University of Akron

I’ve made a few mentions about my nervousness about the tech camp I was going to be involved with.  It ended up coming out fabulously, and I had a great time.  I have a few teacher friends who read this blog, so I wanted to share with you some general ideas about what we covered, and I will be more than glad to share more info/details through email if any project catches your attention

The camp had 2 local companies come out every day, one in the morning, the second in the afternoon.  The kids learned a little, and then had a hands-on project for each.

Goodyear Tire Co.

Goodyear logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

They came and did two activities with the kids. The first was a programming exercise where the kids got to program something for android, which was really fun.  It was neat to see how it’s something that can be taken down to a high school level for learning! They also had a data analysis exercise, showing the kids how to take data and make it useful information.  I don’t think they had as much fun doing it, but they certainly learned a lot!

Westfield Group

Logo of the Westfield Group. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This was also a fun session.  The students did a forensic exercise, using tools I already use in the classroom, but with way better exercise samples (IMO). So I talked to the representative at the end and got the resource link from him because I think the examples he used were much more relatable for my students.  They also did an exercise on filling out an insurance policy, and seeing how different things (like good driver, multi-policy and deductibles) would alter their ultimate policy price.  They had no idea insurance was so expensive! PS – My group totally took first place in this

Timkin

This is a company I knew was local, and had heard about, but that’s about it. I had no idea what they did.  They had the students work together, on a project, but they had to do so without speaking at all. They had to use collaboration tools, just like you would if you were working with people in other countries/timezones, and couldn’t just pick up the phone to call! The students struggled a little, as it’s not something they are used to, but I think all in all – it was a good eye opener for them!

 J.M. Smucker

Smuckers sign (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jelly! that’s all I could think about I had NO idea there was so much history with the company.  The presenter had so much awesome information.  The project for the students was to write directions for making a PB&J sandwich.  The leader then went through the directions, exactly as they were, and made the sandwiches.   So if a group didn’t say to open the PB, and just to put it on the sandwich, that’s exactly what she did, put the container of it on the bread.  It was interesting to see how many steps really go into the process, and for the most part, the kids did OK. Some were better than others

Knotice

These guys were so energetic it was great! They had a fun project where the students used the Facebook API and put together a mobile app. It was a lot harder than I would have thought.  Haha. The campers did pretty well with it. By this point we were down to 5 kids in our group, so a little disadvantage to the other groups, but for our skill level, we did pretty well!

Revol Wireless

Brand logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Revol was a program I actually learned a lot in. Not so much the activity, but about the company. It’s interesting how little I seem to know about some of the local companies! Revol had the students basically pick a company from the options, and then design an app that met the qualifications. They just made a presentation on it, not actually design it.

NASA

The NASA insignia.(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This was a day long event.  The students loved it. They used lego mindstorms and created robots that they used for competition. This was out of my zone really. I didn’t know anything about these things, so I just offered cheerleader support and asked for help when we needed it. I had a stubborn group of boys who didn’t like to ask for help at all!  We came in second place here. The winning team was a group who had a teacher who had used the robots before, and a student who was a camper last year. They were so fast!!!

All in all, I had a great time and can’t believe I almost backed out of doing the camp. So silly! I love that these companies, all took time out of their schedule to not just come talk and show the campers something, but the planning that goes into it I’ms ure was time consuming.  The students really learned not just things about the computer end of it, but how important it is to understand the business world when you’re in IT so that you can really meet the business needs.

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