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Is It Time For Hacker Scouts?
ptorrone writes "MAKE Magazine asks: is it 'Time For Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts 2.0?' What might the future of education be like if it were based on online & earned skill badges, and what could the future of traditional organizations for kids, like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, be like in a very modern, tech-savvy world? Social networks and the maker movement are the perfect intersection of where the kids of today are, but we don't see 'leaderboards' for skills yet; we only see them for video games. Is it time for Hacker Scouts?"
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My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
untrustworthy, disloyal, surly,
angry, rude, mean,
obstinant, cranky, greedy,
anonymous, smelly, irreverent
Yes, probably. Let's roll some tech into it.
But do NOT lose the outdoor aspect. Camping, etc. Far, far too many kids have no clue what the "big green room with the blue and white ceiling" looks and smells like.
There is a coder Scouts, called Coder Dojo http://coderdojo.com/
Kids need to be outside and learn useful things. The Internet is pretty easy to use, coding and configuring software is best left to teachers or summer camps. The scout programs really need to stick to their guns, don't spoil a good thing. Theyre one of the last bastions of real childhood enrichment.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I do not think it is necessary to reform all organizations to match some illusionary techno elite mold.
Scouts/Guides teach different skills, like what the sun looks like and how to get along with others, that are not well represented by the can't-lift-face-from-LCD crowd.
Badges are about basic skills and sense of accomplishment (little milestones met). Leaderboards are about competition. Each has their merit.
P.S. Get off my lawn
I just got the Fry-o-later achievement badge in TF2 today!
Silence is a state of mime.
"Social networks and the maker movement are the perfect intersection of where the kids of today are"
Who writes this crap? It's like somebody yelled cheeseburger and I got there and they hand fed me a potato chip.
What kind of autistic parents want their kid to grow and develope in some electronic cocoon? What's really driving this:
A) fear of legacies not surviving the technologized future
B) fear that at the rate forests are being consumed, there won't be any such thing as campgrounds in the future
C) just straight fucking autism
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Isn't the point of scouts is to get kids out of the basement to move and do something?
Yes, the core Scouting organizations could use online resources for organizational purposes or for some merit badges that could be done online.
However, most of the valuable experiences from scouting can only be gained in person - experiencing things in real life. Camping. Swimming. Hiking. Shooting. Meeting people in various fields and getting a real education about a topic (even if it is cursory), Etc.
However, online scouting would lose a lot of the value you get by interacting with live people who can share their experiences.
I just wanted to mention that the Boys and Girls scouts of America do not allow homosexuals into leadership positions, youth or adult.
Moreover they completely bar atheists and agnostics from membership of any kind.
Support them if you so desire but do so with full awareness of what you are supporting.
What the hell is about? Seriously? Slashdot, have you have completely succumb to the stupidity of the general population? I've been a loyal reader of Slashdot for quite some time now, but I'm getting sick of the cyber hacker 2.0 source crowd linked advanced persistent open source bitcoin controversial privacy landscape threat awareness law. You guys dropped your balls a thousands exits ago got played by the man.
http://chronicle.com/article/Badges-Earned-Online-Pose/130241/
don't limit it to kids only
There are a lot of comments on the Boy and Girl Scout associations, but not yet many on the use of online merit badges as an alternative educational model.
Imagine educational sites done easily in Drupal, in which users learned skills and knowledge sets about... well, anything. Skillsets disruptive to the status quo, for instance. Hacking. Encryption. True American Common Law. All manner of "disruptive" information. They could earn merit badges and level them up just as they do in an RPG, and display or link them on social networking sites and in their .sig files on sites like Slashdot. As they promoted their learning and interests, others would notice and learn about them as well if they found the material interesting. From there, it's not much of a stretch to imagine them getting together in online forums of interest groups. And then you'd have an alternative model of information distribution from the mainstream media. You'd also have a mechanism for giving people the skills they need to overcome the status quo.
