The Internet basically offers us a virtually unlimited supply of reading material on just about any subject that you could imagine. As a rule, each of us chooses certain websites where we regularly visit, and certain writers that we enjoy reading.
One person whom I have read very regularly over the years is John C. Dvorak. I have been reading Dvorak since way before he was on the Web. He has been a regular columnist for PC Magazine for years now, and other magazines too. Dvorak is the kind of guy that people either love or hate, but few have no opinion about him, if they know who he is. I happen to enjoy his writing, and agree with a great deal of what he writes.
This morning, I was reading Dvorak’s latest column, which is entitled Build Computers in Schools! I found the article to be spot on, and a great idea! Basically, John is advocating that instead of school going out and purchasing a ton of new computers, the students should build their own computers. At first, it sounds a bit silly, but think about it. Remember back in the 70′s and before, schools offered a lot of trade type of programs like machine shop, auto shop, welding and such. These types of courses offered students who were unlikely to attend college an avenue that they could follow that would lead to working skills that would give them productive jobs.
Computer Motherboard
Well, why can’t schools today offer “computer shop” where kids would use surplus parts from old used computers to build new machines for their own use in school? They could buy new components too, or use old stuff. Maybe they can find surplus CD Rom drives, hard drives and such, but buy a new processor and mother board. John suggested that there could be metal shop classes who could manufacture the PC Cases. Art classes could take on part of the process too, by painting the PC’s with unique colors, designs and such. All kinds of different shop classes could do their own little thing to make the PC even better, or more stylish. It really sounds like a great idea.
It also helps teach the kids how computers work, what the components look like and how they function. If a student gets this kind of education, later in life if they want to upgrade their hard drive on their personal PC, they will know how to do it. There are so many things that the kids could learn!
Also, a lot of people complain about how the USA really doesn’t produce anything these days. It’s really true. But, if you get the schools back into offering things like metal shop, auto shop and such, this is the bases for getting manufacturing going again in the USA, something that is severely lacking in the country. Adding computer shop to the mix only updates the whole “trade education” into the 21st Century. How could this not be beneficial?
Anyway, for me, I believe this is a great idea, an idea that’s time has come! What do you think?
An excellent idea! It would also reduce the number of junk parts needing to be gotten rid of!
Hi AmericanLola – Yes! It seems like every aspect of the idea has a positive aspect. I think it would be a great thing in the Philippines too!
I agree! This will be great for high school electives.
When I was in high school back there at DCHS (now known as DCNHS), I took a couple of electives, I think it was called YDT- youth development training, which in a way sort of helped me through my professional career. One of the courses I took was journalism. At that time I didn’t think much of it, and I only wanted the class because it wasn’t so stressful. Journalism brought me to national competitions which won awards for myself and the school paper. This writing skill I used to write company-procedures and manuals not only in the Philippines, but also here in Canada.
Imagine the benefits if students were already building computers in school! This will surely help them in whatever chosen career they take.
Hi kzar – Thanks for stopping by and commenting! I think it would really be a great idea. Kind of updates the skills that kids would have into the 21st century! I don’t see any downsides either.
Very good idea Bob. Let me steal it from you.Hahah.
Seriously, this was the kind of thinking that got me hooked into electronics and computers even now that I’m an ortho surgeon by profession. I was building crystal radios and my own pecee from second hand stuff, mostly considered junk by my more affluent friends. It really fueled my interests but have to cut classes for that! Integrating it to school curriculum is the way to go i think.
My old pentium 3 and celeron 600 are still up and running now, although they consume more energy than my new ones hence i rarely use them. Museum use I guess.
Hi Doc Remo – Take the idea and run with it! I think it would be a great way to get more Pinoy Technicians out there, and make for a good way to earn a living for them too!
They have been doing this very thing for the past twenty years here in Montcalm County Michigan. Very good idea. A ham radio operator started it here. He had more junk parts than you could shake a stick at. Crazy stuff worked
That’s great to hear, Gary! I hope that they continue, and the program spreads to other districts!
