Help/advice for kid that is very gifted with computers /tech please :)

[doley]

I need a bit of help :)

Our son (12 ) is very capable around computers (VERY) this is not a brag ~in fact because of his ability in this subject ALL his other grades are quite bad !

Anyway ,to give you a couple of examples :he has been changing hard-disks since he was 9 and is now teaching himself to script information .
This all comes too easily ,and has made him lazy in other subjects at school -something we are finding almost impossible to rectify .

We are aware however ,that computers are the way to go and that he will probably make an excellent living... at some point[humm]

We are (at the mo) in the US ,but come October he will be entering YR8 in the UK ...with a kind of "if you can't beat them " mentality what should we push that he learns in the UK (computer related ) he is totally unchallenged here in the US .
The teacher here suggested he made birthday cards on the computer ,when he wanted to talk about servers lol !

This is an all consuming topic in our home ,I don't want his lazy side to win over ...BUT I don't want his spark to go out :)

Any advice for careers we should 'help/guide' him towards ,what other subjects would also need to be strong for those careers to succeed ?

BTW,he is perfectly capable of achieving better grades ,and he is sociable and happy within his peer group so I am not worried that he can ONLY comunicate this way ~it is just his preference .

Thank you for reading all this ramble ,I am from a totally different background and I am a little bit lost :)

[scurryfunge]

I would try to find a specialist technology school for him.

Do you know what area you will be locating to?

[doley]

Yes,scurryfunge we will be in Dorset ~Thanks .

Am I wrong in assuming that most typical Secondary schools have a good technology dep ?
Would he only get the correct stimulation/education from a specialist school ?

The high school in this town really only teaches them how to log on to the internet lol !

[scurryfunge]

I think most state secondary schools will have good access to technology but a specialist school will place cross curricular emphasis on technology.

here

or here


No idea what these schools are like but they seems to specialise on technology.

[Snorbs]

Sounds like me when I was 12...

The best thing for him to do is to learn how to program. Nothing teaches you more about computers than by programming them. If you're using Windows then he can get Microsoft Visual Studio Express for free from here. It contains Visual Basic, Visual C# and Visual C++ programming languages. Maybe start with Visual Basic as it's the one that's quickest to pick up although C# is worth a look. You can get books to help you learn and there are online courses too.

Alternatively, download Python and VPython and learn those. If you're using Windows then the Python Windows extensions are useful. Python is a very easy to pick-up language but that is also very well designed so the principles you learn with it are easily transferable to other languages. VPython is an add-on for Python that does 3D graphics very easily and is a lot of fun to play around with. PyGame is worth a look as well as it's an add-on for Python that makes creating games easier.

The subjects that will be most useful are computer studies (obviously) and maths. If there is a statistics course then that would also be handy. It's really only in university that there is much choice though. And, even then, I met an awful lot of people in the IT industry who didn't have much in the way of obvious IT-based academic qualifications. A lot had degrees, sure, but not necessarily in IT itself. There are a huge variety of careers in IT covering an enormous range of options and they are often well paid so if the interest is there I'd say it's well worth pursuing. I got a good career out of IT for many years.

[scurryfunge]

You may even find a private school that offers scholarships in IT (someone will be able to tell you if these exist or not)

[roisin]

tbh I wouldn't expect a school to do much to challenge this area for him. But if he enjoys tinkering with computers, he'll almost certainly learn things at home/in his free time, through experimentation. The son of a friend of mine was "headhunted" at 16 by a company wanting him to work for them instead of going to sixth form.

ICT in schools is a bit of a waste of time IMO.

[doley]

scurryfungeThanks so much for your advise ,I will check those links later too :)

snorbs that is fantastic info you gave ,I will show him later ~his main passion are Macs ...he started bidding on old models (on ebay,with saved pocket money) when he was 10, he would install/upgrade operating systems and then post the vids on youtube lol :)

I wish he was less lazy these days though ...

roisin I would be quite happy if that happened to him too:) school is not his happiest place !

[mummytime]

Do point out to him that what IT companies are looking for is good grades in Maths, and subjects like Physics.
Look for a good IT department/teachers as the exams might be a bit undemanding for him (although they do teach business type skills).
BTW microsoft does some online course which look quite interesting, my son is thinking of moving on to C sharp at the recommendation of his teacher.

