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What Should 10-Year-Olds Know About IT?
stephendl writes "I have been asked to give a computer based talk to a local primary school. It is part of an after school science club and I have a pretty free rein to talk about whatever I want for 10 minutes. The children will be aged 9 and 10 and will come from a range of backgrounds, there will be a parent of each child present too. My initial thoughts for the subject included the history of computers, the components in a computer and what computers are used for. Does the slashdot community have any suggestions, experience in this area or tips?"
Perhaps some pointers on how everything you do on the internet can and will be recorded, and probably will come back to haunt you.
......
Wait, there's someone at the door...............
ARRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!
if they're interested in an IT career.
BC
9-10, you say? How about, NOTHING? C'mon, they should be learning the fundamentals (three r') at that age. Adding in "IT" will only muddle things for them. We try to stuff to many things into kids minds too early. Keep their lives simple so they can actually learn what fundamentals, not what YOU think matters.
Talk about what they are used for first. Add other stuff if you need to fill time. Make sure to mention things like atms and videogames having computers in them. And cars, cellphones, cd players, etc. The best thing you can do with your ten minutes is make the kids think that computers are everywhere, at least for a second or two, before they stop listening. Your next goal should be to reach the parents who haven't yet figured out that computers are an increasing part of reality and that computer skills are essential. Your likely audience and time limit prohibit much more than that.
Ten year olds are not going to care about cpus, memory and such. The ones that do care will already know more than you can tell them in ten minutes.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Find out what they know already (ask them), and build on it at the level they can handle.
Explain how the computers they use are connected on the Internet, and what makes up the Internet. Explain that thousands of organizations have their own "mini-internets", that connect to the internet and also to all the computers within the organizations. Explain what those computers are, what they do, how they are different from the computers that most kids know about, and how there are other things on the network besides computers too. And then explain that IT designs it, builds it, makes it run, fixes it when it breaks, and upgrades it as it goes along.
What should 10 year olds know about what?
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I have a realated question: I want to start introducing my kids (7 and 9; those are ages, not names:) and potentially classmates to programming. I'm looking for thoughts on how to proceed.
-------------------------
A person of moderate zeal
Maybe not a direct answer to your question, but related to this topic I wanted to add this thought:
Computers are entering our lives at every level and sooner and sooner. Children are born nowadays in an age where they rather learn to type on a keyboard than learn how to breath.
Being a little geek myself I am the last to say that I'm not having fun fiddling with these damn nice machines, but still remembering the days without computers I do belive that children first need to be able to be children. Childhood only lasts for such a short time it is a shame that even this period of their live is invaded by these machines. Children should play, outside, with each other, In Real Life.
There was a time I believed that every child should have a computer in class as soon as possible is something I've left behind me for a couple of years now.
Let children be children first, they'll have time enough afterwards to discover the wonderfull virtual world ... in there.
Remember, young audiences will be bored to tears if you regale them on things they already know, or the history of anything unless it's exciting.
Our 9 and 10 year olds already know that "computers are used for everything". They probably don't care (yet) about how they came into being. Instead, why not focus on what no one tells these kids: that the age of the Internet and the personal computer gives them a degree of unparalleled personal power.
Show them how computers only ever do what a human tells them to. Give them fun logic puzzles and explain simply how they are really just programs. Explain how the ability to use logic and creativity together make the computer a powerful tool. Illustrate how computing gives them choices -- they don't have to use the software (not even the OS) that came with the computer, they can do whatever they can figure out how to do.
Talk about the cool things computers will be able to do in the future. Have them work with a really simple encryption (secret messages! cool!) method, and explain how businesses and individuals use more complicated versions to keep their private messages private. Just about all kids love the idea of secret messages -- use it!
Don't lie. Don't tell them it's all easy. Do tell them that it's all possible, if they work hard enough to learn. Make computing interesting and accessible, don't bore them with history and "hey, computers control your car, your games, and even the clock on the wall!"
You have a very potent opportunity to motivate and educate. Don't waste it! Make sure every kid -- and especially the girls -- know that working with computers is rewarding and not just for "smart kids".
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
You might look around the room for examples of computing technology. Calculators, cell phones, watches, etc. might be som good, concrete examples of how technology is all around us.
You might also want to explore video game consoles as computers. You could look at the evolution of video games from the Pong days to now. That's a simple, easy way to show the development of computing technology for this audience. Most 10-year olds won't know or care about Linux distros, but they're probably familiar with video games.
There was recently a small study here in Norway about childrens attitude
to information on the internet. Most of the childes asked, believed that
what they found on the internet is true, 100% fact, and they had no training in spotting what's not facts or how to check the sources.
So, teach them to be critic of information, there's so much bogous information out there, anyone can be confused.
. . . to strive for a job in the medical or dental fields, rather than pursuing an interest for which any related careers will have been completely outsourced to the Third World by their working years. Of course, this doesn't apply if you're wealthy enough to leave him a trust fund to support him his whole life.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
I used to do something similar with elementary students. The district had bunches of old toasted computers and I would let the students take apart everything they could (aside from the PSU which I removed ahead of time) and answer any questions they had about the components they found inside.
The kids really enjoyed it and it gave them a basic understanding of the innerworkings of computers.
-Tolerate my intolerance
Ask at the outset:
- Which have Nintendo, PS2s, gameboys, etc.
- which have computers already?
One Idea: Have a Show and Tell. If they're not tech savvy, keep it very high level (this is a CD Rom drive, you put CDs in it, like music CD's or ones with software on it).
Show and Tell Ideas:
- Bring an old computer, open it up, and point at the major components.
- Tell them what software and hardware are, bring some CD's, and some burned CDs.
- If you have an old hard drive, say a 200 Meg or something silly like that, OPEN IT UP. Yes, this will completely ruin it. Make sure to mention that if you do this (!). Show them the read-write head.
- Open up a CDRom Drive. Pass it around and show the major parts.
- Explain Google and Wikipedia if you've got a net connection, show some big sites, ask for interests and then show them sites. Warning: this could eat time quickly, and you've only got 10 minutes.
- Show them the connectors and how they're all different shapes to make sure you don't plug the wrong thing in the wrong place (reduce fear)
- Get a chip, and show how the chips are connected on the motherboard with traces (wires).
Of course, if your audience is savvy, you can't impress them with cool tech, you could always do the science discussion route and explain binary numbers. But, they're a little young for that.I have always thought the primary purpose of education was to provide perspective so people make better-informed and wiser decisions. Perspective includes reducing fear levels to allow for rational thought and contemplation.
