The world has certainly changed in the past few weeks as the coronavirus pandemic is now affecting people all around the globe. The Foundation behind Raspberry Pi has been making changes too in order to adapt to new circumstances and better serve online learners around the world.

You may have seen this original post from March 13 from Phillip Colligan, the CEO of Raspberry Pi Foundation.

While these are certainly challenging times, the good news is that there’s lots of new support available to young online learners coming directly from the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Here at Vilros, we’re proud to partner with Raspberry Pi and support the foundation in its mission to provide quality educational experiences to students who have suddenly had to adapt to learning online.

If you’re one of the millions of students now trying your best to learn from home (or a parent of such a student), here are three ways that the Raspberry Pi Foundation is providing extra help during this crisis time:

Direct-to-Student Online Learning Experiences

For students aged 7-17, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has now launched a series of online learning programs that are designed to be direct-to-students.

Check out: Digital Making at Home

This is a free library of resources for Raspberry Pi projects that students can do independently or in collaboration with siblings, parents, and/or caretakers. Currently the resources are supported in 29 languages, so students from countries around the world can easily participate. There are also instructional videos for different skill levels to support novice beginners to advanced students.

In addition – every week there will be a different theme, so there are continually new angles to spark curiosity and support continuous learning.

Digital Making at Home is, like most projects in the new world we’re now living in, an evolving adaptable project that’s actively seeking out feedback to determine how to grow. So, you can get involved and help shape what the experience will become.

To find out more, check out Phillip Cogan’s interview with Suzie Thorpe at Cambridge 105 Radio.

Supporting Teachers Suddenly Teaching Online

Another way the Raspberry Pi Foundation is helping young students during this crisis time is by supporting the teachers who are facing the challenge of suddenly needing to adapt to virtual learning.

Starting in their local area (England), the Raspberry Pi foundation is partnering with the National Centre for Computing Education to adapt teaching resources for virtual learning environments.

They’re also interested in reaching and partnering with a wider global audience, so if you’re a teacher who’s interested in their virtual learning resources, it could definitely be worthwhile to reach out.

Free Online Coding Clubs

One more way the Raspberry Pi Foundation is supporting young learners is through its ongoing support of free coding clubs. In fact, the organization works with the world’s largest network of such clubs, supporting over 250,000 young learners.

Many clubs have had to suddenly move from in-person to 100% online experiences, and the Raspberry Pi foundation has been supporting volunteers at Code Clubs and Coder Dojos to help make sure that the new online format will be safe and effective.

If you’re interested in helping out, you can volunteer your time and/or your skills to help these free global clubs run online successfully. If you are multi-lingual, the Foundation is especially interested in help with translating resources so that more young students around the globe can benefit.

You can get in touch by emailing them directly at: supporters@raspberrypi.org.

And for more news, announcements, and project ideas for Raspberry Pi and Arduino, be sure to bookmark and come back to explore new articles on our Vilros blog!