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Testing Kids' IT Skills
Dee Arsmith writes "Computer literate kids entering our local high school (form 4 = grade 8) are bored out of their trees by the introductory IT classes they are given. Can Slashdot readers point us to a computer based programme that would allow us to evaluate student skills at the beginning of the year so that the experienced users can be identified and channeled into more advanced courses? Currently the school uses old P100 boxes with W95. (Cybermoles are currently fighting the Forces of Darkness to introduce Linux into the school - but that is another story!) Grateful for any guidance"
just to start out with, try giving students that think they skip the intro course the equivalent a final exam for that course. if they're good enough to skip over it, they should be able to handle it with a breeze.
Or, try offering up an accellerated version of the course to keep the kids bored at first, but challenged later.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
If they are a just a little bit bored, get them to write a webserver in Perl.
If they are really bored, get them to write it in Java.
If they are exceptionally bored, get them to write a Linux VM - there should be plenty of work for everyone incorporating the 'advice' that everyone seems to have on the subject.
In order to be a little bit useful - write a list of topics and get the students to rate themselves. They may not be as bright as they thought, or brighter than they thought, but you will get a good idea to start with.
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What is "Computer Literate"? How do you determine if someone is "Computer Literate"?
I'm seriously asking you seriously, not with any sarcasm. Does Computer Literate and Computer skills mean that they can make word documents? Does it mean they can use MS Outlook? (If it does, then I'm not computer literate because I've never used MS Outlook and never bothered learning MS Word. But, I can use Star Office and Netscape) I did find this paper which may be helpful and does address this question for you. I would seriously stress the idea of truly evaluating what using a computer really means. I think when you folks boil stuff down you'll end up teaching searching and researching techniques as well as basic e-mail concepts... really... the thought process behind forming a good search isn't intuitive to everyone it involves a very basic understanding of set theory and many poorly educated kids will have no clue what that means but it could be valuable to teach them.
Think "Library Science" and you might be heading in the right direction for "Computer Literacy". Offer the course in an "at your own pace" format if you can. Make it so the smart kids can finish in a week and the not-so-smart can take a whole semester if they need to.
As for more advanced IT topics, are you going to teach System Administration? Web Development? Programming? PC Repair and troubleshooting?
As for programming I reccommend taht you consider Pre-Calc as a prerequisite. I've taught programming to students who hadn't been introduced to the concept of a "function" without the mental tool of the "function" in the student's head your programming instructor will have a hell of a time. Some of my student's didn't know what a variable was and it was very hard to progress past "Hello World" with those students... and this was a COLLEGE class... albiet the Adult Education section.
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I'd have to say that more often then not, high school computer courses are a joke...i took all of the ones that were available at my high school...the first 2 were called "computer applications" which basically consisted of doing spreadsheets, or making microsoft word documents....both a total waste of time...but they were still prereqs for the only worthwile computer course we had...
the only worthwile one was called "computer programming" or something...in any case, i took the AP version of it, and it was well worth it...basically it was my first introduction to programming....they taught Turbo Pascal at that time (that was the AP standard)...i'm sure it's not any more...if anyone is wondering, i got a 5 on the AP test....
in any case, the post brings up a good point...with kids getting more and more experience and exposure to computers at home, most high school level courses are a joke to them... i can't seriously see high schools being able to satisfy the different levels of students by offering a computer science curiculum with enough breadth for all the different students...perhaps high schools could continue offering the introductory courses for beginner students, and work out some sort of program where if more advanced students want to take higher level classes they work out something with the local community college, or local tech training center...a friend of mine in high school did something similiar to this...he had completed all the possible math courses in the high school, so for junior and senior year, he took class at the local community college instead...this could probably work well for computer courses too...
well, just a thought...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
Heh. In highschool we were asked to write a poker program using Quick Basic. Most people did ascii art, a few just printed numbers. Then, 4 of us teamed up and wrote a poker application with full mouse control, 640 x 480 bitmapped graphics, and it had the ability to play music (wav files) in the background (via timeslicing). To top it off we added a pretty good AI -- then multiplayer AI support which would talk to eachother about sports, news events, etc. You as the human could start conversations with them.
Needless to say, it was no longer really a poker program, and had more creature feeping than nearly anything else around.
The point of the story? If your bored, do what they ask plus some stuff to make it a challenge.
Rod Taylor