solved. Also, I make the assumption that the base is in the same room at a distance of no more than 5-10 meters, since in the case of a greater distance, you will have to purchase HDMI cables with repeaters.
- As mentioned earlier, we need HDMI cables to connect monitors to the raspberry pi. Take 5 meters +19,2 thousand rubles for 24 pieces.
- To connect a mouse and keyboard, we need a usb extension cable +5,2 thousand rubles and splitters +9,6 thousand rubles
Total cost: 34 000 rub. (when considering retail prices).
The total of components: 176 800 rub. (when considering retail prices).
Program level
I think the standard Raspbian should be chosen as the OS for students, since even now most schools use Linux distributions (it is worth mentioning that it is more due to limited resources, and not because they realize that this is useful). Further, on raspbian, you can install everything you need to master the training program: libre office, geany or another code editor, pinta, in general, everything that is already in use. The most important thing to install is or similar software, since it solves the problem from the third point, allowing you to control what happens on the student's computer, and also allows the teacher to show his screen, for example, for a presentation.
The software required for a teacher, in general, is not much different from a set for a student. The most important thing to say in connection with the teacher is why the 25th raspberry pi board is needed. In fact, it is not mandatory, but for me its purpose is important. I think it's worth installing - special software that can help the teacher control the network activity of students.
Afterword
This article is like a phrase:
He said to no one in particular.
I think it is obvious to everyone that the calculations and prices in this text are not accurate, nevertheless, from them you can understand that you do not need a million or even half of this amount to modernize a computer science class in old Russian schools, to increase comfort as a student as well as the teacher.
Write in the comments what you would change or add to this imaginary class, any criticism is welcome.
Source: habr.com