[snorkie]

ICT is probably not a subject that will greatly interest him (mostly how to operate office applications), but computing might be. It's currently available as an A level, but a GCSE is being piloted. The A level covers some programming and how computers work - he may find it a bit easy by the time he gets to that age. Something you could look into is doing some Open University computing modules, which some children do at school. They do say minimum age is 16, but younger children do do them with the right consents. Sometimes a school will pay, but in this age of cutbacks probably less likely and the courses can be expensive.

[hogsback]

What snorbs says. If he is into Macs he should probably take a look at learning Objective C, the language that most mac and all iPhone/iPad apps are written in.

He should also buy or build a cheap pc and install Linux on it. This will give him access to a very rich development environment. He also should look at the Open source online community and become involved in it.

For what it's worth, I employ 25 year-olds without degrees on salaries of £50k+. They all come from the uber-geek background you describe.

[doley]

hogsbackyes,he has done that :)he has a lap-top in his room :( ~another thread lol !Thank you ! Can I ask what field you are in ?

snorkie Thank you ...that is really helpful ,I will show/tell him :)

mummytimeThank you for your perspective ,sounds like you have a similar son :)

I am very happy I asked this today ...you have all been such great sources of info ...

[hogsback]

doley I run the UK consultancy arm of a large US software company.

[Snorbs]

hogsback, I must admit I don't know a lot about the development options on OSX but are there any easier paths into Mac programming than learning Objective C from the start? I'd imagine that programming at that level would require a pretty steep learning curve before you got so much as "Hello world!" up and running.

I've heard that Python is included with OSX but it doesn't come with much of an IDE as standard and I'm not sure how well its default GUI stuff will fit in with OSX anyway.

I suppose what I'm really asking is "Is there any kind of equivalent to Visual Basic for the Mac?" You know, something where you can throw together a basic application without having to learn too much about header files and prototyping right from the off.

[hogsback]

snorbs You're right, objective C is not great as a first language. Python comes bundled with osx and has all the extensions to call osx events etc so is very well integrated. There is a big mac python community.

My first languages were Forth and Z80 assembler on a ZX spectrum aged 11 :)

[nlondondad]

mac os x is basically UNIX overlaid with the graphic User Interface, so what he has learnt by doing an install of Linux ought to be transferable.

But I agree about python

[Snorbs]

Cool. I tried learning Z80 assembler on a ZX81 but I didn't know hex at the time - I was only 12 - so I got lost very quickly.

I suppose another option is to go down the Java route. I'm sure you must be able to get cross-platform GUI builders for Java.

[nlondondad]

Does anyone need to learn assembler these days? Other than a software engineer working at chip level? I tried learning IBM 360 assembler once. I knew Hex -I was only 19.....

Not, on the whole, a useful experience.

I use a Mac now....

[Bunbaker]

Please can you send him round to me.

[hogsback]

nlondondad - quote from one of my consultants the other day: "oh, turns out that issue with performance at XXXX hedge fund was a compiler bug, I've filed the bug and given them a workaround with some inline assembler"

[Snorbs]

There was a story recently about how high-frequency trading - where equities etc are being traded on margins that only exist for fractions of a second, often due to latency between different stock exchanges - has reached the point where they're building custom-programmed FPGAs on PCI-E cards to make trading decisions fast enough to get an edge. I bet assembler is being used on those things.

[Ruralgeek]

For learning Java on a Mac your son could download Greenfoot from www.greenfoot.org

My 11-year old asks me to show him how to do things like write iPhone apps - I tell him that he needs to work on his maths first before he'll have the understanding of logic to write these apps. My first big program was written on an Amstrad 1512 in Basic peeking and poking the screen to write a squash court program at the age of 14. That required quite a lot of trigonometry.

[harvalp]

Computers HAVE been the way to go for 30 years or so. But third world countries have latched on and are now undercutting UK staff to a major extent. I would not make the assumption that they will be the latest coming thing for the next 30 years too...
And when he gets to University age, don't let him take a comp. sci. degree, a reputable science degree is much more sensible and versatile.