Rational thought allows for inspired choices later based on whole sets of info you can't provide by rote learning.
So: Inspire, have fun, and show that no matter how complicated something looks, it's made up of simpler things that can be understood and manipulated by people who are interested in doing that.
Tell them that it never stops getting interesting, and if they're bored, to imagine what other people find interesting about it and see if that's interesting to them.
Just my 5 cents.
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Basically to get the belt loop you have three things to do:
- explain parts of a computer
- how to start-up and shutdown a computer
- use the computer to prepare and print a document
There are more requirements for the pin (you have to do five of the eleven choices), but you might find some interesting topics there. One is on computerized devices, one is on internet safety rules, etc.I applaud you for taking the time and interest to do this. I wish that more schools had programs like this, and I really appreciate the fact that the parents are participating with their children in this program.
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1) They'll probably be telling YOU stuff you don't know about IT.
2) Screw the theoretical/historical talks. You're talking about 10-year olds, not uni students. Get a projector and hands-on show them something interesting and fun. A game might actually not be a bad thing. Perhaps a simple game programmed in some BASIC-like language, preceded by some extremely brief examples of how writing somethign in the program and then running it results in the computer actually doing what it's told. Those who are likely to get interested in computers will be fired up by that. Those who aren't, well, they aren't. Perhaps page-down through the slightly more complex game to show them how long the program is, and tell them "that's about 1000 lines of code - nowadays computer games tend to have X bazillion lines of code, but the result is a bit more impressive!" and give them a brief demo of some modern game - perhaps even play the demo movie from a game.
Daniel
Carpe Diem
C, OCaml, x86 asm, should be able to hack a kernel module with one hand behind his/her back. The usual.
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"That will take more than 10 minutes to go into any depth.
History is the least interesting part.
Talking about components is the most interesting part. Also talk about applications, directories, files, and aliases."
tell about the command line, shells etc and how much more powerful they are over a WIMP interface.
I don't think 10-year olds should need to know much about IT in general. Its just not important for them.
Basic schooling is enough. I'm not even sure what to teach them about IT? some Network-basics?
How a browser/mail client/... works? Word processing? programming? Its all not important for them.
They will learn in automatically when they grow up or show an own personal interest in those things.
I'm still a believer that programming gets a bad rap. I don't care about what you tell me a computer can do, I care about what I can tell the computer to do. (You know what I mean). Been that way all my life. If you have a demo, then find some sort of open source video game that enables you to hack up easily visible changes (like skinning the characters or something else quick and easy to demonstrate). If you don't, then start writing on the whiteboard and go with logic problems. Maybe do Towers of Hanoi in long hand. Give them a problem, let them solve it, and then show them how they basically just wrote a computer program. Or "missionaries and cannibals" or one of those others that has some good visual quality.
The advantage to taking that path, by the way, is that you're least likely to run into the "We already knew that" argument that you're gonna get if you plan to talk about information that can be found on the Internet.
Barring that, go science fiction. Talk about the Mars Rover or something that they may know about, but not necessarily have realized can be connected back to the same computers they use every day.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
Everything on the Internet is true. Those Norwegian research are being secretly funded by the Encyclopedia Britannica in order to maintain their old media monopolies. Noselasd is really the boy who did a report on space posting under a pseudonym.
Sorry to be alarmist, but here are two examples:
My step-daughter, 12 years old at the time, had bveen given the talk about not giving out private information online. In spite of this she gave out her phone number to someone online. When the person called my wife answered and talked to the person. He was not the 13 year old boy that he had told my step-daughter he was; his real age was off by probably 20 years. We then iterated the safety issue of what she had done and as a consequence she couldn't use IMs or email for 2 weeks.
I got an Instant Message from my 11 year old niece; her newly chosen screen name was "SmoothnPink99." The screen name had some meaning to her that was innocent, but of course might mean something else to an unsavory character. I called my sister and let her know politely that her daughter had a new screen name that is not the best choice to a pre-teen girl.
So bad stuff can happen to kids while online.
I'm not saying this is the only thing you should talk about, just suggesting that you speak a few sentences on the subject. The point is parents, teachers, etc., have some say in what kids at that age should and should not do when using a computer, what information the kids should not disclose, etc. You don't have to spell it all out in gory details, just say enough to make the point that a responsible adult can and should help set guidelines.
One thing to keep in mind is that 10 minutes is not that much time.
Limit what the scope of what you are talking about.
Practice your presentation beforehand and time it. Make sure your practice sessions run under ten minutes. The worst thing you can do is end up rushing through the presentation, covering too much in a rush
As to the subject matter of your presentation, I would encourage you to try something fun and relevant. Take apart an old (or new, if you don't mind voiding the warranty) computer or video game system and explain what the various components do. This mingles education with destruction, which is very cool for 10 year olds.
But most important practice beforehand and keep it short.
Have fun and good luck!
evanchik.net
..."go away kid, ya bother me. Don't touch that, you'll break it.". That, and packet state driver flux capacitor dark matter engineering. About covers it.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
I say you show what you can do with a computer. Here are a few ideas:
1.Schedule a Skype call with a friend you have as far away on the globe as possible. Explain how a computer takes audio information and transfers it over the internet.
2. View the solar system in 3D (I think there is some open source software that allows you to do that). Explain how a computer can take loads of data and draw it for you.
3. If the classroom has dictionaries tell everyone to look up a complicated word up and race them with the computer. Explain that the computer's strenght is it's speed not it's intelligence. Tell them that you cannot ask a computer to draw a bird but you can use it do store and manipulate a bird picture.
4. open up the computer and explain how each module has it's own specialty: graphics card, audio circuit, network circuits, etc... They'll feel like they've done something really cool.
5. turtle! :) Install Python with the turtle program and challenge them to draw a square with a turtle. Explain to them that a computer is a tool for automation and that is why it is used. Humans still are the ones that have to think to make them automate tasks we ask them to do.
The computer alone can captivate your audience but the great thing is to make them participate. Make them feel like they changed the world by doing something. Let them give you the obvious answers.