As a bonus, geeks who created sites like that could charge users a negligible amount of BitCoins in monthly dues once they'd leveled past a certain point. The interesting part would be that the moment users became responsible for monthly dues, they would also be eligible for a portion of dues paid by any other new users they'd brought to the site. It would provide some great incentive for users to not only promote awareness by displaying the badges they'd earned, but also mentoring their recruits - thus assisting in the transmission of the information. Anyone doing that actively would find learning and teaching skills of interest to them online would be a sort of profit model, and that they were accruing far more from it than they were paying out.
By making it fun, easy, interesting and profitable, it would be very easy to imagine this model catching on among the mainstream Facebook crowd who are currently sitting around playing FarmVille instead. And thus, you'd have a means of bringing the mainstream back to reality and fixing society while making money for yourself in the process.
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
It's called an "explorer post." My troop was hosted by a kids Dad who was an engineer at a company that made Mars rover prototypes for NASA. We made websites for ourselves to start out, which they hosted on the companies web server (*nix running apache), and after we learned http we made websites for for car dealerships and other small businesses to raise money for the post. Among the many cool activities we did, they also let us program very expensive Mars rover prototypes to walk around and explore the office and we had challenges to see who could program the best runs etc...
That experience, and having a computer in my room at very young age, are probably the two biggest reasons why I ended up choosing a career in Engineering. I have often thought that if I ever get off my lazy butt to do something good for the community it would be a technology explorer post like the one I was lucky enough to get into.
I think it's an awesome idea, but I disagree with the name "Hacker Scouts". I think "Hacker" is and has always been a misnomer for the hobbyist-level of Electrical Engineering, Structural Engineering, Computer Science, etc, with a real focus on repurposing everyday items.
If you call it "Engineering Corps" or something like that, I could get behind it. I find it hard to believe you will have much support from the largely-brainwashed general masses using the term 'hacker'. "Being a hacker is bad! They take down websites and are against the government and order!" They don't know any better, because Fox News doesn't tell them any better.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
1978, we spent Tuesday evenings with full run of the computer ( IBM 370/158 ) at Exxon R&D. Occasional field trips to places like the Sarnoff Labs ( RCA ), and
Bell Labs. It was at Bell Labs I was introduced to C and Unix by Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan. Little did I realize that I was going to make a career out of that.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Acquiring skills is a positive-sum game. We don't need to know who is "winning".
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
A regular series from the old days of Popular Electronics magazine. Some of them are available online at:
http://www.copperwood.com/carlandjerry.htm
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
Then they grew up, sans computer skills (some of them), and have Internet Explorer, drive Ford Explorer, and their kids watch rerun-DVD's of Dora the Explorer.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
"MAKE Magazine asks: is it 'Time For Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts 2.0?' What might the future of education be like if it were based on online & earned skill badges, and what could the future of traditional organizations for kids, like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, be like in a very modern, tech-savvy world?
Wasn't this answered decades ago when they came up with Explorers?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_for_Life
Typical Explorer posts include groups of teenagers specializing in a field such as law enforcement, fire and emergency service, health careers, engineering, aviation, skilled trades, and technology. The majority of Explorer posts have an Explorer uniform that they have especially designed for wear during formal meetings and community service activities, a long-standing tradition dating from the time when Exploring was a traditional BSA program.
The organization is already there. Just use it.
--
BMO
The current boy scout handbook, before anything else, starts off with a dozen or so pages about sex abuse. There are very strict rules for troop leaders/helpers - always do things in pairs, etc. So who in their right mind would want to videochat or be a troop leader for a bunch of kids online - instant lawsuits.
Also yup, you have to be a believer. They are very lax on what qualifies as belief and accept almost any faith. They need a badge for 'technically following the letter of the rules' if someone is a pastafarian. It's a serious shame. I helped out as a co-leader with a local troop for a year and the issue didn't come up, I don't remember having to put my religious beliefs on any official paperwork. However I do know athiest troop leaders have been removed from news stories I've seen. It's hard enough to get participation in the boy scouts and girl scouts as it is. I doubt religion keeps many people from being involved.
be T-shirts pre-stained with Cheetos?
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
I guess they need to open their eyes and re-use what's already out there. There are plenty of youth organizations that already include technology in many ways. From my own personal life:
I've offered to help out co-worker's son and whatever other boys want to come to earn their Computers merit badge by giving them a full-on tour of our data center and then sticking around as long as it takes to answer whatever questions they might have about software development, testing, release, integration and whatever points of the software business they might like to know. We can go deep on languages, hardware, storage -- whatever. I'm really looking forward to it.