This is really a great idea, A lot of schools now days don’t have the vocational type training they used to have years ago that gave a young person a feel for a trade to see if he had the aptitude needed.
Hi Richard – Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for your comment. Yeah, I like the idea that this would restart the vocational type courses, and also push a tech type education!
Great Idea ! Similar to Bonedoc’s comment, it was things like this that got me interested in Electronics when Vacuum Tubes were the mainstay. In those days the ” quality ” of Junk people tossed out was a lot better than what people toss out today. Back then just about everything was designed and manufactured to be ” serviceable ” and ” repairable ” to the component level. My parents could not afford to buy me many things that I would have liked to have in those days but I had some nice Radios, HiFi and then Stereo equipment and even one of the very early RCA Color TV’s ( ctc-1 chassis ) someone tossed out because the picture tube was getting a little weak although it served me well for a few years !
I’ll admit that I may have not been the most academic school student in my Jr. and High School years and I enrolled in a Trade Electronics course. We built our projects from the ground up including making our own chassis from sheet metal. Most of the parts were supplied by the school and many of them were either obtained from manufacturing surplus and some even from military surplus of which there was a lot of back then.
In many ways it is a different world today. So many things especially those made for the consumer market are designed, manufactured and sold for a price that they can be considered as throw away items.Here in the USA you just can not make a living or run a profitable business by repairing these things anymore. Thus the lack of jobs in the repair and service business that once flourished here. Maybe that also added to the demise of many trade school type courses. Remember all of those Electronics correspondence courses they used to have ?
You have raised a good point here Bob, bring it back in todays terms. Ok, maybe students actually making their own circuit boards in school and populating them with the appropriate component parts to make a PC motherboard is a bit much and I don’t think a hard drive could be made from scratch in a classroom either but there are so many junked PC’s around these days there might be a wealth of re-useable items to be had for nothing.
Additionally there are places that sell ” PC Kits ” featuring the latest components at a very reasonable cost. I think this would make a great foundation for school courses.
As I have mentioned elsewhere, I visited Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology on my visit to The Philippines and I was most impressed with many of the things I saw there that seem to be missing from the educational landscape here for a while. Real metal shops, Air Conditioning and Refridgeration shops, Electronics and yes they were even making their own circuit boards, and other similar courses along with all of the regular academic type courses. Needless to say I was very very impressed in seeing these things. Regardless of how savvy the world gets as far as the use of computers, electronics etc. have become, we still need technicians, engineers, practical trades people with ” Hands On ” training and experience.
Hi Bob NY – When I was a kid, one of my favorite hobbies was building electronic kits. I used to drool over the heathkit catalog! I don’t even know for sure if they are still in business, although I suspect they are not. I believe that kids are missing that kind of thing these days. What do they do now? Nothing but play video games, watch MTV and such… it’s not very constructive.
And lets not forget hanging out at the Internet Cafe’s at all hours of the day and night. Yes Bob I certainly do remember Heathkit but I just never had the patience to build a lot of that stuff. Eico was another one and many items could be bought for a lower price back then as a kit or a semi-kit. I believe Heathkit has been out for quite a while now. They had some kind of thing going on with Zenith selling items under the name Heath-Zenith, and I think after that it was the end.
When I got interested in RTTY ( radioteletype ) in the late 60′s, at that time you could not buy a manufactured ” Terminal Unit ” ( these days you would call it a ” Modem ” ) for less than $500 and yet there were thousands of surplus Teletype Machines you could get just for the taking. I built my first ” TU ” from scratch , all vacuum tube circuitry, and it was nearly all out of junk parts. The 2, tuned inductors were ” Width Coils ” scrapped out of junked TV’s LOL.
Unfortunately experiences like this will never happen with those growing up today although I believe some do build their own PC’s either in buying it as a kit or by the way we used to do things, build it out of someones elses discarded items.
One of these days I am going to visit MSU-IIT again. I am going to inquire about this topic and if it is something they have not thought of , I might just talk it up a bit. In fact, there was a private school I visited in Iligan last year that had a pile of ” obsolete ” PC’s stacked up in a storage room. The school official that was touring me around the place commented that they just did not know what to do about them because they are obsolete and they needed up to date equipemnt for the students to learn on. I did comment at that time ” Maybe you should get in touch with MSU-IIT , they would know what to do with them ! ”
You have given me something to look into next time I visit !
