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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?"
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.
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
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.
Much like the science club in the original article- extra-curricular, not part of mainstream studies, and stuff the kids might enjoy. These kids are already science geeks- even if they're still at the "Bill Nye The Science Guy" stage.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
It was fairly common when I was kid to go on field trips to various workplaces, or have people come in and tell us what they do.. You see that kind of thing on sesame street. I remember when I was a kid checking that kind of stuff out was very interesting to me because I had a curiosity of how everything worked.
You're just exposing them to things, you aren't shoving it down their throats and forcing them to become IT slaves. Not all education is some kind of indoctrination plot. Simply giving them a little exposure to something isn't really the same as drilling it into their brains. A think that a wide exposure to many things is really healthy for kids, if they don't know what a wide world it is where knowledge is valuable, they can't see any point to their education.
Interesting side note, one field trip that virtually every kid in the city went on at some point was to tour the tidy didee diaper company, a cloth diaper cleaning service, which was probably the largest volume of foul smell I've ever been exposed it, even to this day. I think that was some kind of weird scare tactic trying to teach us that if we weren't capable of skilled work thats where we'd end up, they didn't present it that way though, they took it all very seriously and the operation was quite complex.
It all depends on the teacher.
When I was first introduced to flowcharts in high school we had a lot of fun with them. When I saw them again in college it sapped my will to live.
Presentation can make anything interesting. That's the real genius of Bill Nye.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
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.