Computer TA work ideas

August 1, 2007 10:50 AM

As the IT guy in a high school (180 students), I'm thinking of taking on one or two "TAs" to work with the computers. For the IT people out there, what would you have students do (or would you allow it)? From the students' perspective, I'm also looking for ideas & projects they might find interesting and beneficial towards a future in IT.

The two kids are really smart and I have little doubt of their ability to learn the network and computers. If anything, they might learn how things work a little too well, and I obviously want to avoid giving too many privileges.

Beyond the day-today stuff (computer won't turn on, printer fails, etc), I don't really know where to begin.

posted by jmd82 to computers & internet (14 comments total)

I did this very job. I used my minions to diagnose/fix computer problems. They learned how to disassemble/reassemble machines and build from scratch. I had them make ethernet cables. I taught them how to do OS restores. I taught them how to install and run FreeBSD/Linux boxes. One student I taught how to build circuits and we built a front panel controller for an mp3 playing FreeBSD box, including soldering and wiring. One I gave free reign on the school web site. One year I taught minions Java.

I never gave them root access to anything owned by the school.
posted by plinth at 10:56 AM on August 1, 2007

I'd just like to say, good on you for doing this. My HS IT people were complete goons, and they incurred a lot of crap from us because of it. If they had made any effort to put us to constructive work we would have done so gladly. Instead we were programming the printers to say "INSERT COIN" and setting up proxies to bypass the BESS filters.
posted by phrontist at 11:10 AM on August 1, 2007

Well, in my experience, you use them to do drudgery that you would normally use Perl scripts to do, but I don't recommend that.
posted by smackfu at 12:02 PM on August 1, 2007

Two thoughts:

1. Encourage them to help find ways to harden your systems/networks further.

2. Encourage them to help find places where your security & IT management policies & implementation block or hinder activities that don't actually need to be blocked.

Also, consider what privileges you really need to hold back from them. Optimistically, teenagers can respond very well to being trusted and given responsibility. Cynically, if you withhold privileges, they might try to get away with something because they think that even if it is discovered, it can't be traced back to them. If you give them privileges then they know they can be blamed for any abuse or breach.
posted by Good Brain at 12:12 PM on August 1, 2007

Help them get some Cisco certification. That's a marketable skill that will last them a while.

Seconding the patch cable making.

Have them learn some SQL

Have them learn ping, traceroute, command-line ftp, nslookup, etc.

Have them tied into a ticketing system for support requests.

If they're into coding, teach them how version control works.

If they're into embedded projects, go check out Bre Pettis and his MAKE Magazine video podcast. They have a bunch of projects (like a recent one about homebrew GPS) that might be cool.
posted by Wild_Eep at 12:33 PM on August 1, 2007

I was a TA when I was a senior in high school. I worked for the director of the computer department. She knew nothing, so she gave admin access to people and they abused it. I never did anything malicious, I was just trying to get my credits (and start my day with a nice nap ;) )

I mainly had the duties of troubleshooting systems, getting clients on the netware fileserver and the other people I worked with threw together a news program on a really toned down Avid box.

If I had an instructor who could actually guide me, I would have been interested in learning about networks and the hardware that goes into it.

I remember going into the server closet a couple of times... absolutely horrid. Upwards of 100 degrees F, shit stacked all over the place, no space for anything, let alone air flow.

It was miraculous the servers ran at all. But I've found netware was pretty resilient to anything you throw at it.
posted by ijoyner at 1:38 PM on August 1, 2007

Make them learn perl. They'll hate you, then love you, then hate you.

Don't have them do much with security, just because even if they're generally competant and mean well, they'll screw up eventually, and security is taken a bit more seriously than some lost data that can be restored. That stuff's for later.

Work on systems maintenance, scripting simple utilities, etc. Teach them about different backup/restore systems, make them do the full cycle for whatever you use a couple times. Teaching them about disk quotas and diskspace management, basic user management, network management, etc will be very worthwhile.

Seconding version control. Teach them CVS (go for lowest common denominator - teaching them SVN/perforce/etc would be cool, but realistically, they'll be interacting with CVS the most). Teach them Visual Source Safe if you have it. Teach them why it sucks on WANs.

