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What Interests High-School Students?

Posted by Cliff on from the speak-out dept.

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?"

10 of 842 comments (clear)

  1. I call bullcrap by ScytheBlade1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  2. A serious suggestion by Art+Tatum · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:A serious suggestion by FisherRider · · Score: 3, Interesting
      As a student at a public high school, I think there would be a very high interest (and quality of submissions) if you sponsored a contest of some sort. A robotics competition would be fun, but poorer schools (and many private schools, which usually tend to have less money) would be at a severe disadvantage. Perhaps a programming contest (though this would also require computers) or a purer math/physics competition would be good.

      I know here in Illinois, there is a math league math league organized by the ICTM (I think - Illinois Council of Mathematics). You might want to sponsor a regional competition for something like this (ask around at local high schools to see if they have programs in place). This would probably be easier than sponsoring a competition from scratch.

      Additionally, at least where I come from, there is a significant push to "close the minority achievement gap." Considerable efforts are made to get kids involved in science at an early age (one such program is called Project Excite.) You might want to get involved with one of these programs, too.

      On a smaller scale, it would be cool just to see how an IT department is run - to get a sort of tour of your facilities, with an explanation of how they work, and how everything is run. Or, even better, you could invite high school kids to come try and break your security, as a sort of free security test. (Obviously, make sure they're not in a posistion to do any damage if they do get somewhere. Good luck!

  3. What I think interests HS students... by bacomage1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  4. Educators = bureaucrats who don't take advice well by phunster · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  5. Re:Metric System by 0WaitState · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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!
  6. Re:Hacking 101 by Geoffreyerffoeg · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.)

  7. A better approach by beaststwo · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Since the idea seems to be to stimulate interest and thought, I think a better approach if to present truly "off the wall" problems for the kids to deal with. I think back to the old British Junkyard wars where they had people do things like grind coffee using only wind power.

    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...
  8. Re:video games by AndrossUT · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  9. Best of Both Worlds! by cjsnell · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.