The Raspberry Pi Foundation and FutureLearn introduce teachers worldwide to the ‘maker’ movement and the programming world of Scratch and Python
Two online courses for educators, focusing on building makerspaces for young people and transitioning from block to text-based programming languages, are now open for registration.
London, 26 February, 2018: the Raspberry Pi Foundation is delighted to announce the launch of two free online CPD training courses in partnership with FutureLearn, the social learning platform, aimed at giving teachers the skills to use digital making – creating using technology – effectively in the classroom. The courses are open for registration now, and are available to educators, or anyone with an interest in digital making and computing, all over the world, at any time and on any device.
Build a Makerspace for Young People, available for enrolment now and starting on 12th March, shows educators how to create a makerspace, an area inside their community or school, which young people can use to apply digital skills to the real world. It explores different approaches to makerspaces, the pedagogy that underpins the maker movement, and gives lots of practical advice on getting started. By the end of the course, educators will understand the benefits of embracing making and know how to find partners to help them build a successful, thriving makerspace.
Scratch to Python: Moving from Block to Text-based Programming, also starting on 12th March, has been created in response to feedback from educators: while block-based programming languages like Scratch make it easier to teach programming, it can be quite challenging to move young learners on to text-based programming languages such as Python. This course helps educators to transfer the programming and thinking skills they learnt through Scratch and apply them to Python. They’ll develop basic text-based programming skills, learning how to understand error messages and debug code along the way.
Lauren Hyams, Interim Head of Educator Support for the Raspberry Pi Foundation commented: “The Raspberry Pi Foundation has a simple, but ambitious mission: to put the power of digital making into the hands of people all over the world. In 2017, we launched 4 online training courses, training over 20000 educators in the process. We’re therefore delighted to be offering more courses in 2018 on FutureLearn so that many more teachers across the world can learn a new skill or develop their teaching practise in an interactive and flexible way.”
Nigel Smith, Head of Content at FutureLearn commented: “Digital skills are in demand in many sectors and industries across the board, and education is no exception. We’re delighted to be collaborating with Raspberry Pi on their next set of courses to continue to support teachers, by helping them to navigate the digital transformation in the education sphere. It’s vital for learners today to be able to apply their digital skills in the real world, so we’re very supportive of Raspberry Pi’s methodology – combining both theoretical and practical skills – so that educators are fully equipped for the classroom of today.”
People can sign up to courses now with both courses starting on 12th March 2018. Visit rpf.io/trainonline for more information.
As with most FutureLearn courses, the course can be taken for free or there is the option to upgrade to receive additional benefits.
About FutureLearn
Founded by The Open University in 2012, FutureLearn is a leading social learning platform, enabling online learning through conversation. With over 7 million people from over 200 countries across the globe – a community that is continuously growing – it offers free and paid for online courses from world-leading UK and international universities, as well as organisations such as the European Space Agency, the British Council and Cancer Research UK. FutureLearn’s course portfolio covers a wealth of areas to promote lifelong learning for a range of applications including general interest, an introduction to university studies, continuing professional development and fully online postgraduate degrees.
For more information, please contact:
Niamh O’Grady Head of Comms, FutureLearn
Email: comms@futurelearn.com
About Raspberry Pi
The Raspberry Pi Foundation works to put the power of digital making into the hands of people all over the world, so they are capable of understanding and shaping our increasingly digital world, able to solve the problems that matter to them, and equipped for the jobs of the future.
We provide low-cost, high-performance computers that people use to learn, solve problems and have fun. We provide outreach and education to help more people access computing and digital making. We develop free resources to help people learn about computing and how to make things with computers, and train educators who can guide other people to learn.
