[Techtalk] Ideas for tech subjects for teens?

[Megan Golding]

Thanks to everyone who made suggestions about tech subjects
to teach my students. I love the freedom of writing this program
myself. 

Several people suggested Lego Mindstorms kits to teach the
programming-robotics stuff. I hadn't thought of these robotics
kits as a path to programming. I met lots of resistance last
semester with PHP programming and at least a little of that
was because there wasn't anything to touch when they were done.
The tangible robot moving around our class could be a great way
to change attitudes.

April suggested filling that gap between how electricity works
and programming -- in the case of programming a robot. Our 
school has a technology club that's doing just this. It's a small
core of participants but I think they're really getting something
out of the lessons.

As for the computer topics to non-geeks, henna had some great
suggestions -- thank you very much. I just finished a module
that gave the kids some great Google-searching skills. I like the
suggestions on how to get help in any application. Google tends to
be my last and most frequent stop. I'll be adding lessons on asking
good questions so you can find what you need in help files and 
online. Who knows, I may even use those "How to Ask a Good Question"
FAQs I see on the web. :) How many kids learn netiquette in middle
school?

Interestingly, my younger students suggested an upcoming topic:
online safety and privacy. I've already shown them how easy a 
telephone reverse lookup is to do. Now they're asking how to
write a virus. I plan on teaching them how to protect themselves
from nasties of the human and coded varieties.

Thanks so much for your suggestions. I'll check in to let
you all know how things are going.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Megan Golding

On Thu, Feb 10, 2005 at 01:37:28PM -0800, gabrielle wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-02-11 at 05:30 +1100, techtalk-request at linuxchix.org wrote:
> > From: Megan Golding <mgolding at sdf.lonestar.org>
> 
> > What do you wish you had learned in computer classes? What
> > did you learn that you think everyone else should?
> 
> My background is in Biological Sciences.  The emphasis on experimental
> design & scientific method in my studies and work experience gave me
> some pretty good troubleshooting skills that I've been able to apply in
> my current networking job.  Things like:  don't change more than one
> variable at a time, take notes, etc.  It seems like that should be
> common sense, but you know what they say about common sense. ;)
> 
> gabrielle
> -- 
> "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
> 
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