Let them choose, to some extent, what they learn and work on. They'll probably have some fairly specific interests (if they're true geeks, anyway), and if you don't let them do anything related to that, it might be a bit discouraging.

A highschool teacher like you is what prompted me to go further into *nix and programming. You're doing a good thing.
posted by devilsbrigade at 1:49 PM on August 1, 2007

Glad to see I'm not the only one that has fond memories of NetWare. Screw the users, that thing was gold to manage.
posted by devilsbrigade at 1:50 PM on August 1, 2007

Thanks for the suggestions so far. Lots of good, specific ideas so far!

I'm particularly fond of the programming idea, as it's something that can always be utilized in any computer field. Plus, we have no programming classes in the system.
They're also having fun with some Ububtu boxes I set up in the lab we'll work on. They scare the hell outa' most the students, but that's part of the fun.

Based on the answers, I'll probably grant some extra privileges so they can learn on their own. At least I'll know who to blame if anything happens :)
posted by jmd82 at 3:12 PM on August 1, 2007

I was one of those "IT students" when I was in high school. I quickly made it clear I was capable and always ended up helping out teachers, often in the middle of classes. That turned into helping with computer moves and installs over the summers and after hours once they knew I could be trusted.

To this day (5 yrs later) I do their website and consult on various IT projects.

As for your situation, I would foster their desire to learn by showing them some things that would make your job easier. As others have said though, don't give them too much in the way of permissions. I had full admin rights...but until you know you can truly trust them, keep them as simple users and make sure you can log their access to review if things go wrong.

I second (or third) the suggestion of assisting them with gaining certifications. Maybe there is one you need to learn and can study alongside them. Depending on the school's budget, you may not be able to pay for their exams, but if you can provide them with any sort of hands on training, they will have a great start before college and an eventual career.
posted by criticman at 4:12 PM on August 1, 2007

I did this sort of thing in highschool. My highschool was more than 10X as large as yours, so the admin basically had to have a group of students to help for him to keep up with everything. Given that this was more than 10 years ago, we mostly did simple software/hardware installs, windows troubleshooting, and dicking around with linux. That was enough for me to have a part time job throughout college hardware troubleshooting student computers. I think everyone I knew involved in that group has gone on to work in the IT industry in some form or another.
So, even just having them help out with the more mundane aspects of your job and giving them a system to play around with in their spare time can be useful. And I hope that if you see any young women nosing around you encourage them to join in the fun.
posted by ch1x0r at 5:30 PM on August 1, 2007

Have them (re)install and configure operating systems, except for the access rights.

Have them look for pirated software and security exploits and spyware and viruses.

Have them (re)wire the network, and (re)solder broken wires (where practical.)

Have them audit the systems to make sure application software is up to date, and virus signatures are current.

Have them set up a separate, isolated network on unusual hardware/OSes as a learning experience.
posted by davejay at 5:50 PM on August 1, 2007

I did this in HS ten years ago. We spent most of our days dicking around in the lab because nobody had a real lesson plan or direction for the course, and we were happy to just build Covox-clone parallel-port DACs for the soundless PCs there.

We spent a fair amount of time fixing printer jams and then deleting the 150 documents that people had piled into the queue while the printer was down. Printer admin was as far as our rights went on the real network.

We had a test network, with a handful of stations and a spare Netware server, but we never did anything substantial with it. Tested a few NLMs before the boss took them live on the real network, but that's it.

The most fun we had was after installing Carbon Copy (think VNC for DOS) on all the PCs, and then messing with people remotely. We could've used it for remote support but nobody thought to publicize the capability.

Set real goals. Ask the kids what they want to learn, and involve them in creating a plan to actually learn it. I'd suggest topics like disaster recovery and data backup. They're easy to study in such an environment, might lead to a useful "give us money" presentation before the 'crats, and are relatively rare but relevant skills in the job market.
posted by Myself at 2:28 PM on August 2, 2007

The local high school hires students to format and upload content to its website. Before the town purchased a CMS, students would tutor teachers in web design. Very boring.

I have one recommendation-- lock everything down. Tight. You won't believe what they're capable of learning under pressure. If want help from them, well, the above posts sound good.
posted by nilihm at 5:39 PM on August 2, 2007