I was going to post an original reply... but you seem to have gotten it right. :)
Value this time in your life kids, because this is the time in your life when you still have your choices, and it goes by so quickly. When you're a teenager you think you can work on any OS, and you do. Your twenties are a blur. Your thirties, you learn to program, you make a little money and you think to yourself, "What happened to my twenties?" Your forties, you grow into middle managment you grow another chin. The streaming video starts to get too fast and one of your old girlfriends from high school becomes a CTO. Your fifties you start to have trouble finding a job. You'll call it "planned obsolescence," but it's age discrimination. Your sixties you're totally unable to find a job, the computers are faster, but you're unable to use them anyway. Seventies, you and the wife retire to Fort Lauderdale, you start playing Ultimate Starcraft Tournament at two, Sims Live 10 around ten, Doom 7 the night before. And you spend most of your time wandering around malls looking for the ultimate in softcore virtual four-D porn and muttering "how come the kids don't 'holo'?" By your eighties, you've had a major stroke, and you end up babbling to some Jamaican AI nurse who your wife can't stand but who you call mama. Any questions?
Yeah, right.
When I was 9 i was able to program simple basic stuff on my older brothers ZX81 from books and magazines. My first program was "Measles" which printed random blocks on the TV screen. My understanding of computers at that time was not really of textbook level , in the sense that it wasnt really taught to 9yr old kids in 1983, I understood what a computer was, what it could be used for and what its limitations were, and why a 16k ram pack opened up new possibilities. I understood why Machine Code meant faster programs that could do more things than basic (although the concept of machine code was rather scary). I knew what the different I/O mechanisms were and what they were for- although maybe not by their technical names. Some of this I probably learned off my older brother and other stuff I suppose just seemed logical, or not in need of explanation.
EG - the keyboard was for giving the computer instructions, and the tape-recorder allowed you to store those instructions and play them back at a later date.
The TV was used to display the stuff that was going on inside the computer.
In my own way I new what input / output was, what backing store was and what memory was. In addition I had a basic understanding of programs, programming and the things a computer was good at.
Oh, yeah, and that the best game of course for the ZX81 was "3D Monster Maze" in which you wandered through a 3D Maze being pursued by a giant T-Rex..
It was'nt till a year or two later that I obtained my C64 that the real stuff started!
When I was actually taught stuff at school a few years later that I had any formal education regarding computers and I naturally was very good at it because I knew most of it already.
Nick...
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
I have a 9 soon to be 10 year old son. He has been using the computer for almost 3 years now.
Initially we started him with "This is the computer, and here are the ONLY games you are allowed to play", (Reader Rabit and programs sold by his school.) He got to learn the comonents fo the computer like how to handle a CD and such. We had a Knoppix CD where he was able to load and play games on.
He then started learning about programs like paint and office applications for some of his school projects. So he was allowed to use those programs, since there was really no harm in doing so. (Notice that access to web content is still not permitted.)
We constantly made it known that he is not to open any programs that he was not allowed to. Even though he had access he was not *allowed* to use them.
Then his friends from school said that they were on MSN and Yahoo and Email and were able to visit sites advertised during his TV shows. So we sat him down and informed him that not everything on the Internet was for kids and that he is only allowed to access sites that we say are okay and that he is to make up a fake identity when he is told to give personal information, NEVER GIVE OUT REAL INFORMATION. The computer was always in an open room and we constantly checked up on his activities.
We follow the rule where anything new he does on the computer he has to okay-it with his mom and I. A few months ago he got his first hotmail account and got on MSN. Again another talk on how not everyone on the internet is a *good* person and a rule is that he is NOT ALLOWED TO GIVE OUT PERSONAL INFORMATION AND THAT HE IS ONLY ALLOWED TO MSN PEOPLE THAT HE GOT THEIR MSN IDs FACE TO FACE. We test him again and again and when he does do something wrong he is then corrected. His computer usage is a privledge and he remains under our watchful eyes while he is learning this relativly new frontier.
Remember that you will not always be ahead of your child and that you should teach him the proper methods and give them guidelines before you reach this point.
This group here in my home state of Oregon has a fantastic DARE type program focussed on computer use and ethics...
http://www.cyberaware.org/about.html
.-=Wit is educated insolence=-. -Aristotle
Wow.
/. questioner - he's got a diverse group on his hands.
Please recall that were talking about little kids here. Flowcharting? No.
I agree that they are probably overwhelmed with (far too abstract) warnings about the internet.
In my children's class last week, they had a entire session just on identifying different media: CD, Floppy, ZIP, Jump, etc. I was momentarily tickled to hear that my daughter asked if she could just "put a cord from one to the other."
That sounds about the right topic level for this Ask
Programming concepts? No way. Not for that target audience.
"God is dead." - Frederik Nietzsche
Most of the childes asked, believed that what they found on the internet is true, 100% fact, and they had no training in spotting what's not facts or how to check the sources.
Not at all surprising, and it's very unlikely that you'll ever succeed in convincing kids not to believe everything they read. Kids don't seem to be capable of evaluating factual information until they're in their early teens. Not that they don't consider some sources more authoritative than others, but their opinions of different sources seem to be very black and white, and not really based on any sort of critical analysis.
For example, because their teacher at school gives them a lot of information that everyone agrees is correct, they therefore assume that everything their teacher says is 100% correct, even when the teacher is speaking of something about which he or she knows little. Likewise, anything written in a textbook must be true, regardless of whether or not it makes sense, or agrees with other sources, and anything on the Internet must be true because the kids find so much material there that is accurate.
I haven't conducted any studies, but I from what I observe from my children, source reliability is a boolean value, mostly, without any concern for the nature of the information vs the nature of the source. I say source reliability is "mostly" a boolean value, because they do understand the notion that otherwise reliable sources can be "kidding". They understand it, but are still sufficiently gullible to be an unending source of entertainment for me ;-)
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These are all good suggestions. I'd suggest one more:
Show them how programming works. Something simple will do. Maybe a simple programming environment, with a "hello world", followed by a "what is your name?", "hello there, [name]" example.
It needs to be quick -- you're going to lose many of the kids quickly. But a few are going to be hooked. Make sure you're ready after class to let them try it themselves.
In case you couldn't tell, I begged my parents for a Timex Sinclair 1000 when I was 10. It was one of the greatest gifts I've ever received.
Talk to them about how evil copyright infringement hurts poor starving artists.
and everything else you say will make perfect sense.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
Wow, is that really how messed up I am? When I was 10 I ran a warez/hacking BBS that was so popular that I was answering calls as far away as Guam and so actvie that I was forced to perm-ban ANYONE who dared to upload because my poor 20 meg hard drive was too full to boot properly... The LAST thing I needed was somone telling me what a keyboard was.
If I were you, I would start by asking for a show of hands, how many kids know what an openSSH timing attack is and anyone who understands what you just said should be sent outside and forced to play in the sun.
You cracker. Sitting with my mom typing in code from from the back pages of HCM magazine for my TI-99/4A when I was 9 are very happy memories indeed. Going to my dad's work and printing out text art of the Enterprise from Star Trek on fanfold paper from files on the mainframe when I was 8 was the bomb!
