Slashdot Mirror
What Interests High-School Students?
Jim Willis asks: "Our IT Division happens to be populated with some civic-minded people who are interested in making time available for local high-school students interested in science and technology. Question is, we're not sure the best way to do it. We're mulling around the idea of sponsoring a robotics competition or some sort of programming fair/competition. Unfortunately, we've been out of high-school long enough to not know what excites students about technology. Slashdot readers (esp. those of you in high-school): Where should we focus our attention and donate/volunteer our time?"
You're forgetting.
/.
This is
And you're posting saying that people WON'T be interested in something like a robotics competition? I know at my high school at least (which I'm currently attending), given the funds the entire tech lab "poplulation" would LOVE a robotics contest. Note that tech lab is roughly 40 students per period, 8 periods a day, per 2 teachers. Do the math yourself, just note that a grand MANY students would love the idea. "High technology" in the average US public school would be welcomed open-armed, imho.
Since everybody else in this thread seems to be focusing on the silly (though, sadly, accurate) let me suggest that you perhaps get involved with a home-school group or a *worthwhile* private school. You're much more likely to get the sincerely interested kids. You could also have interested public school kids come out. Apparently, that's now allowed, though I don't have all the legal details.
I definitely look fondly on the days of zoning out of math class and programming my TI-83 not too long ago. It was definitly a cool way expose some "non-programmer" friends to the idea of programming. Possibly a way to widen the appeal for today's students is to expose them to some programming toolkits for cell phone platforms. With that, you definitely broaden your appeal from "math students" to "all students".
I'm a senior in High School in an affluent suburb of NYC. If I were to try to engage a large number of other high schoolers like mysel, I would gear it towards creativity/design. Most of my friends are fanatics for pirating software: all of them have Macromedia Dreamweaver and Flash, Adobe Photoshop, Premiere, Encore, and Audition, Fruity Loops, and Maya. However, few of us have a damn clue how to use any of em. If you could find a way give instruction in a few of these, a lot of students would be very interested.
My experience over the years trying to volunteer my IT and Network Security expertise to the local school system has been very disappointing. Most recently our Board of Ed decided every kid in the high school should have a laptop. Many of us felt strongly that the decision was made without the proper research and thought. They had visited one single school and decided to adopt that school's plan verbatim.
The results have been poor, the kids have had a field day loading porn and games onto the computers. The school has accused many of the kids of using the laptops to cheat. They have had to hire three full time employees to fix the laptop's OS (Yup you guessed it, Windoze). They never looked at any other operating system, and they blew off any suggestion of evaluating Open Office, though they could not tell us why they absolutely needed Microsoft Office. When I suggested desktops instead of laptops so that the image could be reloaded nightly as other schools do, I was rebuffed. They actually implied that I didn't want the kids to have computers. They assumed that every kid would have a printer that worked with the laptop (A Sony model that doesn't show up on the Sony site or Google.) Tests have had to be postponed because teacher's computer's have failed, imagine they don't have back up machines for the teachers. Once they realized that they would have to provide printers for at least some of the kids they scrambled to get a printer on the network, no luck so far. The laptops sound is software controlled so the first 15 minutes of each class is spent listening to 20 or so laptops booting up. I could go on but I think you get the point.
In short it has been one disaster after another. Tonight my wife and I will be attending yet another Board of Ed meeting. I will be announcing the formation of a committee to elect a competent Board of Ed. Maybe then you kind folks can come here and help us clean up the mess.
War games work basically as such:
Take 2 computers with the same operating system (Linux is preferrable due to the wide range of coding tools available), both teams are allotted time to secure their computers however they see fit (short of changing the operating system). First team to break the other's security is the victor.
If this doesn't seem appealing, just be creative. Think of something that you would find entertaining and they will more than likely agree, high school students who are interested in math/science are (in my experience) fairly mature. Don't try to think on their level, often you'll find they're thinking on yours.
Physics makes the world go 'round.
- All students learn the metric system in school, both how to convert between measures and how the measures relate to every day objects. This was true for me 20 years ago (I learned it in 3rd grade), and it's true for my 3rd grade daughter who is learning it this year.
- All of my science classes at the university level used the metric system. I think my high school classes did also, but I don't remember that far back
:-) - Almost everything sold in the US is labeled in metric as well as the old system. Yes, the old system is usually the preferred measurement.
- We are starting to use metric for many standard things. Soft drinks are sold by the liter. Medicine is dosed by the milligram.
- Not all countries have 100% converted to metric. I believe England still measures road distance in miles, for example.
A base-10 measurement system only has one benefit: it's easy to change the scale of your measurement from big to small things. A base-12/16/60 system could be better because those bases have more divisors. Why did metric time never take off? Because base-12/60 is useful.Basing the metric system on water was probably not the best idea. Sure it works well for cooking. But the system is fragile because it depends on water at a certain temperature and pressure so it doesn't work when exactness is required. A system based on fundamental physical constants would be better.
