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Starting an After-School Computer Club?
Kai_MH asks: "When I moved up to my high school this year (I'm a Sophomore), I was surprised to find that there was no 'computer' or 'technology' club at the school. Sure, there's A/V, but what fun is carrying TV sets around? So, I'd like to approach my school's administration about starting an after-school computer club. I'd like to educate my peers on the alternatives to Windows (Linux and Open Source), how hardware works and fits together, job offerings in computer-related fields, and anything else that may be of interest. Perhaps we can do fund-raisers to build and upgrade a computer for the club, which could be donated to the school or community? Does anyone have suggestions on this? Has anyone tried this before? I've had a lot of support from my peers, but I'm still not quite sure how to go about it."
I don't know what anyone else told you about a computer club, but you're not going to meet any chicks that way!
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Be braver -- you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.
I hope you have a large high school, because I know at mine it would have been a fruitless attempt. (People are busy enough usually).
However, there must be some sort of form to fill out, or you can just start a club without the school's permission under your Right to Assemble. Or you can wait for college, which for me is just a giant Computer Club.
(You'd probably get more members if you made it an area club to attract kids from nearby high schools.)
(Oh yea, and don't do drugs. (For at least another two years.))
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
I just moved to a new high school and was wondering what the best way to ensure I get beat up on a daily basis was.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
Do NOT mention 'hacking', 'cracking', or anything like that, EVEN if you are joking!
:-)
Remember, older people on a whole know less about technology than younger people do. They may think you're serious and refuse to allow the club to be created. Worse yet, some control-freak of a teacher may try to use it as an excuse to shut the club down after it gets started.
On that note, that's another thing to watch out for: teachers who may have agenda of their own, or just be control-freaks, who don't want to see the students actually PLAYING with technology. And for God's sake, if you're going to do anything that you think your school might not be happy about, make sure you don't get caught. (Not that I did anything like that when I was in high school...
I thought "computer clubs" were in vogue until about ten or fifteen years ago. That was when computers were new and nerdy.
Now, even the jocks use computers and a lot of people have at least one. It would be like starting a toaster club, or a refrigerator club. Is there a "sports" club at your school? Or is there a track team, a tennis club, football team...you get the idea.
If you can find a theme for the club, you'll have an easier time deciding what to do. Do you build computers for poor kids? Do you write code? Do you game? Do you dress up in black suits and go door-to-door extolling the virtues of Linux?
Find a specific theme, and the rest will become clear.
...
I know right now you probably consider your Principal and his assistants the enemies, but they are there and do care about you and your educational experience.
Walk into the office before class starts and ask the secretary for an appointment to talk to the principal or assistant. Explain that you want to start a computer club and you need to talk to a school employee for some direction and know how.
Not only will they see you, but you'll probably get to get out of class for at least a little bit.
Explain what you want to do, and what you need from the school, also ask for general assistance and they will be more then happy to help you.
By the way, you haven't seen my red Swingline lying around anywhere, have you?
You have to ask yourself, what's the point of this club? Is it a place for people to meet and talk? Hang out after school and kill time? Learn something? Community service?
I formed a fencing club is my school, nothing much, it wasn't even a team, we just met once a week and killed time till we had to leave. The point of it wasn't to really be good at fencing, it was just fun to stab people repeatedly.
High Schoolers already take enough classes, they really don't want to stay after school so they can hear a lecture on the differences between free and Free. Make it interesting, make it fun, and end every meeting with a LAN game.
Sleep is for the weak!
I nearly got thrown out of my school's library.
Why?
I was browsing the Enlightenment home page. (Geez, now that shows my age - back in my day, Enlightenment was being released like mad!)
The clueless librarian drone immediately insisted it was 'one of those hacker pages', because it contained strange words that she didn't understand.
Like 'window manager'.
*snort*
I deftly dodged the idiocy. I didn't feel like creating a scene, since the minute I would've opened my mouth, I would've probably been labelled as someone who could cause nuclear strikes by whistling into a telephone. *snort*
Yarr. Anyhow, the moral of the story is - don't fscking bother. High schools are havens for idiocy. You'll run into legions of dolts who will insist that you must be up to no good, because, dang nabbit, good people don't talk about things like front side bus speeds.
Here's a better idea for you: Start a local user group. Open it to everyone and all that. When you teach Bob the Tavern Owner that it's a mouse, not a foot pedal, he'll be damned impressed.