Most kids minds "set"/harden by the time they are 12. So if you want to get anything into their minds _fast_ you have to start early.
If your kids aren't learning the fundamentals at age 3-5 they're have difficulty fitting the rest in before the usual growing processes kick in and their brains "harden" - apparently there's actually a significant brain cell die-off at that point.
I'd suggest teaching the kids what YOU think matters. Coz otherwise MTV and friends are going to try to teach the kids what MTV et all think matters anyway.
But hey you are free to teach your kids mostly nothing. Others will gladly step right up to fill in the gaps in your "syllabus". Good luck.
Let them run amuck in a Squeak environment. There are a ton of educational resources over at SqueakLand. It's a multimedia platform and a programming environment.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
Talk to them about something kids care about, puppies for example. Let kids be kids... don't start banging on at them about IT, for Christ's sake.
You didn't really go into any sort of depth as to your audience other than their age, so it's diffficult to give any really good advice, as the best presentation you can do is always one tailored to the existing knowledge of your audience.
However, being an after school science club, I'm going to assume that these kids are pretty smart, want to be there, and probably already know what the inside of a computer looks like, or how to surf the Internet, or how computers are used in society today.
As such, I'd strongly consider teaching them something practical that they can use and build upon, and teach them some really elementary computer math and theory.
Ten years old was the age I started programming at -- completely self-taught -- in BASIC on a Commodore 64 at school. But it wasn't until I was much older that I was even introduced to binary or hex number systems and math. And yet these things are the real underlying basis of how all digital computers are designed and programmed.
Given you only have ten minutes, I'd give them an introduction to the binary number system and simple binary math, and how computers use binary information to do everything they do.
Most kids like learning about how things work, and with a quick intro to binary number systems you can explain to them how computers add numbers, how CDs store music, and how networks inter-communicate (like explaining the basics of Quadrade Amplitude Modulation).
Yaz.
Kids could not care less about listening to someone talk ....especially about the history of something. Why not bring in a big box with the components of a computer...and ask them what each one is. Maybe have the drives in the chassis already or whatever your time will allow. Maybe ask for a few volunteers and guide them in installing a piece or two. Involve them, give them something to look at, show them something they've probably never seen and they'll be eating out of your hands (and most importantly sitting down and listening, as opposed to running around their mother singing loudly while she tells the child that they have til she gets to 3 to sit down or....)
Show them the finished product of a Windows screen or if you're feeling froggy (and have already set up the drive) a cute little Penguin... then you might hear a gasp or two.
tell them about dns at least. kids need to know that the internet isn't magic.
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The only thing they need to know is how to turn the computer on and off. My parents didn't know anything about computers but they bought me a C64. I taught myself everything from scratch. I'm sure your kids can do the same. The only thing you need to do is make sure you can see them playing on it so you can be sure they're not looking at porn or something. Better yet, don't give them their own net connection at all. If they don't want to figure it out themselves then they just aren't into computers; not everyone is and that's ok too.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
... they seem to know more than I do. And I'm a professional programmer. Oh, wait... I think I just answered my own comment...
#include "humorous_pop_culture_reference.h"
I've been asked to give hour-long presentations to groups of 12 & 13-year olds, so I've asked myself the same question.
I ended up coming up with this basic outline:
1. The processor. At the core, a computer is very simple. It can:
* add two numbers, subtract two numbers,
* write a number down and read it back in,
* a couple more similarly simple things.
2. History. The first computers in the 1940's and 50's filled large rooms, used rotating steel drums to write numbers on and read them from, and could only communicate by punching holes in pieces of paper.
3. Nowadays the ideas are basically the same, but we use tiny chips to write numbers on, and can communicate with the computer using a keyboard, mouse and monitor.
4. At this point my presentation would give some brief examples in pseudo-assembly of how to program a computer-- basically how to script the adds, subtracts, and so forth. But in 10 minutes you probably wouldn't have time for that.
-- Mark
At 9 and 10, I already knew more about Macs than most people know now. Talking about computers probably isn't going to interest this class very much. Certainly by 9 and 10, they've started up a computer, connected to the internet, and solved problems their parents couldn't figure out...
That's why I suggest talking about why you're in IT. How it happened. Why you're still doing it. What you like and dislike about IT, and how it's going to change.
This is an after school science club. These kids have chosen to be there and to spend extra time learning about science. IT falls squarely under that umbrella.
Kids in a voluntary, after school science club are probably already reading above grade level, and performing math at junior high levels.
I was in such a club at that age, and it was a lot of fun.
Everything is easier to learn with basketball analogies!
- most of the structural elements of the everyday PC have their roots in, or are even copied wholesale from, older inventions.
- The newer inventions are built upon the old. Sometimes traces remain.
- People are built the same way.
Some examples to talk about:- ICs (err, "microchips") are built of transistors, which used to be huge; they were originally used like tubes, which themselves were originally called "valves" by analogy to water valves.
- We used to have lots of word lengths (for years I programmed machines with word lengths of 36 bits and 40 bit) but now we stick to powers of 10;
- Machine architecture (which you could just characterize, incorrectly but good enough for the kids as CPU-Cache-RAM(w/I&D)-disk) is pretty well, but not completely standard (think of non-von-neumann DSPs or various embedded machines).
- Graphics boards are a tradeoff between external I/O and cpu-based I/O, etc.
- We develop, then lose gills in the womb, somewhat like the intel mode-switching that goes on in the PC bootstrap process; we have a vermiform appendix, etc.
That would be a pretty useful lesson for the kids to learn that one or two of them might manage to remember.that its real name is Pennywise, the evil clown, and that it eats children and has evil powers. There's even a movie about IT!
Explain that a compiler tokenizes input from a high level programming language and produces a parse tree which eventually results in object code, which is then linked to static or dynamic libraries with a linker and loaded into RAM by a loader.
:)
I would then immediately jump into the finer points of data structures and algorithms, for example balanced trees, big O notation, efficiencies of various sort algorithms, red/black trees, etc.
Don't forget to use lots of greek characters. In fact this might be a good time to clear up some abstract programming topics, such as lambda functions, macros (in the lisp sense), continuations, anonymous functions, etc.
Suggest Intercal as a good beginners language.
Whatever demo machine you use, make sure to put a block of dry ice in it and claim it is cooled by liquid nitrogen.
I hope these suggestions have been helpful.
"But actually trying to use m4 as a general-purpose langage would be deeply perverse" --ESR
was made for p0rn!
