sp0n9e

Hey, i'm a high school senior who is basically the school's "sub-admin" (you may know what I'm talking about). I just want to get some feedback from some other students that run school computers. I'm a barely feet-wet programmer and have been for 1 1/2 years (summer and holidays are my learning periods), but my real strength is hardware. I find that some of the teachers don't trust me very much because I know more than they do. Others welcome me. I just want some feedback. Anyway here are some of the questions you may want to vent about.

Do you ever get accused of screwing too much with the school computers? Do your teachers trust you? What grades do you make? How often are you called out of class to fix a computer? Does your knowledge of computers make you suspect to anything?

excaliber

Heh...my nickname at school is the Hacker (due to a previous bad expierence with getting accused of doing some damage to school network, which i was later found not guilty for). People ask me how to fix things, and teachers come to me about how the program/hardware should work.

Im rather close to the top of "suspects" when it comes to comptuter related school "crimes"

oh well...

orufet

I work as a Student Tech at my school...I get mostly As and Bs, I get called out of class maybe once or twice a week to help fix something and I often come by duing a spare block or after school. Some teachers don't trust me, some do.

Computer_Guy

I'm ALWAYS getting accused for stuff on the school computers, and my nickname is Hacker, too (I guess I must really know too much about computers, having my own e-mail address and everything(Not half of my school has e-mail or knows how to use Internet Explorer at all)). All of my teachers trust me though, it's the students who think I'm always out to destroy my school's computers. If someone calls you "Hacker" and you're not guilty of anything, just say "prove it" and walk away, that's what I do.
Ed

ChiefRedBull

The term "Hacker" used to command a lot of respect.. Hollywood
and bad press have ruined a term that was used for persons of
great technical knowledge and expertise. If someone calls you a
hacker (unless they're wearing an FBI uniform), just
say, "Thanks".

Oh, and I taught my computing teacher at college. People would
walk around his desk to come and ask me questions, because he
knew nothing. How do people like that get jobs teaching!?

excaliber

What i hate, at school at least, is that most people refer to hacker in the bad sense (black-hat hackers). I usually tell them that hackers (white-hat) make more money than they could ever imagine, working for microsoft.

They get all confused and i wander off, leaving them to contemplate.

I had a "tech" teacher that had to ask me what a virus was, and if it was bad. I successfuly identified that he indeed did have a virus on his home comp, the klez...like you i wonder how he got his job.

o, and people are amazed i have my own email address too (zach@tong-web.com), and that i *gasp* done use aol to connect to the internet (they were CONVINCED that you had to use either AOL or Roadrunner to connect to the net...)

sp0n9e

Yeah, finding good comp. teachers is hard. I think the IT industry would do themselves a favor by having a PR representative that knows about computers teach a class at school, giving the top students an internship or something. Also, the school usually buys the worst books for computers. I took "computer architecture" (i had already built 2 comp. and fixed about 50 for people) and the teacher refused to listen to me. I found a total of 25 errors in the first 4 chapters (the only ones we actually went through). One of the errors was especially bad, they said you put the white wires together for an AT type power supply. Plugging in the 2 wire blocks incorrectly can be especially hazardous to the mo/bo. My teacher, of course, thought the book was right. PS: There is only 1 white wire out of the 2 blocks that an AT PS has.

dragnut

You can be a teacher (in alot of places) if you have a masters degree. This degree could be under-water basket weaving, Surfing, whatever.
Shawn

JimCamel

Sounds like my high school electronics teacher. He'd always have to get me to help him. I never did any work for that class, but yet I still got top mark and a prize at prizegiving for it. Don't even get me started on our Computer Tech's. I got my account suspended when I was a started high school for finding exploits in the system, and after I got my account restored, I don't think I ever used the computers again. And when I won a VB programming competition which I entered through school, they decided to take the prize (a networking switch), and so I argued with the head technician and eventually he gave me a free Hub and cash to make up the difference. Nice

BurningGundam

Yep. I'm a Senior now. I had C++ my sophomore year, VB for the second semester, and took HTML my Junior year. My Junior year, I scouted(like a student/teacher) C++ and HTML. The teacher of my class was really cool, but he would always have me check the computers, fix any hardware, help everyone, fix the printers(they were always breaking down).

