Modernization of the computer science class at a Russian school on a raspberry: cheap and cheerful

There is no sadder story than the 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 often addressed: it-education at school. In this case, I will not touch on the subject of personnel, but just conduct a “thought experiment” and try to solve the problem of equipping the computer science class with little blood.







Problems



  1. In most secondary schools (especially in the provinces), computer science classes have not been updated for quite some time, there are various reasons for this, I’ll highlight financial ones: the lack of targeted investments from municipal budgets, or the budget of the school itself does not allow for modernization.







  2. There is also another factor, in addition to time, that affects the state of equipment - students. Most often, the system unit is in the immediate vicinity of the student, so at the time of boredom and while no one sees, some individuals can kick SB or have fun in other ways.







  3. Not the control of 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 on computer graphics, or on writing a program. In this case, the lesson would have been much more lively if the teacher had the opportunity to watch what is happening on the screen and not run around the class looking at everyone in the monitor and stopping for 5 minutes to check.









Raspberry Way of Solution



Now: from whining to business. You may already have understood that the solution that I will offer for the above problems is raspberry pi, but let's take a look at the points.







  1. Prices for equipment will be taken from the site of a major federal retailer - this is done solely for convenience and naturally in a real situation when purchasing equipment, wholesale prices are lower.







  2. In my imaginary class, I will make the assumption: the teacher is ready to sit and learn some of the nuances associated with updating equipment and expanding the capabilities of this 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 electrical consumption.







Physical level



Base



  1. Let's start with how much and what kind of raspberries we need to buy. Let's take the average number of cars for the class: 24 + 1 (why should I tell you a little later). We will take the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B + , that is, about 3.5 rubles. per pc or 87.5 thousand rubles. for 25 pieces.







  2. Further, for placing boards we can take a telecommunication cabinet, for example, Cabeus average cost ~ 13 thousand rubles. At the same time, we solve the problem described in the second paragraph, that is, it becomes possible to remove part of the equipment from students and physically control it at any time.







  3. In most schools, to the credit of the Ministry of Education, the necessary network equipment is installed: switches, routers, etc., however, for the sake of cleanliness of construction, we will include these things in the list of needs. We take a simple switch, the main thing is that there should be a sufficient number of ports - from 26 (24 students, 1 special, 1 for the teacher), I would choose D-Link DES-1210-28 , which adds 7.5 thousand rubles. at our expense.







  4. We also take a simple router, because for us the most important thing is that it pulls out the number of cars at a decent speed, take Mikrotik - this is + 4.5 thousand more. rub.







  5. Further on the little things: 3 normal HAMA 47775 surge protectors +5.7 thousand rubles. Patch cords 25 pcs. for wiring from the switch 2 m. Greenconnect GCR-50691 = +3.7 thousand rubles. Memory cards for installing OS on raspberries, class not lower than class 10 Transcend 300S microSDHC 32 GB + 10 thousand more rubles. for 25 pieces.







  6. As you can imagine, learning dozens of classes from different parallels will require more than 32 GB. to the workplace, so the repository with the students' work will be shared. To do this, take Synology Disk Station DS119j + 8.2 thousand rubles. and a terabyte drive to it Toshiba P300 + 2.7 thousand rubles.









Total cost : 142 800 rubles. (when considering retail prices).







Peripherals



I must say right away that the list goes on considering 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 longer distance you will have to purchase HDMI cables with repeaters.







  1. As mentioned earlier, to connect monitors to the raspberry pi, we need HDMI cables. Take 5 meter FinePower HDMI +19.2 thousand rubles. for 24 pieces.
  2. To connect a mouse and keyboard, we need a usb extension cord Gembird USB + 5.2 thousand rubles. and splitters DEXP BT3-03 +9.6 thousand rubles.


Total cost : 34 000 rubles. (when considering retail prices).







The total of components : 176 800 rubles. (when considering retail prices).







Program level



As an OS for students, I think it is worth choosing the standard Raspbian, since even now most schools use Linux distributions (it is worth mentioning that it is more likely due to limited resources, and not because they understand that this is useful). Further, on raspbian, you can install everything you need to learn 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 Veyon or similar software, since it solves the problem from the third point, allowing you to control what is happening on the student’s computer and also allows the teacher to show their screen, for example, for presentation.







The software necessary for the teacher, by and large, is not much different from the set for the student. The most important thing to say about the teacher is why you need the 25th raspberry pi board. In fact, it is not mandatory, but for me its purpose is important. I think it should install pi hole on it - special software that can help the teacher control the network activity of students.







Afterword



This article is like a phrase:







He said, without specifically addressing anyone

I think it is obvious to everyone that the calculations and prices in this text are not accurate, nevertheless it can be understood from them that you do not need a million or even half of this amount to modernize the computer science class in old Russian schools, to improve comfort as a student and teacher.







Write in the comments that you would change or add in this imaginary class, any criticism is welcome.








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