- Trekkie Monster, Avenue Q
I know it's an old language, and you may not actually be able to get working copies of it anymore.
But Logo was specifically designed for exactly this task wasn't it? It was one of my first languages back in the day.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Well, there is no need to tech them anything at all; just land them on Planet Slashdot and they will learn whatever they need to know to survive in the Net :)
a book written by Stephen King about a mean clown.
I feel that adults' minds are very similar to that description, it's just no longer cute, so instead of fascinating, it's frustrating.
A guy I know keeps falling for crap like "You are a great poet! Be immortalized in the hall of fame! ** $50 plz", and virtually all multilevel marketing schemes that he happens to encounter. He must be on the "World's Greatest Suckers" mailing list. I just utterly cannot comprehend whatsoever, he simply does not want to listen to reason, there is some kind of fantasy to it all that is so much more enjoyable.
The most amazing aspect of it all is that absolutely every single last one of these weird things all lead up to one massively predictable point "Aaaand, lemme guess, they want some money from you?" Somehow or another he can just instantly believe the rationalizations created by slick marketting.
Maybe the only way I can hope to fight back is to create some cool pamphlet describing all the similarities? He has been mildly scammed so many times, and have had so many people tell him way ahead of time that these things are scams that I have to wonder if he lets himself be scammed as a kind of rebellion against what he might see as oppression from his peers? It's really strange.
Tell them yesterdays cartoons were done by skilled artists with pens and pencils, todays cartoons are done on Linux!
Tell them not to solve todays problems with yesterdays technology!
I think that at 10 years old they need only know that IT is something that mommies and daddies do when they love each other very much.
Show them Morse Code.
Show them how information can be sent using a whole bunch of yes's and no's, on's and off's.
Show them that 1's don't really get caught going around the corners of cables,
that they don't need to sink $30 into a "digital audio" cable when any RCA will do,
that data can be sent using light, radio, or current without giving you cancer or cramps,
that extremely simple adds up to extraordinarily complex, just like the rest of the universe.
Show them that there's no magic involved.
Direct away from face when opening.
There is very little you can tell a 10 year old that will have any relevance to the IT careers that will exist when they are 20 years old. In fact, the lead time for a 100% turnover in technology is more like 5 years.
This reminds me of when I was in high school and a recruiter from MIT came by. He gave a long lecture on this very subject. He was retired, and said he knew almost nothing about modern technology, but he did have some particularly relevant advice.
He said that the technologies that you will work on in your post-college life, the technology that will be your career path, will not even exist when you are in high school, so that anything you learned would be completely obsolete.. with ONE exception: math. Math is never obsolete, and is the fundamental basis of every technology sector. He gave his own example, he finished high school just as WWII broke out, but when he went to MIT, he worked on developing Radar, which did not even exist a when he was in high school. He spent the rest of his career working on Radar systems.
I wasn't too sure if this was a realistic assessment of my future. A few months later (IIRC this was around ~1973) I visited MIT in person, for admissions interviews and to check out the campus. One of my hosts said I should come to his Comp Sci lecture to see something really important. The lecture was about the brand new Intel 8008 chip, the first time the chip had been shown on the MIT campus. I didn't realize the significance of what I was seeing until several years later when I built my own 8080 microcomputer.
So yes indeed, the microprocessor technology I would work on for my entire career was invented just as I was graduating from high school.
Moral of the story: study math. Forget the IT lecture, it will bore the kids and it will be obsolete before they even ENTER high school. Focus on the everchanging nature technology, that it will always be new tech, newer and more exciting than anything they can even imagine, and math will always be the key. Maybe you can use some elements of this story. Talk about what computers were like 10 years ago, and how things changed beyond even YOUR expectations in the last 10 years, and ask them to guess what it will be like in 10 years. Get them to use their imagination, get them excited about the future.
The best thing you can do for a 10 year old kid is buy him a Mac (and possibly a beginner's book on UNIX).
In the 80's I taught a series of programming classes to 3rd-6th grade kids. Not just a select few, but the whole grade level for the school.
In 10 mins this might be difficult, but teach them to program! Ask what problems in math are hardest and write an app to do it for them and show the work. I know this sounds horrid but it isn't. It'll spark all the devious plans and interest in their heads.
Example run:
WHAT IS THE 1ST NUMBER YOU WISH TO MULTIPLY? 4
WHAT IS THE 2ND NUMBER YOU WISH TO MULTIPLY? 5
OK! THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO DO THAT BUT HERE IS HOW A COMPUTER LIKES TO DO IT (FAST!):
4+4=8 4+8=12 4+12=16 4+16=20
Or something like that. You should of course make it much more illustrative
Anyway the advice is not to underestimate them at all. They'll pick up this stuff really quickly.
Most importantly it shows that they don't have to be users but they can be creators! They can make their own games. They in fact DO have a pet/slave robot to do their bidding if they can ask it in the right way.
My classes followed this path (Apple ][): Logo graphics, BASIC, Draw a pic in BASIC, make a text game, Animated pics, Make a game with hi-res graphics, add effects in assembly. Not bad for 10 year olds eh?
Not long after I taught these classes there was a strong shift to remove programming from the curriculum until grade 7 and later grade 10!-- it was much easier to have everyone boot up oregon trail, math blaster, and The Print Shop and zone out to it. Pathetic.
Now most of the kids I run into don't even think it's possible for them to program a computer and thus don't consider creating with one. This screws up and then congeals a lot of concepts of what computers are and how they work.
Also another poster mentioned ripping apart some old computers and showing them all the parts. Couldn't agree more. Very useful..
Firefox &
The first time one of my nephews used my computer he was able to become a power user very fast! My parents don't use it because it is too complex.
;-).
I believe that young age they are able to learn faster. Now even more since videogame consoles are very similar to computers.
Whatever you tell them, make it fun and interesting!!!
While you are at it, maybe one of them will be able to program your VCR
Cheers
Adolfo
(Oh, sure, the BBC computer was brilliant, the Inmos Transputer was the product of sheer genius, the Archimedes was very respectable for the time - far more advanced than PCs! - and the ARM/StrongARM processors were a work of art. Care to find any of these products outside of a few specialist shops in the UK? In fact, care to find anything other than the StrongARM anywhere at all???)
Likewise, America isn't the tech centre it used to be. Most chip manufacture is done overseas, and sooner or later, it's going to occur to businesses in those countries that they can gain a massive competitive advantage by using these "local" resources. Why not? They're the ones with the experience, actually doing the work, these days. US labor is generally too expensive. Given the folks in Taiwan, etc, have the means, the motive and the opportunity to turn that work-experience into a profitable business of their own, it's just going to be a matter of time before it happens.
