I need to be able to do account management (create, pause, edit, access, delete) for student accounts. This is why I use Tinkercad for Arduino coding with students, though it's in a virtual environment. But it won't let me upload code to a physical Arduino. Any recommendations for a different ecosystem that would?
So this post seeks to look at alternatives. Assuming Arduino will not implement a user management system for their Junior Accounts before school starts (see: Will this work with students? (No Individual Accounts)), and Tinkercad won't implement a module for pushing code to the physical Arduino, is there anything else out there that people are excited about? To clarify, all our students in grades 3-8 have Chromebooks, which is how they access Tinkercad.
This might not have been the best decision if you wanted the kids to learn coding. I've not seen anything really useful on Chromebooks when it comes to teaching code and go beyond the ultra beginner state.
Google used to have a focus on this with Grasshopper (a mobile and web app designed to teach coding, primarily focusing on JavaScript) but they killed the program.
Apple has a powerful tool on iPad and Mac (Swift Playgrounds) and a full ecosystem around it meeting K-12 and beyond regulations but I guess it's not time to switch to new hardware (and you won't develop for Arduino on iPad though - would need a Mac).
Couldn't you use those legacy MacBook 2015 (probably can run macOS Monterey) to create a coding classroom ? They are old but it's still good hardware... You probably could set up a managed environment on those...
You could possibly also automate some stuff with Arduino CLI on those Macs so that kids could drop their project somewhere and it would be picked up and compiled automagically...
Hi JML - You have lots of good ideas here, I'll do my best to touch on the points you bring up.
Generally speaking, we're on Chromebooks for a number of reasons. They're cheap, easy to fix, and easy to manage. I've used JAMF with MacBooks in the past and use them with our PK-2 iPads now. Chromebooks are so much easier to manage.) Students use Chromebooks for school assignments and standardized testing. Coding is definitely an afterthought. So we are probably the definition of the "ultra beginner state". Students only do technology-rich lessons in my technology class, which this year is being cut from two 30-45 minute classes per week to one.
This is probably the last year we'll be using the MacBook 2015's. I've been keeping them alive by frankensteining machines together. But this requires storage for parts and time for re-building that gets harder to justify. In the past, I've had students interested in rebuilding them, but I don't have anyone who wants to do that now. And with limited time, I have to pick my battles.
The Macbooks were a much bigger challenge to manage than the Chromebooks when I had them in JAMF. It was definitely whack-a-mole, which is an easier game to play with the Chromebooks. If I was in a bigger school (we only have 130 kids PK-8), or we were a high school, or we were a technology magnet school, I could be talked into what you're describing with Arduino CLI. But as a friend once described, "I'm not sure the juice is worth the squeeze". So I need Arduino to make managed accounts like Tinkercad has or I need a different IDE that does while still working with Arduinos since that's what Tinkercad has in their virtual programming environment.
I like what you're saying about "robotics" - we're going to make use of a number of robotic systems this year (Sphero, LEGO, VEX and a couple others.) They're great tools for working with students. But Arduino is important too because all those other systems are "black box" systems. I want students to get as close to bare metal as possible, in electronics, coding, and form factor through 3D design. So this is pretty important.
Our premiere project, "Fire Fest" can be found on our website (https://www.surryschool.org/designlab) if you scroll down and look on the left. This is just a first step - within the next couple years, I'd like to do other non-robotic projects with Arduinos as well. To start that off, we will be using the Arduino this year as the flight computer on CubeSats that go up to 100,000 ft (above 99.9% of the atmosphere) and record data.
Maybe I am blind or stupid, but I don't see anywhere in the IDE where I have to log in.
They will need internet access for non-builtin libraries, but you can probably download and distribute if internet access is the issue.
Nice fab lab ! Many schools would be jealous! ( and Kids are lucky to have you on board).
My take on such endeavors is to use the right tools for the task… I would go for real computers running Linux, Mac, Windows (personal preference on Mac but that’s personal).
Oh, I thought you said IDE earlier, sorry if I misread IDE when you said Arduino Cloud.
If you can find a phone number for Arduino, maybe a call asking for help to get kids on-line might work. I am 100% convinced if you can get your case in front of the right decision maker it will be resolved. Can't guess at how long that will take though, but it doesn't sound that difficult.
The devil is in the details. Having T&Cs meeting underage use and all the back office tools to separate those users from other users is actually legally and technically costly.
If the students have their own 1:1 Chromebook, can they initialize and use the built-in Linux? I don't recall any additional T&C for it. I suppose that could clearly be disabled by whatever management system is in force.
Arduino IDE does work there, but there are some caveats. However, if it's a (literal) non-starter, then not worth elaborating.
that's a good idea, indeed assuming Chromebooks don't have restrictions on USB device access and if the admin has enabled Linux (which opens a full can of worms when it comes to limiting what kids can do on the device).