As a parent of school age kids I am sad to see them rushed trough so much test-oriented useless material followed by senseless amounts of will-breaking assignments and tests.
My kids spent a significant amount of years through Montessori education. On that environment, they pursued areas of interested on their own with the guidance of classroom guides. The main difference is that the kids chose their area of work (they do have to complete a minimum required across all other areas). There were no exams, mostly projects, but my main point is that it is amazing to see someone work on something they are passionate about. They spent day and night, on their own, working on projects that were interesting to them; for something that was not even going to get a grade.
So... ask your students to submit 5 reaserch proposals to you. Give them a week, write a page or so about each proposed topic. Once they pick of their own topics (just so everyone commits to the reaserch), let them trade some of the unused ideas with peers. Go outside the book, the real world does not come with a book !!! I believe this initial reaserch will help them explore their own ideas. I suggest you provide incentives to have this project play bigger and bigger % on their final grade based on the increased levels of commitments to the project. Maybe they present to peers for a basic grade, but maybe they can submit papers to some conference, or present at local university to a bigger % of final grade.
In terms of ideas... how about some blender rendering (www.blender.org), its free... It will teach them awesome modeling/rendering skills. Take it up a notch and have them create chemical models in it, animate them. Introduce them to, or challenge them to higher levels of programming by developing python scripts to simulate temperature on their models, animate chmical reactions, etc...
Congrats to you for having a genuine interest in your students.
The lack of available talent in the last couple of years forced companies to start lowering their own standards in their hiring process. People with less years of preparation (one programming class to an associate degree of 2 years ) started working side-by-side with engineers that had gone through 4 and 5 year programs. The market for "engineers" went crazy and these floks were considered the same.
When it got really crazy, people that had not even attended school and grabbed a programming book started to take those spots too !!!
Many of these folks lack the overall skills and training to succeed and move up in the organization or projects that go beyond programming. They have maxed out. If they haven't been layed off already they know they are in for a ride as their opportunities in the current market are close to nothing. Their lack of preparation is going to keep them from being able to lead bigger and more significant projects as managers or tech leads.
Got a free ride before, pay up now. Hope you saved the money to go to school.
Although I really enjoy the colorful comments from many posting here I seriously question the process that many of you follow to obtain and verify information that could be critical to your business. I run Dell servers and laptops with Linux without problems. I also run NT based servers. The machines in question are appliances. After calling Dell they stated that this was a typo on their website. Both types of machines have similar if not identical benchmark numbers. According to the rep the information will be updated VERY SOON !!! Please call before continuing to post trash here. For those of you with a little more open minds... check the SpecWEB results at http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-07 -05-001-04-OP
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What an awesome opportunity ...
As a parent of school age kids I am sad to see them rushed trough so much test-oriented useless material followed by senseless amounts of will-breaking assignments and tests.
My kids spent a significant amount of years through Montessori education. On that environment, they pursued areas of interested on their own with the guidance of classroom guides. The main difference is that the kids chose their area of work (they do have to complete a minimum required across all other areas). There were no exams, mostly projects, but my main point is that it is amazing to see someone work on something they are passionate about. They spent day and night, on their own, working on projects that were interesting to them; for something that was not even going to get a grade.
So ... ask your students to submit 5 reaserch proposals to you. Give them a week, write a page or so about each proposed topic. Once they pick of their own topics (just so everyone commits to the reaserch), let them trade some of the unused ideas with peers. Go outside the book, the real world does not come with a book !!! I believe this initial reaserch will help them explore their own ideas. I suggest you provide incentives to have this project play bigger and bigger % on their final grade based on the increased levels of commitments to the project. Maybe they present to peers for a basic grade, but maybe they can submit papers to some conference, or present at local university to a bigger % of final grade.
In terms of ideas ... how about some blender rendering (www.blender.org), its free ... It will teach them awesome modeling/rendering skills. Take it up a notch and have them create chemical models in it, animate them. Introduce them to, or challenge them to higher levels of programming by developing python scripts to simulate temperature on their models, animate chmical reactions, etc ...
Congrats to you for having a genuine interest in your students.
The lack of available talent in the last couple of years forced companies to start lowering their own standards in their hiring process. People with less years of preparation (one programming class to an associate degree of 2 years ) started working side-by-side with engineers that had gone through 4 and 5 year programs. The market for "engineers" went crazy and these floks were considered the same.
When it got really crazy, people that had not even attended school and grabbed a programming book started to take those spots too !!!
Many of these folks lack the overall skills and training to succeed and move up in the organization or projects that go beyond programming. They have maxed out. If they haven't been layed off already they know they are in for a ride as their opportunities in the current market are close to nothing. Their lack of preparation is going to keep them from being able to lead bigger and more significant projects as managers or tech leads.
Got a free ride before, pay up now. Hope you saved the money to go to school.
An engineer is much more than a programmer.
Although I really enjoy the colorful comments from many posting here I seriously question the process that many of you follow to obtain and verify information that could be critical to your business. I run Dell servers and laptops with Linux without problems. I also run NT based servers. The machines in question are appliances. After calling Dell they stated that this was a typo on their website. Both types of machines have similar if not identical benchmark numbers. According to the rep the information will be updated VERY SOON !!! Please call before continuing to post trash here. For those of you with a little more open minds ... check the SpecWEB results at http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-07 -05-001-04-OP