With software outsourcing to Asian nations and the subcontinent, it's not just the hardware you need be concerned about. Again, these guys aren't stupid. With the necessary training, and the considerable work experience they are receiving, all it'll take is some imaginitive and a little venture capital, and you may very well see major companies coming out of such countries.
Unlikely? Not really. Japan, after World War II, was a wreck, had very minimal up-to-date technology, and no history of being a major International power in commerce. With funding from the US, and an import of know-how (not all of it ethically obtained) they have cloned just about every piece of Western technology and have often made some impressive improvements.
I heard this wonderful quote for Formula 1 motor racing - "if you're not moving forwards, you're moving backwards". In technology, this is certainly true. Last week's "new thing" is next week's "old hat". Plenty of places in the US still use COBOL, AS400s, etc. PL/1 compilers are still being sold for $15,000 a seat. (Someone's buying it or they wouldn't charge it.) That's not a sign of rapid forward movement.
India, Taiwan, etc, don't have that legacy overhead. They're much freer to move forward to next-gen technologies, and that puts them ahead of the game, if they take the opportunity.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
DON'T lecture - talk a bit, ask some, get them to ask a lot and do a lot.
Active participation is the key to teaching. Nobody learns, when bored or asleep.
Keep sentances short. Break ideas down into parcels. Kids will lose track of things quickly. It takes a little longer to get complex ideas across, but it improves the kids' chances of learning what those complex ideas are.
Attention spans also tend to be short. Same-old same-old will bore them after a while. That's one reason adverts are 30 seconds or less and why the more successful adverts put the bulk of the important information in the first 5 seconds of that.
In other words, with each topic, you've 5 seconds to get their full attention AND give them a rough idea of what the topic is. You've about 25 more seconds to convince them that it's worth finding out more, AND to cover the main reasons why it would be interesting to them.
Vocally, be interesting. Vary your tone. Monotone "robots" are almost universally ridiculed by kids. You want to be taken seriously. Constant patterns in speech can put anyone to sleep. (That's why many lulabies follow that formula.) Avoid repeating yourself, overusing words, or using words that are barely in your average PhD's vocabulary, never mind your average 10-year-old's.
Above all, pick topics that interest YOU. Kids can spot a fake a mile off. If you don't believe a word you're saying, you're going to have a hard time convincing them.
Visuals help a lot. Kids of that age-range can understand visually far better than they can understand intellectually. (Not always, but it's a fairly good rule-of-thumb.) For example, if you decide to cover transistors/logic gates, then you might want to try the following:
Have one volunteer act as the first input. Have a second volunteer act as the second input. Give them a colored sheet of paper. Say, red for 1, and white for 0. Have a third volunteer act as your "high reference voltage". They carry a red piece of paper. A fourth, final, volunteer is your "low reference voltage" and carries a white piece of paper.
For an AND gate, the first two volunteers are positioned one after the other. The fourth volunteer is to one side. The third volunteer is told to walk past the first two people, but must stop if one of them is holding a white piece of paper. The fourth volunteer is told to wait, unless the third volunteer stops. Then they are to walk on.
For an OR gate, the first two volunteers are side-by-side. Again, the third volunteer cannot walk past someone holding a white piece of paper, but CAN walk past someone holding a red piece of paper. Again, the fourth volunteer can only go if the third one can't go.
Again, to keep people's interest up, you would only want to do two or three runs of this game. Any more, and they'll get bored and lose the idea. Only one run and they won't get the point at all. (The point being to show how something electrical can make "decisions", even though it doesn't "think".)
Time constraints mean that two demonstrations of this kind are about the upper limit. One demonstration should either show what logic is (eg: as above) or show how semiconductors work. (eg: Have the kids act as silicon atoms, and use different color balls to represent electrons and holes into which the electrons can fall. Have the kids swap balls, to represent the flow of electricity through a semiconductor.)
The second demonstration should be something the kids are more familiar with (eg: a games console, a mobile phone, etc). Have the kids play different components in the system. For example, to show how mobile phones work, have two kids playing phones and have two more kids playing phone towers. The kids playing phones wander around, until you call stop.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Bill Gates is the boogey man, SCO are monsters and that Tux is the Undisputed King of the software world.
Seriously, teach them about the different OSes in general, how computers work, what all the different parts of the PC do (I can't coun't how many times I've heared a case called a "hard drive", also have seen people who think Windows is the only OS and that there is no alternative) and how not to end up with a machine full of viruses that spammers are using as a zombie spambot machine.
"With Microsoft, you get Windows. With Linux, you get the full house" - unknown
The best thing you can do is get kids really interested in what they can do NOW. I recommend telling them they can start making video games.
If tech is in their veins they'll become interested immediately, perhaps even try to find out more.. I know that's what motivated me as an over eager 11 year old.
You can also tell them they can make web pages, programs, etc. - even an 9 year old can do these things if they really want to. THEY don't know that, but you can enlighten them.
I think kids are very visual at this age, seeing is believing. Show them an internetwork of routers, switches, hubs, WAPs, etc Give em a glimpse of what the Internet physically looks like. Show them the path of an email, or how the web works. Or maybe how cell phones work. Better yet take them to a data center if you can, now thats geeky!
Design a way for the group of them to act out a simple logic board - "program" them by giving them cards with binary actions then position them in such a way that a given input gives a predictable output. Change their action or their position to change the output. That way they can start to think of computers in terms of the simple steps that build up to produce complex behavior. Plus they get to stand up and be active instead of just listening to someone talking.
Here is what Einstien once told to a group of children:
Title: Teachers and Pupils
Description: An address to children, 1934
Message: The principal art of the teacher is to awaken the joy in creation and knowledge.
The Quote:
The parents are going to hate you when they come in one day and find the family computer taken apart on the living room floor so they can show their friend all the special modules.
Mind you I did that kind of thing as a kid and most of it worked afterwards.
Never should have opened up that Acorn Electron with the power on though!
... here's where to get a decent virus scanner - free for personal use - and go here to get a firewall. Do the rest of us a favour and install them, would you?" More seriously, I do think that's worth a mention - for the parents as much as the children.
As a parent myself, one of the things that I've been trying to teach my kid is that he has to use good sense while being online.
I'm not one who believes in restricting access to things, nor am I one to watch over his shoulder (particularly as he starts getting to the age where he wants more privacy).
