Re: Helping Kids understand what's inside Computers and Technology


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Re: Helping Kids understand what's inside Computers and Technology



That's great: but not free I'm guessing. Free answer: Transfer your
kids into a Technology Magnet High School. They have clusters in which
students can specialize in so that they are better prepared for
college: the Clusters:  Communications (Consisting of Data and Visual
Communications in which graphic design, programming in PASCAL and
C/C++, not to mention PC hardware repair is involved), Energy Power
and Transportation, engineering oriented, Health and Human Services,
doctor oriented, BioTechnology: scientist/doctor oriented, includes
Agriscience, and heres the kicker: free and available in public
schools. I'm in one now.



On Sat, 17 Oct 1998 16:11:50 EDT, Terry King <tking@together.net>
wrote:

|
|COMPUTER DEMOLITION -- PARPORT SOFTWARE -- BITS&BYTES -- ALARMCLOCK2000 --
|
|We would like to announce the availability of new / updated materials for
|use by schools, educators and hobbyists in learning about computers and
|electronics:
|
|We keep wondering:
|
|"Will American kids be Inventors in 10 years, or just operate
|appliances designed elsewhere?"
|
|     and, by the way,
|
|"Whatever happened to the Kid who took Alarm Clocks apart to
|discover how they worked?"
|
|Technology can make it seem unapproachable to understand how things work,
|when the inside of an alarm clock consists of a microchip epoxied to an LCD
|display.  But It's NOT TRUE!  Computers are the BEST Alarm Clocks to take
|apart!
|
|We want to do something about the decline in the number of kids who
|actually MAKE things, by helping to develop young peoples inclination to
|TAKE THINGS APART and understand how they work.  We want you to help, and
|we want to help you with materials you can use in a classroom or workshop.
|
|We have been doing workshops, classes and classroom demonstrations for
|several years, especially doing 'Computer Demolition' in which we have kids
|(or older people..)  take XT type computers totally apart, learn about the
|parts and how they connect, rebuild the machines up from an empty case and
|debug them.  We also have been teaching "Bits&Bytes" which is a
|beginners level look at computers and electronics, using old PC's and
|PARPORT software that we developed for educational purposes.  Many
|hobbyists have used PARPORT for starting out in Robotics and Computer
|Interfacing.  We have helped many IBM technical people go out into
|classrooms to do Computer Demolition.  We are making some of the materials
|we have developed available to anyone who is interested.
|
|Oh..  'WE' are:  Terry King and Mary Alice Osborne, AKA "Mountain
|ClockWorks", who produce Educational Materials and Custom Clock Designs
|from our log cabin ...In The Woods In Topsham Vermont.  Someday we may
|write a book on these subjects and make some money.  Maybe.  We would also
|like to market some kits of parts to make it easy to do hands-on workshops.
|
|What we have available:
|
|  - The Computer Demolition Handbook: (Online .PDF , 28 pages and growing)
|
|  - PARPORT.ZIP : Easy-to-use Parallel Port interfacing and programming
|
|  - Bits&Bytes  : Materials to teach / learn about beginning
|                  computers and digital electronics
|
|  - AlarmClock2000 : How to reuse parts from old PC's and printers to make
|                     things and learn about electronics.
|
|These materials are in various stages.  Computer Demolition is the most
|complete, with a real how-to booklet.  PARPORT (SEEBITS, BITMACH etc.)  is
|very useable freeware, but still needs a good Cookbook!  BitsNBytes has
|some good ideas but needs a lot of added information.  AlarmClock2000 is
|just basic materials, but Mary Alice is working on good drawings of the
|parts of a 5 1/4" disk drive, and how-to reuse them, and I'm working on the
|info about reusing old IBM Graphics Printers as winches and cranes.  With
|some encouragement and Winter coming on, we hope to get much more of this
|finished and out there.  Right after we finish getting our firewood in and
|stacked...
|
|HOW TO GET THIS STUFF (and more information): On the WWW at
|
|http://homepages.together.net/~tking
|
|
|Here is some more perspective on what these materials are:
|-----------------------------------------------------------------
|COMPUTER DEMOLITION is an activity in which students totally disassemble a
|working IBM XT type computer down to an empty chassis.  We have done this
|with Kindergardeners and Senior Citizens, but Middle School seems ideal.
|They learn what the parts do, and how they relate to each other.  They then
|connect the parts together to make an 'absolute minimum' working computer
|(on the tabletop with no case).  After debugging this tabletop machine,
|they then "build an IBM XT" back in the original case and configuration and
|get it all working again.  All this is usually done in a 80 to 90 minute
|period.  (After the Demolition, some 5th graders have built a perfectly
|working XT in 9 minutes!).  We now have a free online Booklet describing
|how to do Computer Demolition with kids in your area.  We also provide
|workshops for students, teachers and businesses in the New England area.
|
|------------------------------------------------------------
|PARPORT:  Freeware for use of the PC parallel port for input and output.
|
|SEEBITS:  DOS Fullscreen Control and Monitoring of Parallel Port Bits
|          with large 'Bits' that can be seen across a classroom.
|
|SeeBits uses a "Printer Port" (often called a "Parallel Port").
|The port is "unscrambled" so that you have one 8-bit output port and
|one 8-bit input port using adjacent pins of the printer port.
|
|NAMEBITS and BITMACH:  State Machine programming environment that needs
|                       no Compiler to write programs that run from
|                       bits on the Parallel Port. Examples included.
|
|------------------------------------------------------------
|BITS&BYTES:
|    "How can we learn about those Bits & Bytes we hear computers run on ??"
|
|Bits&Bytes is designed as a hands-on activity for Elementary school and
|older people in which they explore and learn about "Those Bits that
|everyone knows are inside computers".  Although Bits&Bytes is intended
|to be a classroom unit that takes place over 8 to 12 sessions, the material
|has also been used to develop an introductory one session presentation
|suitable for use in National Engineers Week and other outreach activities.
|Bits&Bytes asks questions like these:
|
|        o What are bits LIKE?
|        o What do they DO?
|        o How do bits get IN to the computer, and where do they come OUT?
|        o How can we get bits to come OUT of the computer where we
|          can see them and play with them?
|        o How many kinds of bits ARE there?
|
|..and then answers them with demonstrations and hands-on activities.
|-----------------------------------------------------------------
|ALARMCLOCK2000:
|
|"OK, but we want to MAKE Some Stuff!
|How can we learn about that, and get some parts ??"
|
|THE IDEA: HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF OLD IBM TYPE PC's and
|PRINTERS ARE BEING DISCARDED BY BUSINESS & INDUSTRY OVER THE
|NEXT COUPLE OF YEARS:
|
|   o This 'Old Iron' equipment can have great educational value IF information
|     about how to utilize it is made available.
|
|   o There is a unique opportunity to allow kids and teachers to take
|     these devices apart and learn about technology.
|
|   o Technical Professionals and Professional Educators need to work
|     together to capitalize on this opportunity.
|
|
|-----------------------------------------------------------------
|We MAY have some preliminary drawings available hardcopy, which are not yet
|in the published information, IF you are about to actually start a class.
|Get in touch.
|
|Comments and suggestions are welcome. E-mail: tking@together.net
|
|
|


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