Why is that important? Well, it's never too early to start connections and business relationships. (It doesn't need to go that far - but then, if random citizen of the city #2552 already thinks you know yer shit when it comes to computers, he's more likely to listen to your spiel when yer looking for investors. Or references for jobs. Et cetera.)
I guess we have a computer club at my school. It was quite a fluke that 4 people who are quite adapt with computers, love programming, exploring new things with computers etc. A) went to the same high school and B) Developed the relationship that we have.
The reason that all of us came to Churchill (our high school) is because of this international Baccalaureate program. All of us had an interest in computers but the computer teacher at our school really allowed us to develop that interest by letting us take Cisco at lunch (because we were in IB it wouldn't fit into our time table) etc.
I can remember in grade 10 computer programming, me and one of the other computer geeks did all of the classes programs a week ahead, the teacher would then use our programs as perfect (we got 110% on them) and mark from them as he didn't know anything about programming.
That was in grade 10. When it came time for us to choose our senior level courses all of us chose Higher Level Computer science, our class consisted of 4 people. You guessed it, us 4.
Now room 112 or the geek room boasts about 25 people who come there at lunch and just hang out. Teachers will bring thier comptuers that they have fucked up with viruses or which are running sluggishly for us to fix. The school has a forum server set up where teachers can (and do) post homework online so that students no longer have the excuse that htey left it at school, also teachers can help students online.
We are given amazing freedom in our "computer club" our school had 50 or so 133 mhz computers donated to us. These were given to us (and the other comptuer people) to learn hardware on. Byproducts of this were a whole shitload of people who knew alot about hardware. We made the pimprouter - a router running linux which controlled our own little duke network. We made a beowolf cluster of 486's (or at least tried to).
ALl of this started with a great comptuer teacher
History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it - Sir Winston Churchill
Don't do it. Enjoy your high school years while you still can.
Soon, if you're any good at what you do, you will be immersed in nothing but computers.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
First thing I'd do is talk to the teacher that
teaches the Computer Science classes. Most schools have a teacher sponsor that helps with the club. They'll probably have some idea of what to do or at least who to go to, to get the info you need.
The procedures for starting a club are varied and you'll just have to start asking.
I don't know if it will come up but I would certainly make sure that when forming the club that you are perfectly clear that the participants in the club will not be engaging in illeagal hacking, trading mp3's warez, during club meetings or with club equipment.
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
Great Scott! I just got back from the year 2005. Here's your group photo.
All of the posts along the lines of "go out and enjoy yourself while you can" miss the point that many of us *enjoy* dealing with computers, hacking code, etc. The whole "go out and kick a ball around" attitude seems fairly obnoxious, to me - it's precisely the attitude of the "jocks" and of overzealous parents for whom "childhood" can only mean "competitive outdoor activity".
It may well be that these kids will spend the rest of their lives in front of computers -- but it also may well be that they'll enjoy doing it. Or, perhaps, that their formative experiences will give them an insight into technology that will serve them admirably in later life.
I'd spin the "go out and enjoy yourself while you have time" notion on its head, and say "go out and push yourself, intellectually, while you can". Far from being intellectually stimulating, work for *many* people is stifling and dull - and leaves little energy for personal pursuits at the end of the day. The opportunities for 'fun' as an adult are, by contrast, almost endless, the only limited resource being people with whom to do it -- and, without wishing to get into "friendless geek" caricatures, it's probably easier for the adult to find people with common interests than it is for anyone of school-going age. We have cars, we have money, we have a greater understanding of ourselves and of who we'd like to spend time with.
So, push yourself while you can -- set up your club, and weather any ridicule that may come your way. On that note, though, one warning: do endeavour to be humble and kind, difficult though that may seem. I recently sent an email to an old enemy of mine from school; he replied to apologise for his antagonism of me, and to tell me that his school years had been difficult for him thanks to his parents' divorce. It's a cliche, I know -- and besides, some kids are genuinely just nasty little bastards -- but do try to avoid treating your less technically/intellectually able peers with scorn.
But don't listen to those who would tell you that they know better than you do how you should spend your time, or how you should live your life. If a computer club seems like a worthwhile pursuit for you, then by all means pursue it. If free software advocacy does it for you, then similarly - go for broke. You'll have plenty of time for buggering around with a football later in life -- and, if you're a "geek" in the traditional sense, you'll probably enjoy it more in later life when everyone else has started to develop a beer-gut or burned out.