Instead, I teach him about some of the things that go on online, some things to be aware of and to watch out for, the dangers of giving out personal information, etc. Beyond that I just encourage him to talk to me if anything comes up that he has questions about or just wants to talk about.
Give a man a match, you keep him warm for an evening.
Light him on fire, he's warm for the rest of his life
Computers and people that build, program and support can not read your mind. Point out that the key to understanding IT and getting real help from people in IT is communication. If they communicate clearly and listen well they will have much better experiences with respect to IT.
When I was in second or third grade, I was bored out of my skull with the pathetic math assignments I was given (spend a week adding three-digit numbers; spend another week adding three-digit numbers with a carry; spend another week adding three-digit numbers with *two* carries), so my father (an electrical engineer) taught me to convert the decimal numbers to binary, add them in binary, and convert the answer back to decimal. I thought it was great fun and enjoyed my math assignments after that point. :)
Of course, that experience might have warped me for life, since now I'm a computer engineer...
This is the best advice I've seen posted. Kids either aren't going to get anything out of a discussion of electronics and how things work or know that stuff already, what's going to impress a 10 year old is exactly what the parent said...mega-long distance phone calls -- how cool would it be, as a 10 year old, to have talked to someone in, say, Russia or Australia. If you don't know anyone there, I'm sure there are plenty of slashdotters around the globe ;-)
And I love the solar system idea. I got hooked on astronomy when I was in elementary school so I may be biased a bit, but looking and flying around the solar system (with a big ol' projector...yeah, I'm thinking *I* need to do this around a projector tonight).
These are the sorts of demonstrations needed -- not a discussion on why open source is better, not a discussion on jobs, but a demonostration of things they wouldn't normally see their computer do. All of them have probably played games on the computer (anyone else remember when Number Munchers was introduced on the Apple II?) but the parent poster's advice is absolutely brilliant.
I think you should stress that computers are a means to an end and not the end. Tell them that computer are a tool like a hammer or screwdriver, or calculator (which they all should be familiar with). But unlike a hammer, it's a tool that can be manipulated to solve different types of problems. It's nothing more than a problem solver. Also maybe introduce them to the concept of what the intenet is. They should understand that their computer has files on it, and Joe Smoe's computer has files on it. WHen you browse the internet you are looking at files on Joe Smoe's computer because he gives you access. Something like that. High level concepts.
1) Prepare a ten-minute talk (informed by other comments in this discussion) with an introductory bit that's two minutes or less. (No longer!)
2) Give the two-minute introduction and then ask if anyone has any questions.
3) Only use the rest of your prepared talk if the kids are too shy to ask any questions.
The thing that makes a talk interesting is that you're telling people things they want to know. The only people who can say for sure what these kids want to know are the kids themselves.
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You can assure them that contrary to the popular belief of computer manufacturers, kids today do not in fact need a computer to do homework or learn, and it won't help them to do it in 5 minutes like Radio Shack says it will. Computers are tools that require intelligence to use properly, they don't instill that intelligence, teachers and parents do.
Tips for downloading mp3 without getting caught by the RIAA...
"...A guy I know keeps falling for crap like "You are a great poet! Be immortalized in the hall of fame! ** $50 plz", and virtually all multilevel marketing schemes that he happens to encounter. He must be on the "World's Greatest Suckers" mailing list. I just utterly cannot comprehend whatsoever, he simply does not want to listen to reason, there is some kind of fantasy to it all that is so much more enjoyable..."
Must be great for him, and I'm not being sarcastic here: Can you imagine how happy and exciting life must be for a guy who has no concept of his limitations or capabilities?
You and I (and the vast majority of people on
When I chose to study math, physics and chemistry in my senior years at school, the possiblity of me becoming a famous historian (I'd studied history as a junior) vanished. Poof!
After leaving school and picking university courses, I chose mechanical engineering. No chance now of studying physics and developing a unified theory, or following (say) medical biochemistry and working on a cure for something which is currently fatal.
My first job was writing structural analysis software. Goodbye professional engineering status...
What I'm saying is, maybe it's not so bad to be the guy who gets scammed slighty, but to still have that naive self belief and lack of insight that says: "I might design and build a rocket ship tomorrow, and fly it to the moon. Unless it rains".
T&K.
Political language
We described the features of the computer in terms that they had vocabulary for. The keyboard was the ear (because you could tell it something). The monitor was the face (because it could tell you something). The 'stuff in the box' was the brains, and the floppy drive was the notebook.
We played games where the 16 children were data bits and I was the data bus 'driver' we got on the bus at the keyboard, went to the cpu and ended up in the floppy, all walking around the room to different stations.
We broke into two groups and became two separate binary numbers and then we used some really simple logic to add the numbers together.
Then we entered into programming. A program is a story that you tell a computer. So we asked the students (a trick question) of what should we make the computer do. What we settled on was that the students wanted to type their names and have them appear on the screen. So there was a simple two line program with an input and a print statement, and by using a little formatting we got it to change color when it printed.
Years later for an introduction to programming I had the students write a pong program, for a Freshman project.
I know that 10 year olds like games, but not something that's terribly sophisticated. So I would suggest looking for a simplified maze game that draws random mazes and lets the user use arrow keys to traverse the mazes. I think that animation would be too hard for a 10 year old.
In general I would work towards stuff that they could do and touch. Take an old motherboard, maybe a failed hard drive that they can see ine insides and pass them around, talk about what happens inside. Data travels from keyboard to ram to cpu to ram to disk and reverse it to get to the screen for output. I kad put together a little workbook for them, each pahe took 1 word or one drawing, that kind of thing. Instead of staples I used dead 1K ram chips, so they each got to take a piece of the computer home. Run the ideas by your child, and get them to help give the presentation, his/her ability to participate will help to get buy in from the other kids, and empower them to believe that they can do this. And of course check with the teacher to find out what they are already doing on the school computers; it's very unlikely that they have no expierence!
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
AC OUT!
Remember this is the same 10min talk the school IT guys had before they started the job.
I would start with what they are used for. If you start out with the history you will lose a lot of them.
History is more interesting ina context.
I work in schools and whenever I have even two minutes, I push safety online and ethics. They know how to use computers, they see them in school, most at home, in libraries, at friends. I remind them even though they've heard the speech before about chatting with strangers, why don't they listen? Why do think they can go to the mall and meet a stranger without telling an adult? I let them know that just 3 years ago only around 400 kids world wide had been snatched by meeting someone online. That number is now in the thousands. Yes, I scare them, but I try to do it gently.