I also volunteer with the state Science Fair program as a judge. There is a hierarchy of competitions at the middle school and high school levels, and they are always looking for people with science and engineering backgrounds to help out. It's some of the most rewarding time I spend anywhere. The ingenuity, hard work and "i'm going to change the world" attitude some of these kids show up with is nothing short of amazing.
My daughter's elementary school has just started a FIRST / Lego Robotics team. There are already existing teams at the middle and high school levels. The school also sponsors a chess club, too.
I was a Scout in the 80's -- achieved Life, went to Philmont, Order of the Arrow. Lots of camping, lots of great leadership lessons and a lot of great experiences. I can say without qualification that I still use leadership skills I picked up in the Scouts to this day, as well as lots of other stuff that makes me useful around the house as well as at work. Plus I know how to play with fire and how to handle a firearm. One of my biggest regrets in life is not achieving Eagle, I wish I could do that over.
What I wish the Scouts had done over was their policy towards homosexuals. It just goes so far against the otherwise inclusive nature and ideal of Scouting. I recall meeting other Scouts at camp or at Philmont from other parts of the nation and world, and trading troop patches and stories. I wish we had more of that and a leadership who said "you know what, it's not right to malign people for pretty much any reason -- so let's include them and see what they can teach us". But no, we get fear and hate baked into the organization. It's pathetic. FWIW I'm very happy my daughter is in the much more inclusive and progressive Girl Scouts. This isn't lefty loopy stuff, either -- in case you haven't read the news, the military allows openly gay soldiers, state after state has ratified gay marriage and we have people in positions of leadership in both the private and public sectors who are gay.
The idea is not to expose kids to technology. They are surrounded by it already. They can't help but be "exposed."
The idea is to expose technology to the kids. Far too much of modern technology comes with the implied "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!", and not nearly enough "oh, you like the glowing green head projector? Here's how to make him have boobies on his head and a snidley whiplash mustache! And this button makes him sound like a chipmunk! Would you like your own big green glowing head projector? Awesome! Here's how I made mine!"
There is far too much compartmentalization in modern society, and due to that, there is a very large demographic that relies on children not being more savvy than them with tech. This is mostly in educational and political circles. This reliance makes a conflict of interest when it comes to tech; they teach just enough to use, but not enough to comprehend and adapt the tech. (They call this a wide variety of things, but the most common is "abuse" of the technology, or vandalism.)
Maker scouts would focus on kids that have already been exposed to the tech, and want to learn more. It would actively encourage novel applications of technology, and the creation of disruptive appliances. In short, it would be every technology teacher's nightmare come true, where the kids learn dangerous things like assembler, kernel hacking, lowlevel electronics and computer logic, and graduate from drawing penises on the lab computers, to creating network worms that do it for them.
I would really love to see something like this, but I realize that most people would consider this on par with having a terrorist training camp for cyber terrorists.
The idea is exactly the opposite though. Terror comes from ignorance, and learned helplessness more often than not. This would seek to break that trend. The kids that come out would know what real cyberwarfare is, and laugh at the antics paraded around on the news, like many of us do.
My sole experience in Scouting was with an Explorer post at what was then the Oklahoma City Western Electric works where my mother worked. A group of us (I remember two sisters and their brother and myself) went there, I forget how many evenings a week, and learned FORTRAN on an IBM 1130 and FOCAL and PDP-8 assembly language (on a PDP-8, of course). That would be around 1973 or 1974.
As an Eagle Scout myself, I know I learned many fundamentals of electronics, radio communication, metal working and even helped build a hero robot as a troop project. Really there is everything from wilderness survival (which is what pops into most peoples mind) and basket weaving, but in all if there is a topic, there is a badge where you can learn the basics as a child.
do I support the activities mentioned in the article? yes, but its amusing because its already there ...other than buy a 500 3d printer from us cause your kid needs to know something that will become a toaster in 20 years, but drafting and cad, which are useful skills are already a badge
http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/BoyScouts/AdvancementandAwards/MeritBadges/mb-DRAF.aspx
guess where I learned how to do it first?
