Systems and Service: The First Day

The first day of camp started out with Kiki and Maddie coming in early -- which lead to AJ and Cristina kicking them out to create what the students call, "a setup," where the students must figure out their first test: turn the computer power on.

"Are these computers working?" were the first words that filled the room when the students sat down. After a few chatters about the computer's inability to turn on, a loud "EVERYTHING is unplugged!" flew from Jamarra's mouth.

After discovering this, the students all helped each other whether it was physically helping Maddie with her problem (the powerstrip was turned off so she had more work than anyone else!) or verbally advising Krystal.

As Cristina lead the first discussion on, the students realized that even though plugging everything in wasn't AT ALL difficult, finding the problem was harder than they thought (they all just sat there wondering what was wrong with the computer).

AJ's next question about systems and services "opened their minds" about technology and the service that can come from their computers. They verbally brainstormed the different services that a computer can do for them and their community. AJ went down the rows asking each student. Then shared two comic strips about today's technology.

AJ's next joke (shown below) striked up crickets in the audience... until the short Matrix clip was showed -- I think they got it then! He IS the one ;)

Silence swept the room as AJ played his "Radiolab: Making Radio Lab" and continued as the "Fish Love" video played on for a couple of minutes. The discussions which followed applied the two video/audio to computers.

Each of the student pairs went up to the front of the class and introduced themselves and explained the relation between the video/audio and computers.

AJ wanted the students to all be like Neo, but someone stated, "I want to be like Miguel (who was the farmer who had a self purifying ecosystem)."

To overview the systems, AJ had everyone come up with some sort of system. His examples included pushing the shutter button on the remote and having the projector's shutter on and off and water which enters the body and leaves as urine. Somewhere along the line, AJ mentioned getting energy by drinking and a few moments later, Jose says, "Water has no calories... (therefore you can't get energy!)"

Some of the examples that the students came up with included cars, doors, facebook, the passing of a bill, bodily functions, jumping into water, and basically EVERYTHING!

-- During break, Maddie and Jamarra called the help desk to find out what their passwords were. Jamarra had called and was transferred about three or four times. When she finally talked to someone who knew about ITA, she said, "You know what you're doing because other people were just transferring me around." It turns out... she was talking to Marquis Stern, a 2009 ITA graduate! When AJ heard the name, he darted to the front of the room (from the door) and asked to talk to Marquis. The problem was solved and the two had their passwords reseted. --

After break, AJ jumped right into clarifying systems and lead to a preview of the workings of the computer... the motherboard, RAM, etc.

Next, AJ discusses binary, or takes "A Trip Down Binary Ln." which is "just like math class!" says a voice in the audience. After a short explanation and example, the students succeeded in converting their first binary number, 1001, to a decimal number, 9!

The class takes a new turns towards hardware and software. After running through the hardware, AJ informs the students that when they bring in their hard drive, they can update to Windows 7! He then quickly recalls a story about Maddie getting mad when he took out her hard drive during Freshmen Orientation. Though Maddie denies ever getting mad, AJ stands firm on his recollection!

The software discussion leads to viruses... and takes a jump to the history of viruses (which will be covered in exactly 7 days...)!

After introducing operating systems, AJ concludes his portion of the day with "Tough Concluding Questions" and informs the students on their PLC dates and expectations.

Eliza starts her portion of the day immediately with... hardware! She introduces what is "Inside Your Computer!" with an illustration of exactly that (what is inside our computers [from the motherboard to the power supply]).

Next, Eliza briefly runs through each of the hardware parts and what they do. One question which stumped everyone was, "What does PCI stand for?" After AJ quickly Googled it, he announced that it stood for, "Peripheral Component Interconnect!"

Soon after the Googling, the students took a 10 minute break.

When they came back, the students began their task of deciphering a Newegg page and comparing different computer parts based on their specs. They are to identify each component and decide where they go. Then to compare and evaluate which component is better and explain why. The students jumped into their assignment and started sorting which component is better than the other! They then filled the red lines on the image above.

Eliza lead the class comparison and answered questions which the students had. 4:00PM, the time to leave came quite fast... and the students all tidied their space and flooded the hall.