People always complain about America forcing its culture on others. Isn't this just a case of others trying to force their culture on us? We'll change when we're good and ready, so go mind your own business
That said, I think metric is better than what we're currently using. We'll switch eventually, it'll just take time.
You might want to check:
http://adventuregamestudio.co.uk/
It may be a good opportunity for students with little or no programming experience.
That, sadly, does not change upon graduation.
I would think doing a variety of topics to reach different people would work. My votes would go to:
Sure, it's a bit superficial, just have some "learn more" handouts or CDs so those interested can find out more on their own. Make sure to leave a business card or a number so people can call you (or a friendly assistant) with questions.
More importantly, don't bring in the tech guru from your organization. Most questions won't go beyond "Can you do that with my picture/voice/car/phone?" not "What are some of the possible future expansions for binary values in Sub-TLA IDs?" -- get someone who is good at talking, talks with excitement, and nows something about the subject they're talking about. I know its superficial but having a fat, bearded man in glasses drone on about MySQL is not going to light the fire in any student.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
The metric system is based on distance--a meter was defined as 1/10,000,000th the distance from the equator to a pole. A kilogram was the weight of a distilled cube of water at 4 degrees C, 10cm per side. Later these were replaced with reference constants based on physical properties: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_base_unit
Remain calm! All is well!
That's a really good idea.
Give some information on (innocuous) cracking tricks, and with a stern warning "don't take this knowledge back, the school knows we taught you this so you're the first suspects", set them loose on an isolated network of Windows computers with random patches and a firewalled HTTP-only connection (so they can look up techniques). At the end of the round, you get points for the number of computers (possibly including yours) that you have either hard-disk or shell access to.
That would actually be pretty cool. I'll try to convince our computer club to host one, if we can get an isolated network of trashable machines. (You'll need to wipe the disks after the round; otherwise, you'll be using a pre-cracked computer.)
As a university junior, I remember high school (most of it, anyway) very well. My school had a job-shadowing program. First, they would get students to pick a broad field (e.g. petroleum industry, government, journalism). Then, they would link up interested students with companies or professionals in those areas. The lucky student would skip school for a day and spend it with his shiny new mentor.
Frankly, most of the options open to us were lame. I ended up sorting papers in a county clerk's office for seven hours. If you were willing to do such a thing and could actually show the participants something nifty, it might help a few decide on IT. It's important, though, that the program last more than a day. One day is not enough for anything interesting to take place. This might also be an excellent opportunity to latch onto some young talent; grab yourself some summer interns.
By the time I got to university, I didn't have a clue as to how a full-fledged IT shop was run. Last year, I landed the job of systems administrator for the Math & Computer Science department. Learning everything from scratch has been an adventure. Some hands-on experience would have been useful for helping me find something I love earlier.
Think about what you're saying. That idea works great if the students are mature and interested in learning. How do you sort the genuinely interested students from the ones who just want to sit and download hiphop music videos from Yahoo?
Karma: Segmentation fault (tried to dereference a null post)
Maybe "off the wall" projects might be like the following:
- Create a machine to make waffles automatically, without human intervention
- Create a system to predict a person's shoe size using seemingly unrelated measurements, such as head circumfrence, hand size, etc.
- Create a machine to automatically spread a pile of dirt evenly about a room (the opposite of what a Roomba does).
The ultimate point is to get them thinking outside the box. Employers can find lots of people who can tinker some and play with existing toys. Developing people who can take a rough concept and run with it to create a new way of looking at things is gold. That's the kind of talent that created this Internet thingy...I am a real, live, high school student. I think a game development club would be very cool, very educational, and produce a pretty huge turnout. Not only would it attract the technically minded kids who are always tinkering with computer whatnots, learning all sorts of coding languages, and posting game dev club ideas on slashdot, but it could also draw out the artists, the writers, and some other kids who are just looking for something to do after school. I know I have been pushing some of these more technologically advanced activities at my school, but all the staff and such are only interested in sports and band.
I am a third year Computer Science student, and one of the coordinators for http://wcs.csc.uvic.ca/ , the Women in Computer Science Initiative at my university.
One of the biggest challenges is, as the parent poster says, overcoming the stereotypes surrounding Computer Science/Engineering/Math/Science. The other big challenge, IMO, is answering the "Why?" question--as in "Why should I care about CSC/Engineering/etc.?".
To encourage girls to enter the sciences, the best way is to show them how it applies to their lives on a day-to-day basis. This approach will like work with boys, too.
I recommend reading "Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing" by Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher (or at least skimming it) for an idea of the subtle ways that women are discouraged from taking math and science. Many people, including educators, are unaware how much impact even the slightest discouragement has on girls.
Of course, there are the obvious things: make sure that none of the material can be possibly viewed as sexist, check to make sure that girls can relate to the examples, and actively encourage them to participate. Studies have shown that not only are girls more sensitive to subtle discouragement, they are also more sensitive than boys to a lack of encouragement. Again, the book I mentioned above has a much better overview of all these points, and there is lots of material on the Internet regarding women in CSC/Engineering/the Sciences.
