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?"

Comments

Hmmm.

[Just3Ws]

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.

Re:Hmmm.

[bizpile]

We try to stuff to many things into kids minds too early.

I feel just the opposite. When I was growing up, I was constantly bored by school and, in hindsight, I wish they would have tought me more. Take math, for example, I'm pretty sure that between the grades of 3 and 7, I really did learn that much. The same can be said for other subjects. I do, however, understand that the public school system has to keep some kind of average pace so that the majority of students can keep up. But I still think they went too slow in many areas.

Re:Hmmm.

[Finuvir]

School goes too slow for half of people and too fast for the other half. If you're even a little bit above average you're going to find some things a lot easier than many other kids do. That's why education shouldn't be limited to the school. Hell it shouldn't even start in school. I learned to read at home. We had word games, puzzle games, a huge collection of encyclopedias, dictionaries, National Geographic. When we went to the zoo we read the signs that tell you about the animals--where they come from ("Mom, where's 'af-far-ika'?"), what they eat, how they live--instead of just gawking at them. Even in university I've learned far more outside of classes than in, entirely outside my area of study. People need to realise that education isn't limited to school. It's there, everywhere, for the taking.

Talk about

[maxume]

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.

Let children be children first

[christophe.vg]

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.

Power, Choice, and Logic

[Proteus]

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".

What to talk about with 9 and 10 year olds

[justanyone]

This depends on the savvyness of your audience.

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.

hogwash

[YrWrstNtmr]

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.

On a serious note...

[jd]

Actually, that's sadly not bad advice. The British did much of the preliminary work in computing (Alan Turing built the first stored-program computer in Manchester University in 1948) but really have done little since of any real note.

(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.