How Do I Talk To 4th Graders About IT?

Tsunayoshi writes "My son volunteered me to give a presentation on what I do for a living for career day at his elementary school. I need to come up with a roughly 20-minute presentation to be given to 4-5 different classrooms. I am a systems administrator, primarily Unix/Linux and enterprise NAS/SAN storage, working for an aerospace company. I was thinking something along the lines of explaining how some everyday things they experience (websites, telephone systems, etc.) all depend on servers, and those servers are maintained by systems administrators. I was also going to talk about what I do specifically, which is maintain the computer systems that allow the really smart rocket scientists to get things into space. Am I on the right track? Can anyone suggest some good (and cheap/easy to make) visual aids?"

Comments

Old gear?

[Max Romantschuk]

One cheap visual aid would be an old computer and or server, so you can show them what it looks like inside a computer. My kids tend to like watching me swapping components, at least.

Re:Keep It Fun & Exciting

[MidnightBrewer]

I agree with keeping it entertaining. As a geek who also happens to have taught English to Japanese elementary school children for two years (talk about incomprehensible subject matter!), it's all about how much fun you make it for them. The good news is, fourth graders are the sweet spot for the balance of enthusiasm with smarts. Keep in mind mind that just because your job is IT doesn't mean that you have to be constrained to talk about it the entire time.

Seeing that you have 20 minutes, I'd say you've got eight minutes for a warm-up and the rest for a game. Definitely keep the focus on aerospace and computers, keep the IT talk to "I keep the computer systems running," and go from there. Keep in mind that fourth graders are NOT stupid, though, so make sure simple doesn't equal patronizing.

Above all, being easy-going and cheerful makes all the difference. Photos and hands-on props are always good, and if your company has any PR people, you might want to pick their brains on what's cool about where you work, too.