Lastly, from our experiences with high school presentations, you may want to think about involving younger (middle school age) children, if appropriate, as they are often less entrenched in the stereotypes and hence, more open to new experiences.
The FIRST Robotics Competition is an exciting, multinational competition that teams professionals and young people to solve an engineering design problem in an intense and competitive way. The program is a life-changing, career-molding experience--and a lot of fun. In 2004 the competition will reach more than 20,000 students on over 900 teams in 27 competitions.
Yes, you will spend 6 weeks out of the year without sleep, spending all night in the shop getting the robot ready, but it's a blast!
For more information, see http://www.usfirst.org
I'm a professional geek, and it's how I got in computers in the first place. "How do these video games work?" "Well, there's this thing inside called a computer..." And the rest was history.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
High school students are interested in each other. You'll notice that having a nice phone and sending little text messages is cool. It's not the phone that's cool.
If there's some technology that allows them to monitor who's going out with whom every day you'll see kids snap it up.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
- Build towers or bridges out of balsawood that then compete in a wieghtbaring competition
- Bottle rockets with parachustes, the longest one to stay up wins
- Catapults, crossbows, slingshots,
...
- remote controlled cars
It doesn't take too much to involve technology into these:who | grep -i blond | date cd ~; unzip; touch; strip; finger; mount; gasp; yes; uptime; umount; sleep
Robot competition == gay and (worse) boring.
I can directly attribute my interest in computers to video games. One path is:
- Video games
- Pirated video games
- Bypassed copy protection
- Reverse engineering
- Assembly language programming
- Buffer overflows
- Computer Security Expert (present day)
Another is:- Video games
- Multi-user video games
- Create my own maps/skins/bots for multi-user video games
- Create my own scripts for multi-user video games
- Become a Programmer
- Write my own video games
- Software Engineer (present day)
Finally, for you hardware types:- Video games
- Better video card
- Faster RAM
- Overclocked CPU
- Chip design
- Computer/electrical engineer
(We all know the real reason Intel creates faster computers: It's for better video games, stupid!)Now the Internet, while that STARTED with video games (the whole "play against your buddies" concept), it only really started to take off with pron...which, strangely enough, also ties back to video games, e.g. Leisure Suit Larry.
LIKE THE TIMECUBE, NO ONE CAN RESIST MY LOGIC AND PROPERLY AUTHORED HTML!!!
I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
Check out the project page or read an article (pdf) about the first one.
Every high school in the state is invited to the competition. Percentage-wise we get a terrible response but do usually get a half dozen to a dozen teams. It basically boils down to there being a volunteer at the school willing to help the kids out.
The kids always seem to have a great time flinging eggs at our giant frying pan. And we hope they gain some interest in engineering through the process of building their catapult and documenting the work.
I teach in a high school and here are some ideas that my kids have talked about: (if you sponsor something, have great prizes like awesome video cards or ipod mods or other gearhead gadgets). Make the contest either national (run it with CompTIA or somebody) or in a metro area (like Louisville, KY).. statewide contests bomb. Your role is that you gather the prizes and be the judges. 1. Sponsor a computer repair bench competition in the gym of a school 2. Sponsor a modding contest for educational adaptations of a computer or PDA (like the Alphasmart DANA) 3. Sponsor a software contest for school needed handy utilities (like teacher sign-in box, or parent tardy sign-in kiosk, or security guard hallpass checking wireless PDA software that creates passes on the fly), or a host of a million ways that IT could actually improve a school but doesn't because the people who run IT are in central office instead of center hall. The most important thing is go into a school and chat with the IT teachers and kids and connect them to you as well as vice versa. Most IT classes (A+, Cisco, Network+, Linux+, Programming, etc) just don't see enough real world folk in schools. For more, contact Gary Hannah at the CompTIA Jobs+ (E2C) Program (www.comptia.org).
You are absolutely right. Back when I was in high school (89-93), the geeks in the Computer Club made a fortune with a matchmaking program they wrote. For a small amount of money ($3-5 IIRC), students would fill out a survey regarding what characteristics they were looking for in a date (bookish vs non-intellectual, blonde hair vs brunette, conservative vs. liberal, etc.). They also filled out a section that described themselves. The club members then entered the forms into a database and wrote an application to find three matches for each person. A few days later, every participating student received a printout with three potential matches.
It was hugely popular and made hundreds of dollars for the club's coffers.
do something along the line's of Google's Billboard
post binary, hexadecimal, or other random mathematical/computer stuff around the halls. Something easy enough to solve, but cryptic enough to get attention.
It's an easy way to weed out the curious ones who will most likely be adept to learning tech from the jocks etc. who don't care in the least.
I completely agree with his point. the single best way to get the High School students that would be interested in working with you anyways would be to have some internships. However, any decent school should have a robotics team, so if you can't do the internships, a robotics competition would be the next-best choice, so long as you supply at least some of the parts required. Lego Mindstorms is good for this, provided you allow the use of the fan-modifications for the programming set. the programming fair wouldn't be a good choice in general, only 10 students were in the programming classes, and most were returning students, at least in my school.