Teachers get to grips with coding at Raspberry Jam

The first Raspberry Pi game jam was recently held in Manchester in an effort to get teachers excited about coding and the idea of passing on that knowledge to children.

UK electrical goods and Raspberry Pi distributor CPC, along with Raspberry Jam network founder and principle ICT teacher, Alan O’Donohoe, held the event in Manchester Central, which was attended by 336 people.

To turnaround the worsening computer skills crisis in the UK, the first part of O’Donohoe’s mission has been to “bring coding to the classroom”.

The Raspberry Jam provided hands-on Raspberry Pi workshops and lectures to 336 teachers and educators. The sessions aimed to help educators develop the necessary skills needed to apply their knowledge and teach coding in the classroom – helping to fill a critical gap in the current ICT curriculum, soon to be addressed by Michael Gove’s proposed coding-focused revisions.

The event also held interactive debate on the future direction of ICT in education and how technology such as Raspberry Pi is driving change in the existing curriculum. The panel included Professor Steve Furber (Principal Designer of BBC Micro) (pictured above), Pete Lomas (Raspberry Pi co-founder), teachers such as Carrie Anne Philbin, and was streamed live around the globe.

“The Raspberry Pi computer is a fantastic tool to inspire and engage learners to enter the world of computing science with its massive educational potential. The aim of the Raspberry Jamboree conference is to identify and share the impact that this low-cost computer is having on education,” said O’Donohoe.

The event formed part of the 2013 Education Innovation Conference & Exhibition.

See images from the event below.