It's sad that they're using the RPI brand to distort reality. Even though in a way the RPI project was already twisting things (GPIO + python isn't computing education but I'm nitpicking).
I think that may be looking at it in a different way that doesn't necessarily reflect the impact of all this, in the UK at least.
The way many of my generation was taught IT was Office (with maybe some Macros), a largely useless high-level overview of networking, an out-of-date comparison of "client-server", "mainframe" and "peer-to-peer" computing etc.
It was dry. Unless you already had an interest in the field, it was boring.
It taught you enough about Microsoft Office to do your other school work, it taught you enough about the web and email to get by, and it taught out-dated terminology that you would unlearn in the real world.
It didn't teach troubleshooting of any kind. It wasn't engaging.
Many of us were already ahead of the teachers. If the teacher had a problem, it was usually a student that could give the answer. (I only had one IT teacher who wasn't below the level of a teenager with an active interest in IT.)
But the worst thing was that it didn't get people interested and didn't teach the mindsets required. The underlying logic. The basics of troubleshooting. Binary exclusion. Shit, how to deal with a paper jam!
Nowadays everyone has a smartphone, can follow a YouTube tutorial, can Google stuff, before they're in their teens.
The Pi and the teaching around it gets kids exposed to the lower levels of hardware (or at least a simplified version of). It's interesting and engaging.
There's a far bigger pay-off than "my spreadsheet looks nice". A blinking light gives a greater sense of accomplishment than a ".ppt" file.
The Pi gives the tools and motivation to actually learn the stuff you are talking about. Hook 'em with the fun stuff while still being useful.
Most kids won't need to know "ls" or "mount". They're never going to "modprobe" anything.
They are already taught the very high-level basics of the Internet and networking. But they're never going to use variable length subnet masks.
But many more kids will hopefully be interested enough to pursue careers in IT. And those who don't will at least have an appreciation for it, and will have been taught skills and a mindset invaluable in the increasingly digitally connected world in which we live.
Good point. Anything is better than the office driven computer classes. The PI does indeed provide strong educational benefits to improve insights at the electronic level.
My only complaint, and weighted by the fact that the rpi team did deliver on most feature, quality and cost while so many ventures failed to even finish prototypes, is that the SoC is a monster. So no kid will ever use it to go further than python and gpio. A stupid forth CPU would be as good for electronics, but also teach some mathematical programming ideas (recursion, trees), basically the whole computing fundamentals.