First Day of Computer Services Camp (or, as AJ would say . . . OOOO DaNG!)

The Juniors straggled in from their first morning of their internships to find . . . . EVERY COMPUTER IN THE LAB WAS UNPLUGGED! Lejia, our intrepid intern, had come in before the session to unplug the computers . What was the purpose of this activity? One student (whose name I do not yet know, but I promise to learn very, very soon) was quick to realize that it was part of the lesson plan: Students had to solve the mystery of what was wrong with the computer. AJ asked the students HOW they thought about solving the problem. Did they think "First I'm going to make sure that there is power, then I am going to make sure there is an internet connection" or did they just grab a cord and look to see where it fit and plug it in? One student pointed out that the cords were also color coded.

The next part of the lesson was about "What is a system?"
AJ showed a video called "Fish Love" to get the students thinking about how the ecology is a system, how food is a system, and how systems relate to computers as a whole.

AJ then moved in to discussing how computers work in a very basic manner, describing that they all need power to transfer data and that therefore computers also have lots of fast-moving, heat-generating parts. This lead to the first discussion of troubleshooting methods and techniques for isolating problems with a computer.

Eliza took over after break. She let AJ become "Ed McMan" for the hours to follow, sitting in the fun desk at the back of the classroom. This happens to be the first time Eliza has worked with the class of 2012! She had them all write their names on the placards, which belong to PTE, but that we'll use just this one time, so that she can learn the students' names.

After giving a small introduction, Eliza jumped to a brief overview of the actual parts of a computer system.

"This is the motherboard, it connects all the parts and data. You can call it the Mama!"
North bridge, south bridge, Random Access Memory, etc...

It's LIVE BLOG TIME:
2:13PM
ELIZA: And when you save a file, where does it go?
STUDENTS: The Hard Drive.

2:15 to 2:24PM
We messed a around a lot with files and saving PPTs in the right spot.

AJ THOUGHTS: Students seem to not do so well creating their own folders and understanding the network. Also, we were confusing. By this time in ITA, we need to do a better job of having the students independently create folders in the network so that they are comfortable with their own file organization.

2:28
NOTE: Core 2 is like generation 2... DUO or QUAD refers to the number of cores in the processor.
NOTE: A slash in the specifications means there is an option! (Core 2 Quad / Core 2 Extreme / Core 2 Duo)