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jackofallgeeksSo my friend Laurel (My Only Friend in Monterey) is a teacher at the local Catholic school; she teaches computer classes to grades 4 and up, or something. Anyways, for her 7th graders she started a blog as an experiment in using different internet tools in teaching, and so a lot of their class this semester has been done online through posts (made by her) and comments (made by them). Early on, she showed me the URL and encouraged me to post comments and share thoughts and information, which I have, and it's been really interesting watching the thing grow and such. It's also amusing to see what bits of the internet subculture pervades to their level -- they know 'woot' for example, but they don't have any idea what 'All Your Base' is.
Anyways... They're doing reports now, and one kid (who's handle on the blog is Escape) approached me through Laurel asking for some information on encryption, since she told them that I'm getting a master's in Computer Security. I was glad to help and, as I'm incapable of writing a short email, proceeded to say just about everything I could think of about encryption, while trying to keep it in terms he could understand.
I got a message from Laurel today to the tune of:
This made me very happy. -laughs- I was just having fun telling the kid what I knew; I'm glad if it spurred him to want to know more. If I can get someone to want to know, then I feel fulfilled. I think, in another world, I might have been a teacher.
Anyways... They're doing reports now, and one kid (who's handle on the blog is Escape) approached me through Laurel asking for some information on encryption, since she told them that I'm getting a master's in Computer Security. I was glad to help and, as I'm incapable of writing a short email, proceeded to say just about everything I could think of about encryption, while trying to keep it in terms he could understand.
I got a message from Laurel today to the tune of:
Escape's mom came up to me yesterday thanking me so profusely for hooking me up with you. she was so impressed at the length of your email and the time you took to compose it and she went on and on about how it inspired him to do more research for his science fair project etc etc etc
This made me very happy. -laughs- I was just having fun telling the kid what I knew; I'm glad if it spurred him to want to know more. If I can get someone to want to know, then I feel fulfilled. I think, in another world, I might have been a teacher.
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Date: 2006-03-10 12:51 am (UTC)That goes for me too!
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Date: 2006-03-10 03:55 am (UTC)I will be experiencing them in about.. a year. And by joys, I mean probable frustration at beating information into the willfully thick skulls of snotty high school students.
But teach I will.
And learn they will.
Even if it kills them.
You should be a teacher, Andrew, and come teach with me. We could hang out in the lounge and commiserate.