On 20 July 2022, the Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre (RPCERC) officially celebrated its launch with an event at the Computer Science and Technology Department of the University of Cambridge. The afternoon was a fantastic opportunity to connect with researchers, teachers, students, and industry professionals, and present our vision for the Centre. As part of the celebrations, we were fortunate to hear from three speakers who touched on many aspects of the history and importance of computing education and expressed their excitement for this new venture in the field of computing education research.
Connecting with the rich computing education history of the University of Cambridge
Professor Alastair Beresford gave us a personal insight into the history and development of teaching computing at the University of Cambridge. He recounted his experience of developing novel approaches to teaching and learning computing when he started as a young lecturer at the department. His talk also highlighted the strong links between the Department and the Raspberry Pi Foundation, which ultimately paved the way for the inception of a new research centre that would focus entirely on computing education research.
Watch Alastair’s talk here:
Translating research into practice at the Research Centre
The Director of RPCERC, Dr Sue Sentance, introduced the vision and mission of the Centre, which has grown out of a partnership between the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the Department of Computer Science and Technology at the University of Cambridge. Sue outlined some of the work of the Raspberry Pi Foundation to explain the synergies between the University and the Foundation. The remainder of her talk focused on the importance of connecting research to practice at the Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre and described the rationale for the approach the Centre will adopt to make its work impactful and influential.
Watch Sue’s talk here:
“One of the most important research centres for computing education in the world”
We were delighted that Professor Mark Guzdial was able to join us from the University of Michigan to express his enthusiasm for the establishment of a research centre that is entirely dedicated to computing education. In this talk, he discussed why computer science needs to go beyond the computing classroom to address the needs of all students. With the example of some of the work of his research group, he illustrated why computing education needs to be at the centre of computing research and stressed the significance of the Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre.
Watch Mark’s talk here:
We hope you enjoy watching these talks and continue to follow our progress over the next few years. Head over to our About Us page to see a new video about the mission and goals of the Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research. You can also find out more about our Projects and the Team working at RPCERC.
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