10 Year-old kids are very confused about 'copyright'. Is it illegal to download or not? How do they know? This is something teachers never bother to talk about with a 10 year-old, but if you ever really sat down with a few, these are the very questions they will ask you. They don't want to be bad. They don't want to break the law. They want to be cool and hip and know the score. If you have the chance, you tell them the score. Trust me - you will have their ear.
The last thing I would talk about (yes, all this in only 10 minutes!!!!) is understanding the game rating system. Real simple: Ask them, what kinds of games do you play? (watch the parents become all clueless) Gaurentee they will pop out a few "M" games, even GTA, etc. They will think they are soooooo cool and start looking at each other like - Well I played so and so, etc. My Dad lets me do this. I played at my Uncles, etc. Then you ask them - do your parents let you watch a movie that's rated "R"? Noooooo, they say. We would get in trouble for that. So you let them know that "M" is the same thing as "R" for movies, and watch how fast they change the subject. Watch how it goes from cool to, well, I only really looked at it, I didn't get very far. Again, 10 year-olds want to be cool, but they don't want to be bad. Can you do all this in 10 minutes? YES! Because you really only have about 2 minutes per topic - yes 2! That is the zone out time limit on kids, anything after that and they have tuned you out. So you spend around 2 minutes on each of these, just get your point accross. Then let them know that it is time to ask questions. Different kids will have been inspired by differnt topics - girls want to know how to be safe, boys want to know more about copyright They probably won't ask much more about games, they got the point the first time. but they may start asking if this game or that game is ok. Enjoy
Q & A have a few questions to get them started
My Dad does a lot of teaching kids and newbe computer people. We he found to work for him was to use information out of books that are ment to teach computers to the elderly. These books explain things well and explain them in a nice and easy way. Kids have been catching on at a pretty good rate. He takes about 3-5 books and creates lessons out of each of them.
Tell them about how you'd like to have a Beowulf cluster of Soviet Russian school children.
MOUNT TAPE U1439 ON B3, NO RING
Im sure youve already gone afront the kids by this time However this is a very intresting topic for i wish to become a teacher Ok 10 years old Everyone loves the story about how computers shrank in size whilst harnessing enhanced speed and programability amoung other things I however would briefen this speach and jump right into an activity surely you have many pcs lined up at the school you are at Take this into consideration There is an application for Windows OS Game Maker It includes examples 1945 a shoot em up airplane game is the best show it to them let them play a round then tell them they can change the instances the sprites of the airplane bullet enemies etc They can change the background the speed have infinate life Who's attention would that not grab There for you can introduce computer programming to 10 year old kids without boring them to death Hope you take into consideration how this concept could easily teach kids the power of modern operating systems Without boring them to death about Hard drives Proccessors Etc I figure they will develop that intrest once they begin realizing the mechanisms of electronic manipulation Good Day Oridinary Average Computer Geek Stonewise Arizona Usa 2004
2 things I've done with my sons (who are 7 and 9 but homeschooled so add 2 years for schooled children). the robot game You are the robot. The children have to give you simple commands (like forward, left, stop - think turtle) to move across the room. Your job is to be a bloody minded literal robot. Walk into walls. Bump into tables. Say "do not understand" if they give you commands requiring human knowledge. They love it, and all want to be the robot too. Binary counting Show them how to count up to 1023 on their fingers with binary bits. (start with 31 on one hand). Then, play the binary search guessing game - they pick a number 1 to 30, you get 5 guesses. Show them how you are setting one bit at a time. Then go to 1 to 1000 with both hands.
Hi, its a great question you are asking... I think its a big art to teach stuff to children, because one must really understand it to do so in order to know that a simplification is not too simple. Do you know the great books of David Macaulay (like "the way things work")? He has a great approach, explaining everything using mammouths :-)
What I would do is:
- Ask them, if they have used computers before
- Try to explain that a computer is something simple (maybe use an abacus as abstraction)
- Show them some nice program to give them somthing to try themselves (Logo or even better Squeak)
I think generally its important to be enthusiastic and humourous about the topic!
Cheers,
Dani
They are pretty young. I think this is an opportunity for you to give the "science is cool" lecture -- that it is cool to be a scientist discovering new things and that scientists do good things for everybody.
IT might be a little tougher to envison than some fields, "Kids can you imagine a world without relational databases!?!" But make them aware of all the digital devices around them: cell phones, DVD players, microwave and VCR timers, alarm clocks, portable music players. Let it sink in that somebody had to invent those replacements for earlier tools and if the robots in the movies are ever to exist, a lot of people are going to have to add together their discoveries over time to achieve those future wonders.
Remembering that they are young, here's another angle. If you know they have been exposed to computers already, do you know anybody who has a working manual typewriter? Borrow it and bring it in with some paper and white-out. Let the kids somatically experience what the old days were like. After that, you could probably lead a meaningful discussion group as much as a lecture.
I said: "...No chance now of studying physics and developing a unified theory..."
You quoted: "I chose mechanical engineering. No chance now of studying physics"
And commented: "Wow... what school did you go to? Every mechanical engineering textbook I've seen is just loaded with physics."
I went to Oxford. Lots of some physics in mech. eng. textbooks. Not very much (well, none at all) relativity or quantum machanics , which is where you'd be starting when you develop your unified theory.
T&K
Political language
Numerical Analysis-
Nothing fancy. Just a demonstration of how cumulative errors can lead to errors in calculation. Example : Two calculations that should each result in the value 3.0, but one results in 3.0 and the other in 2.9999999. An equality check will fail. Sometimes, these situations aren't handled well, even in real-world situations.
Set Theory-
Just some basics. Just enough to lead up to state-transition diagrams. Once some very basic set theory and state-transition diagrams are introduced, you have the basis for modeling many systems and automata, formal methods (which I would not introduce to kids - but the concept that development does not have to be flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants is of value), and many other applicatons. Just the exposure could lead them to discover and think about a great deal more.
Security - E-voting could be an excellent topic, with already many straighforward papers and analysis worth discussing and debating. Many important and approachable arguments lie here, as well as many important infosec principles.
Anyway, these are just some ideas. There may be pros and cons that I am not considering, but I think that there should be some exposure in these areas.
You could start by telling them that 90% of what they see on TV related to IT is fantasy, for example "hackers" != "criminal hackers".
Of course, at 9 years old, by the time these kids are out of college, they will be looking at jobs as some kind of robot administrator, so maybe the Three Laws would be more appropriate....
Tell them that unless their personality profiles point towards management, to avoid IT at all costs...go with something less stressful like tight rope walker or javelin catcher.