In jr. high, there was a teacher at my school who ran the computer lab (a dozen Mac LC-II's)... He volunteered to come in early and ran a before-school computer club. It ultimately boiled down to most kids playing freeware network games over appletalk, while one or two of them wrote BASIC programs to do silly things. Not incredibly constructive, but fun... and it got the geeks together for the first time. This led into high school...
:)
In high school, there were no clubs like this. I was taking drafting/architecture classes and spent a LOT of time in the art department. I ended up spending a year interning with a different art teacher, and we came up with this bright idea of creating a computer graphics class. So my intern class turned into a design project to help create this class. Somehow, we got the budget from the school to buy 15 tweaked-up (at the time) video-editing powermac's, an "old" amiga video toaster, and a low-end server. The first semester we ran a 2D graphics class that was extremely successful, and the second semester we ran a video course that did relatively-simple video editing. Just the first year alone brought together SO many geeks to collaborate on ideas and projects. You'd be amazed how many successful companies have been formed from that first group of students!
I graduated, but I hear that these days (5 years later) that teacher now spends 3/4 of her day on computer graphics classes! There's rumor of it becoming a "magnet school" for computer graphics. They do more advanced/realtime video editing (the morning announcements are on TV, with realtime production!!), as well as 3D rendering in the level-3 course.
In both cases, an interested teacher was necessary to sponsor the program and generally oversee it. Much of the time students can provide the creative ideas for the club/class to work on. Oh, also... Get some interested students together and have them ask their parents if their employer has older PC's they want to get rid of. The sponsoring teacher can ask the staff to do the same thing. A LOT of medium to large companies have a ton of computers that they'll donate in order to get a tax writeoff. This is an awesome way to get 50 machines (20 working, 20 half-working, 20 just for spare parts) for free, and you'd be amazed how many people are happy to do this. You can very easily get too many PCs!
And honestly... If you get a stack of P3-500's with 64mb RAM, you could build some COOL stuff in the club. Build a multi-subnet routed network (a little BSD firewall makes a KILLER simple router), just to learn how it works. A web server. How bout a MOSIX cluster of web servers? Now THAT would be a club I would've loved to join in high school... Instead, I just built it all in my room and turned it into a company (well, sort of...)
.... um, i lost you after "0110100001101001".
Many schools don't have advanced placement computer science courses. From someone who took the test last year, I can tell you that it was ridiculously easy. As long as you know your shit, it's not hard to prepare for the examination in a quarter of the time it takes schools to do so. You do not need to be in an AP course to take the test
Push the club as something that will not only be good to list on your college application, but might get you college credits as well as teach you a few things about computers. Play around with coding and perhaps make it unconvential (but not illegal, obviously).
In the end, if you could get a few 4's or 5's out of the members who sign up to take the test, the school might take notice (having kids who do well on the AP exams is what schools are ranked on in some part) and help you out with your endeavor the next year around.
First of all, you need some sort of educational goals for the club. You seem that you have some good ideas. You want to teach peers about various things you know about technology. You just need to make sure that the other members who will join your club have the same goals.
Which means at every one of your meetings, you should have a topic to discuss and stay in that vicinity.
Many people, especially administrators, might see your club as a hacker group or a bunch of teenage warez traders before it even starts. So be sure that none of that type of stuff goes on in the club at all.
As far as all the warnings that you'll suffer wedgies, etc... I'd really not worry about it too much. A/V people are always depicted as being the brunt of the football team's abuse on TV, but at my high school the A/V people were actually seen as being pretty cool because they showed off exaclty what types of stuff they did.
Also, if "computers" is too broad of a subject for a club, you can change your focus, and at the same time de-nerdify it. Provide a project that students can put together and show off to the school at large.
For example, if you are interested in games, you could start a digital entertainment club. You can talk about game projects, stuff like SDL and OpenGL and then you might be able to wow the normal kids by getting a Linux kit for PS2 and making a simple game on it or something similar.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
You have to get a member of the faculty to sponsor you.
That doesn't mean money, but it does involve their time and their commitment to advocate to their peers in your behalf.
The football team has faculty sponsors (they're called "coaches"), as do the drill team, band, speech and drama groups.
You need one.
Your sponsor will be the person who can get facilities for your meetings, install-fests, guest speakers, etc. They may even be able to procure a little cash from whatever student activity fund your school may have, for refreshments.
