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How Do I Talk To 4th Graders About IT?
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Oct 03, 2008 09:53 AM
from the just-promise-you-won't-introduce-them-to-basic dept.
from the just-promise-you-won't-introduce-them-to-basic dept.
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?"
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Keep It Fun & Exciting (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
You could very easily combine IT and aerospace.. bring in a laptop with a paper-airplane making program. Help the kids design and fold some paper airplanes.
You could also focus on the IT side; take a computer apart ahead of time, bring it in in pieces, and put it together and make it work. Nothing too complex, just need to put in a stick of memory, hard drive, video card, perhaps a wireless if it's available at the school.
Parent
Re:Keep It Fun & Exciting (Score:5, Funny)
Kids love that stuff.
Parent
Satellites and Google Earth (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a lot of angles you could approach your job from but if I can give you any advice, keep it entertaining.
I'd suggest a brief talk on satellites and then show them Google Earth. I give a presentation for my daughters 1st grade class on the solar system and ended on Google Earth. One flight to the Grand Canyon overlook and they were all clamouring to see various things (mainly local stuff like the school, where the teacher live, where they lived etc.) but I'm sure 4th graders would be far more imaginative.
Parent
Flowcharts (Score:5, Funny)
Flowcharts, and keep it simple. Visual aids really help.
Re:Flowcharts (Score:5, Funny)
Flowcharts, and keep it simple. Visual aids really help.
If you're looking for visual aids a series of tubes might help.
Parent
This sounds like one of those anti-drug ads... (Score:5, Funny)
"Talk to your kids about IT ... before someone else does."
Re:This sounds like one of those anti-drug ads... (Score:5, Funny)
By second grade, she had said "Put YouTube in MySpace".
Sex is just another video game, alas(ka).
Parent
Use simple metaphors (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Use simple metaphors (Score:5, Funny)
Don't forget to explain the difference between tubes and dump trucks
Parent
Start with the basics (Score:5, Funny)
I'd suggest axiomatic set theory first coupled with computing history, linear algebra and analysis. Throw in some logic into the mix for good measure. Once they got the basics point them towards the linux kernel and start discussing the more interesting issues of SMP, scheduling, latency and memory management.
Old gear? (Score:5, Informative)
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:Old gear? (Score:5, Funny)
their attention span is like 30 seconds.
A video or two from RedTube should fix THAT. Then, once you have their UNDIVIDED attention, point out that what you do makes it possible to see this kind of stuff from any internet capable machine on the planet.
Parent
Easy... (Score:5, Funny)
Series of tubes (Score:5, Funny)
As one of the 21st centuries greatest thinkers said:
"And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material" - Ted Stevens
Go Hands-on (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want to add an analogy they can relate to, also bring a long a stack of encylopedias or an OED and do the "the words in X many of these books will fit on that disk" comparison.
Do A Powerpoint Presentation (Score:5, Funny)
Sysadmin = roadie (Score:5, Interesting)
You're an aerospace sysadmin. So you're a roadie for rocket scientists.
Rocket Science = EXCITING!
So talk about how what you do holds up the exciting stuff.
When you find out how to explain it to your kids.. (Score:5, Funny)
A good start (Score:5, Funny)
No way this story is genuine (Score:5, Funny)
You're a Unix sysadmin who reads Slashdot.
You don't expect us to believe that you have enough social skills to get to the point of having had children do you?
show them 15 minutes of "apollo 13" (Score:5, Funny)
the tom hanks/ bill paxton/ kevin bacon movie with the famous "houston, we have a problem" line
freeze frame when they cut back to ed harris and ground crew strategizing, point to some guy in the background fiddling with some equipment, and say "that's me"
Above all, your number 1 goal (Score:5, Insightful)
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.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:simple (Score:5, Funny)
Who wants a cookie?
Oh, me! Me! Me!
Heeeey, you tricked me. The old IT/cookie switch-a-roo.
Parent