He did ask me if I wanted to be a part of the Computer Techs. The school did hire some, but they didn't know much and cost a lot of money. But since the school had atleast 1 computer in every room (excluding the library and computer labs), I had to decline. That would be too much on my schedule.

excaliber

I'm looking into getting a job for my school as a kid tech as well. We just built a new high school (3 stories high with 4 wings...its massive!) and they have anywhere from 10-30 computers in each room, with tech labs in each wing. And no one knows how to work them!

Sad thing is, the school has the weirdest things disabled. You can, for example, access the system32 folder and do whatever you want in there, but cant drag icons on the desktop.

My friend to see how strong the security was on the rest of the network. Its all wireless in this school (well, kinda. all the comps in one room are networked together with ethernet, and one has a wireless to talk to the rest of the network), so he set his laptop with a pringles can-antenna and "sniffed" the network. He said when he got home he found at least 15 crucial entry points not protected, and countless more vulnerabilities.

Have no fear, he did not hack the school, but instead told the head tech guy (who hates me by the way, she had some issues wit my brother, so doesnt like our family), and tehy fixed it up.

slayne2

I proudly wear the title of Hacker. (white hat, of course *w*)

Bucky

While we're on the subject of high-school programming, teachers
and students alike should check out MainFunction, a fairly new
thing by Microsoft dealing with the subject.

http://www.mainfunction.com/

chris00

When I was at the Middle School (Junior High) I was a 'computer techy' (thats what the guidance counsolor called it). I loved it I used to get out of class or study hall atlease twice a week to setup and fix stuff. Now in high school the computer teacher doesn't trust me yet as much with computers (hes only known me for a half a year). He is startring to ask me stuff now (He's coming around by the end of the year it will be 'Oh, Chris knows about this, ask him'). Next year when I get to take an intro to VB type of class (I'm taking it for the easy A), then I will get my unpaid tech support job back.

Banjo

Oh how I long for the days when I could do unpaid jobs.

Gamer X

They need to work on their polling script, I was able to singlehandedly raise the PC's popularity ten percentage points . . . just to see if it could be done, of course.

I'm the only tech supporter and computer whiz at my school (I'm Homeschooled )

Arigato,
Gamer X

Mr_Taneth

My software design teacher, as well as the rest of my class (only 5 other students) know absolutely nothing about programming. I always find them asking me questions about how to do this and that. Also the other day we had to present this project we were working on and I had to go second second. Needless to say no one wanted to go after me and my teacher said to the rest of the class that mine was well above her expectations.

Garmour

Enjoy it while it lasts, kids.

Once you get into the big bad world of employment, you have to share the glory with all the other 'experts' in your department (unless you stay in small, low tech companies like me. Then you're always the expert )

Nadrew

My school always came to me to work on their computers. I'm mainly into working on the computers themselves because I'm really good with electronics, but I also know a decent bit about programs, and how to get around in Windows and a little of Linux (not much, but I hope to learn more soon). I never got the term "hacker", but I was the "computer guy"...boy how the girls liked me! </sarcasm>

Lexdysic

My school has a pretty cool way of going about computer classes. We actually have a tech support class you can take to do what most of you are talking about. Also our top level programming class (called 'Projects') is very cool, basically you pick something you want to do for a semester and teach youself that, no teacher involved in the teaching at all. You can pretty much choose anything related in someway to programming. My computer teachers know that the students usually know alot of stuff they dont, so if people need help they can send the best person for the job. Like Im the VB Expert at my school, so if anyone wants to know anything about it they come to me, same thing with C++ and HTML ect. with other people. So our school is very student oriented in the computer department (which is very cool).