Special topics miniclasses

[descapa]

hey everyone, I am not sure if you know me but I will be one of the teachers this year @ camp. Â*I was thinking about doing something new this year and I wanted to get some feedback from all of you.

After the afternoon classes we have free time from 3:30-5pm, and during that time I was thinking about teaching some small 1 day mini-lectures. Â*I was hoping that I would talk from about 3:40-4:10, and then take questions until 4:30, then you guys would be free to do whatever you want. Â*Again this is just an optional thing I was thinking about doing.

Some ideas that I was were:
1) Â*how to use windows without a mouse, and how to just be better overall on the computer
2) Â*open source software movement
3) Â*wireless networking
4) Â*intro and advanced unix/linux talks
5) Â*what college is all about, and being a computer science/engineering student

I was wondering a couple things from you guys (the one who I am doing this for):

1) Â*would you be interested? Â*this would not be everyday but maybe 2-3 times a week. Â*you would be missing some gaming time but would you rather take some more time to learn about things....would you want to do this?

2) Â*what should I talk about? Â*what do you find interesting? Â*if you give me topics I will reserach them and talk about it. Â*what do you find interesting?


Please let me know, I hope this works out well and you all are interested. Â*Please give me feedback, send me a private message if you want ask/suggest anything to me.

Thanks a bunch and see you all this summer!!

I think thats a great idea, I think you might want to do a talk also on hardware or networking and NT tricks, of course if you cover everything there will be no secrets left.

Since these can possibly be short sessions, I think it would be a good idea to also offer to let campers who are experienced in a certain topic to give their own lectures after speaking to you or one of the other counselors.

I'm sure a lot of people coming to camp this year know more about a certain topic than the other campers do - and it's always fun to get a taste of something and be able to learn more about it once you get home http://campcaen.engin.umich.edu/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

-b

The mini-sessions sound like a great idea. I like the topics you've suggested.

Another good topic might be computing history... this stuff all had to come from somewhere.

Are you going to be doing this for every session?

[descapa]

IRQoops:
yes I hope to do this for all of the sessions. Â*hopefully I will get better with it as the summer moves forward Â*http://campcaen.engin.umich.edu/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

bJordan:
very possible, or a counselor could work with one of these kids who would like to present.

both of you nice suggestions, I like them!
please tell me whatever else is on your mind.

[renniSaint]

Not only would mini-lectures be a good idea. But what about having group discussions or debates (moderated of course). So that campers can see boths sides of a system, language, structure etc. Using the infamous example Mac's vs. Pc's, which is better? Having a serious debate in which people don't just say "mac's look pretty so I like them!" or "it's the best because I said so" and having this debate open to be watched and added to by the public (ie the campers) would help clarify many peoples ideologies surrounding things like os, and favorite programming language, and the pros and cons of each.

Just an epiphany I had while re-reading the posts on my palm pilot. Which actually reminds me of ANOTHER thing I wanted to tell everyone about a program called AvantGo (http://www.avantgo.com) lets you download webpages to your palm pilot, very useful, for example I have mine set so that in the morning when I wake up I hit the hotsync button I get NYtimes major articles slashdot.org articles this forum and several others along with my email and other stuff, all on my palm, so instead of sitting here and reading all that stuff I can simply read it when I have time. For those of you who don't want to wander through the morass of their website go here Link to signup (https://ami.avantgo.com/setup/index.html).

i think the design of a computer is perfect justification for liking it more:)

[renniSaint]

lol Lets not have the debate here, lets do it at camp http://campcaen.engin.umich.edu/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif Anyway any campers or counselors have any ideas or opinions on having these public discussions, or debates, in tandem with the mini-lectures?

[-D12-_LMN8R]

The College course would be very helpful for me - in my 2nd semester of my Junior year in High School. Something like that would help immensely.