Single Board Computers (SBC): The Future of Next Generation Pedagogies in Pakistan

TL;DR

This paper reviews various ARM-based single board computers (SBCs) and discusses their potential as cost-effective, power-efficient tools for hands-on education in developing countries like Pakistan.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of popular SBCs and explores their suitability for teaching different courses, highlighting their role in education and technology adoption.

Findings

SBCs are suitable for hands-on teaching in developing countries.

Many SBCs support full Linux distributions for general-purpose use.

Open hardware SBCs promote accessibility and customization.

Abstract

ARM processors have taken over the mobile industry from a long time now. Future of data centers and the IT industry is estimated to make use of ARM Processors. Projects like Openstack on ARM are enabling use of ARM in data centers . Single board computers (SBCs) based on ARM processors have become the norm these days. Reason for their popularity lies in their cost effective and power efficient nature. There are hundreds of them available in the market having different sizes, compute power and prices. The reason for their popularity is largely due to the rise of new technology called IoT (Internet of Things) but there is another perspective where they can become handy. Low Price and Power Usage of single board computers makes them top candidate to be used for teaching many courses with hands-on experience in developing countries like Pakistan. Many boards support full Linux distributions and can be used as general-purpose computers while many of them are open hardware based. In this paper, we have reviewed the famous options available and tried to figure out which of them are better for teaching what kind of courses.