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

Keep It Fun & Exciting

[eldavojohn]

I am code monkey so I have no right to make fun of your job but let's look at it from the eyes of your audience:

I am a systems administrator,

tedius

primarily Unix/Linux

boring

and enterprise NAS/SAN storage,

snore

working for an aerospace company.

BINGO!

There's a lot of angles you could approach your job from but if I can give you any advice, keep it entertaining. I volunteer to teach grade school kids occasionally and what we do is an engineering challenge for each class. We do many different challenges but an example is handing out limited supplies to each team and having them build paper planes. Sometimes we throw in random stuff like paper clips or rubber bands to see what the kids try to do with them. While they work, we talk about engineering in general. At the beginning we'll give them specific requirements in a childish Statement of Work style which lay out how we are selecting the best airplane or bridge or tower or whatever.

At the end of the session we start to ramp up the specifics as we do the final tests on the stuff they made and hand out candy. I'll start to talk about structural integrity, how we use math to make things better, etc. As I get more technical, I'll start to lose kids but there are usually a few that get excited and that's why I'm there.

If you go there set on talking about just IT, you're going to lose them and--worse--possibly turn them off to technical jobs like that. Stick to the end product of what you actually provide. Try to think of fun facts to keep them entertained--don't say petabyte, figure out how many times around the world one string of text will go that a petabyte can store. Then tell them how many of those you are in charge of. I also suggest you start out generic--ask the kids what an engineer does and then get more specific with your job and place.

Also, my company always has junk left over from bring your child to work day, hand that stuff out like prizes or give one to each student if you have enough.

Re:Keep It Fun & Exciting

[veganboyjosh]

I wasn't saying I needed the explanation, but that the 4th graders might. I once read a kid's book about Mt. Everest to a group of younger elementary students. At one point, one of the kids asked "What's a mountain?" This was a class in the Mississippi Delta area, where a>there's no mountains, and b>some of these kids will never travel beyond the county they were born in.
I started with "Well, it's a big pile of rocks."
"How big?" came their response.
"Um...what's the biggest thing you can think of?"

The answers from the kids ranged from "A car!" to "The school!" I eventually sort of gave up, but it made me realize that bringing them something complete outside of their realm of understanding was pointless without some context that the kids can relate to.

Hence, my GP comment.

Use simple metaphors

[pieterh]

Explain that software is like a city... pipes, houses, roads, bridges. Explain that there are people who design the stuff, make it, repair it, and use it. Explain that this is the world they will live in, and give examples they can relate to: the phone network, the Internet.

Give them the understanding that IT is about stacks, layers, stuff that is old and deep, stuff that is fresh and useless...

Don't use technical words, don't try to teach anything specific at all, and don't try to sell Linux or open source (kids tend to respond to sales pitches cynically and negatively).

My advice above all is to explain how it's about people, doing things, making things, working together.

Above all, your number 1 goal

[geekoid]

is to make your kids friends think your son has a cool dad.

System admin work is BOOooring to 4th graders.
Keep it a little more general, keep 'data' reasonably abstract.

Talking about computers to 4th graders is now like talking to 4th graders about the phone system. We all have phones, we all know how to use them, we all have the nifty features. It just works. Hard to make the interesting.

Give some examples of things going wrong and how you saved the day. Explain how rockets wouldn't be able to go without you. Kids love rockets.

Explain how rockets would explode without you. Make yourself a hero and make is sound like you are 'da man'.

I have a 3rd and a 5th grader, and I expect my time to give a presentation to the class is coming. As a programmer I am going to need to keep it lively. I will probably do some quick Lego robotic programming so they can see the reward for my work immediatly. I'll give the class a couple of decisions on what I will do.

Good luck.

Been there, done that....

[LibertineR]

Here is what you need: 2 networked laptops, one acting as a web server, the other as a photoshopping client.

1 digital camera, and connecting USB cables.

What you want to do, is involve the kids in the building of a quick web site, while talking about the technologies that make it all work. The network connectivity, the HTML that places THEIR pictures on the page, even talk about the various cables necessary to connect the computers, the camera to the computer, and explain what happens when they press ENTER. Literally trace the content down the wire.

Prepare a template ahead of time, take pictures of the kids, use some cool filters in Photoshop, and then add them to the web page. In the end, the kids get jazzed over seeing their picture on a web page, and will enjoy your explaining how it worked, from the camera to the page.

Dont be a dufus and go on about the wonders of DHCP, and all that. Its got to be applicable to what they care about.

Anyway, that worked for me, and I got a dozen calls from parents asking me for follow-on advice, as their kids demanded tools to build their own sites.

If you remember the principle of demonstrating how IT effects their lives, you will have a captive audience. I guarantee that if you get into IT from a nuts and bolts perspective, rather than applying IT to what kids care about, you will get snores.