There are a couple of common reasons for people to convert to Christianity from atheism. Prison, serious illness and a sweet, really religious wife-candidate. I think these account for about 90% of the cases. #idonthavefactstobackthisup
A good example of using these kind of RPG-like incentives is fitocracy.
"we don't see 'leaderboards' for skills yet"
No, I hope, will we ever do so. Leaderboards encourage finding ways to rank high on the leaderboards, not the retention and extension of skills.
...when the idea tanks and the decision is made to shut down the servers... *poof*, all that achievement, gone.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
There have been a few rescues here in Arizona of boy scout troops who got lost or read their map wrong and only had two days of food and water for what turned out to be a four day hike.
This could easily generate a dozen excellent merit badges, especially for Eagle Scouts. Hardware recycling projects or open source project creation would be wonderful. Preferably free software, but there are enough worthwhile Apache licensed projects to be worth doing. They could link conservation projects to hacking projects for tracking endangered species or park maintenance or scheduling urban renewal work.
Even simple tasks such as "build a server from scratch" could be awarded, and generate some early skills. I'd love to teach scouts how to handle equipment: the old skills of knot-tying and rope handling easily translate to skills of neat wiring that I'd welcome in new electronics and networking staff.
My opinion of the Boy Scouts is pretty low; my opinion of the Girl Scouts depends on which troop and local they are with, since there is a lot of variance in what each Troop Mom allows. But why should it be necessary to replace the entire organization just to teach electronics, computers, and hacking skills? Get off the ideological high horse, and go offer to teach some scouts. If you don't agree with the policies of the scouts in your area, find an existing organization that you can help. A YMCA Open University, an after-school study program, any other program that already has the overhead covered. Starting from nothing is not the easy path to take, here. You'd have to negotiate for meeting spaces, cover the insurance costs, convince parents that you aren't a scary computer person teaching their kids to hack into banks and build killer robots, or worse. Then you need to get enough students enrolled, or you are just teaching your own kid. You'd need to get someone to teach the other age groups, or you'll be the only person teaching every group from k to 12; 13 meetings every 2 weeks will run you ragged. You'll need fund raisers to pay for computer parts if you get enough students. Even 5 students in each grade level works out to 65 kits. That's a lot of Arduinos, breadboards, soldering irons, etc. Do you have connection with the various fund raising companies that will sell you cookies/popcorn/wrapping paper cheap if you and your scouts sell it to other people? Do you have the cache to convince strangers that your scouts are legitimate, and they should give your troop money for overpriced cookies/popcorn/wrapping paper instead of buying from the boy/girl scouts?
In all, get out there and offer to volunteer at an existing facility. It'll be easier, and you'll be teaching the troop leaders or parents or staff as well as the students.
The top leadership of the BSA is now dominated by members of the LDS church. All the controversial national polices are in place because of this. The non-LDS local units are stuck with the no-win decision of either going along with this or having an unstated rule that scouts and leaders should lie about their sexual orientation and religious beliefs. This goes against the fundamental principles that scouting was founded on.
As an Eagle Scout I refuse to do either of those things, and thus can no longer associate with the BSA.
As long as we leave out the militarism, paedophilia and everything else lord baden powell.
Stupidity is its own reward.
Now it looks like it is called Learning For Life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_for_Life. I founded an Explorer Post at the local community college in 1978 after a high school teacher told me it might give me free access to the college's computers ... and it did! They had an awesome set up for the era: an HP3000 with smart terminals. I learned Fortran and SPL. We learned to hack in Fortran and implemented a computer version of the game Risk in SPL. Our mentor patched our account creation into the bootloader after a while so our accounts wouldn't go away between semesters. I learned all kinds of stuff.
Mod parent up, please.
I think what you are trying to say is, it won't help the people who really need help? Anyway, you're a great writer, and this was an awesome post.
Thank you, your recognition of my point (as well as my style) is much appreciated. I would like to add that I was simultaneously suggesting that the camp might be arm-in-arm with the causes of problems that people need "help" from, and could just exacerbate some of those problems.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee