Back to school night!

[Katie Cunningham]

Last night was my son's back to school night (he's in middle school). I decided to take along my dolled-up Raspberry Pi and tell the teachers about the ideas we have, and about the class at PyCon in March.

Though I only got a few minutes with each teacher, each one was incredibly interested. This is heartening, especially since my conversation with the school's IT director was luke-warm at best (looking back, I think he was tired, not disinterested. There were a LOT of tech-wary parents at orientation).

All of them were more than happy to not only give feedback on possible lesson plans, but use them! Some might even be interested in joining the group to give more feedback.

The math and science teachers were low-hanging fruit, but the language arts teacher surprised me. He was probably the most excited, since he does quite a bit of AV work with his class. Having lesson plans that include free software for editing and script writing would be a huge boon to him.

The only teacher I didn't get time with was the history teacher, so I plan on tracking him down the next time I'm at the school. I think a history class would benefit from simulations, Oregon Trail style, to get more nuanced concepts across.

If anyone has any questions they'd like to as my son's teachers, let me know! 

Katie Cunningham