When you are searching for a sponsor, there are couple things to remember about teachers:
1. There are good teachers and there are bad teachers.
2. Bad teachers are relatively rare.
3. Most of the good teachers have been beaten down.
4. Good teachers LOVE people like you.
Go talk to the instructors in the science and the art departments after school hours. The instructors that hang around late are the good ones. Skip the english department.
Knock on the door of the faculty breakroom at various times of the day over the course of the week and tell them that you are looking for a sponsor.
Your persistance will be noticed.
Somewhere in your school is an adult that can make your life much easier, someone who'd love to help you if only they knew who you are.
--Richard
We were in the same position; I was one of the founding members of our Computer Society, which has since been flourishing - here's what we did.
First and foremost, the absolute requirement is to have a sizeable number of people who are interested. I'm afraid that in my experience 'build it and they will come' does not cut much ice in this area - we had about a dozen people, which is enough to fill a small-ish room and so make meetings to voice support seem well-attended and popular :-) Basically, by asking nicely, and by getting the support of a Computing teacher, we managed to persuade the Powers That Be to grant us the use of a lab - complete with Ethernet & power around the room - outside lesson times to do what we liked with. We also managed to scrounge a few machines that were going spare - old Macs, mostly. From little acorns...
We used to hang around in there and experiment a bit, and very quickly the mini-network we had established (totally separate, as an imposed requirement, from the then-repressive school one - and so without any internet connectivity etc.) began to grow. People donated parts or computers; someone's Dad's surgery was clearing stuff out, so we got a server and a whole bunch of Vectras; we picked up arcane things like ancient Suns and SGIs; we bought a bunch of decent Compaq desktops off a failed .com for 25 quid each. We soon had more computers - a few dozen - than space, plus a good collection of books, bits, software, etc.
We all helped set things up, fix broken things, install software, build a proper network with roamng home directories, unified LDAP logons across multiple platforms, etc. (mostly Linux, but a few other Unices and a bit of Windows and classic Mac OS on the side...) It became actually usable as a resource, and people who weren't initially interested started to use our systems to learn to program, etc., which was very hard to do elsewhere. We lent them books, helped where we could, and so on. We ran projects, like robocode competitions, which were popular even with younger members of the school. We experimented with new things, like beta releases of Mac OS X, and Windows remote desktop things, so that we now provide all of the Windows applications from one application server to the Linux desktops. And so on, and so forth. We got up to all sorts of things (like this), wrote various neat bits of code and taught ourselves a great deal in the process.
A few of us wrote some software which turned out to be very useful to the school (a fairly advanced web-based content management system) and fought long political battles over how far pupils were to be trusted with such matters - would we put secret backdoors in, and so on. We finally reached an agreement which now promotes this sort of activity (previously frowned upon but now with more projects in the pipeline), and, as a bonus, guaranteed us the continued use of our lab and an internet connection.
Anyway, I hope this gives you some idea of what it was like for us and was vaguely helpful... Let me know if you have any questions.
Don't get me wrong, you sound like you make a hell of a geek wife, but alot of those things you mention are actually the things I love about women.
Sure there are times when I want them to just throw on a damn t-shirt so we can go to the grocery store, but there are also the times when I want them to spend time looking nice. Something just doesn't feel right if I'm not getting harrassed for buying the latest IPod. There is a nice system of checks and balances there.
I am a teacher in a public Middle school in Carrollton, TX. I started a robotics club this year in order teach students robotics design, programming, teamwork and other skills. We use Lego Mindstorms and Handyboards in our club and program them in C, specifically Interactive C and Not Quite C (NQC). We also have one system running Linux as both IC and NQC are available for Linux.
My administration is very supportive of the club, providing money and other suppport through the year. The main difficulties in the club was raising money for the equipment and to pay the fee for the Botball competition we entered.
I applied for a grant with our local Educational Foundation and received $1,000 to fund the initital purchase of equipment. Your school district probably has an educational foundation that provides grants to teachers and students. Find a willing faculty member to sponsor your club and help you find funding and support.
Before I received that grant I began teaching the students C using a free Windows compiler I found on the net. It was perfect as it allowed the students to write Windows console applications without worrying about the code over head of a real Windows application. You can find the Bloodshed complier here
After we got our initial equipment I searched the net for grants available to public school teachers to fund technology applications. I applied for an $8,500 grant from The Verizon Foundation. This money will be used to pay our Botball entry fees for next year, and buy more advanced equipment for the students returning next year. I have had so much interest in the robotics club that I will probably have three clubs next year.