Hi Bob – I would be interested in hearing your results of your IIT visit. Please let me know.
I certainly will Bob
This is one nice idea that the education department should take a look into. I suggest that this be an elective subject. And considering that a lot of old still-working computers get dumped out every year, one good motivation would be to allow an interested student to study the innards of the computer, build it into one working whole, then give it to him as his own. Who knows, this system just might hook some future computer wizards who otherwise would have dropped out of school before college.
Hi James – Thanks for stopping by my site, and thank you for some nice contributions to the idea for building computers in schools. I think that this is a very workable, and “in demand” idea that should be acted upon!
On a recent visit to Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology ( MSU-IIT ) I brought up the subject we have been discussing in this article about students building their own computers. A situation like this exists at MSU-IIT although I am not sure if students are able to keep the PC’s as their own at this time due to the costs involved. In any event however, students enrolled in applicable courses are taught how to assemble a complete PC, from component sub-assemblies, and a lot more.
What really impressed me was when I was informed that additionally, students are trained in troubleshooting and Repair of motherboards. That really is a big plus. I believe here in the USA in most circumstances it is probably less costly ( from a pc repair shop point of view ) that unless a motherboard problem is obvious and easily repaired in a few minutes, it is less costly to the consumer just to have the motherboard replaced with a new one. I believe, due to the huge difference in labor cost, in The Philippines and possibly other countries as well, there exists a profitable market for repairing and restoration of PC Motherboards. Every application and use of a PC does not demand having the latest PC technology and features so a motherboard and processor of a few years ago or possibly even a decade old may still be useful for many things.
I was also impressed when I asked if anything was brought up to students about ” Vacuum Tube Technology ” ( that is the era I grew up in ) . I was informed that from a ” historical ” point of view, basic Vacuum Tube theroy is included in applicable courses.
The use of Analog Multimeters was also noted and I spotted a few versions of the famous ” Simpson 260 ” Multimeter in one of the equipment storage rooms. Naturally digital multimeters are the mainstay ( as it should be in this day and age ) but analog metering is still in high demand in many commercial and industrial applications today. I know this for a fact as during the 1990′s I worked for one of the worlds most popular manufacturers of Hi-Potential test equipment. Many customers such as utility companies and manufacturers requiring Hi-Potential test equipment still demanded analog metering.
When I viewed a circuit board undergoing assembly in one of the calssrooms at MSU-IIT I asked if the students are taught how to lay out and etch the foil side of a circuit board and the reply was yes.
I feel the acedemic courses at MSU-IIT speak for themselves and the proof is in the many awards and ratings achieved by this institution of higher education. When I was in school I was not the most ” acedemic ” type student myself so I’ll leave an evaluation of that to already published articles easily found elsewhere.
The offerings at MSU-IIT that deal with what I would call the commercial and industrial trade type of courses are what continue to attract my attention to MSU-IIT. These are things I know and have made my living from for my decades of employment in these and related fields. These items include such things as, Electronics, Automation, IT and Communications, and Air Conditioning and Refridgeration etc.
At the time of my recent visit, construction of a new building on the MSU-IIT campus now in its initial stages, and upon completion shall be known as ” The School of Computer Studies “.
It is no wonder that this University has achieved a rating as one in the top ten Universities in The Philippines. I take great pride in my association with it, which has developed over the past few years.
It is a shame that with the thousands ( and maybe more ) PC’s that get ” junked ” every year in many parts of the world, that some of them could be channeled to places like MSU-IIT where students could repair, refurbish, update and end up keeping them for themselves. Shipping them is what appears to make a program like this just not cost effective.
In a conversation with Chancellor Marcelo P. Salizar, I related to him my personal and short version description of MSU-IIT whcih is :
” MSU-IIT, It’s The Real Deal “
Hi Bob – I am really happy to hear that IIT is doing this. I think that US schools need to do this. As far as I know, they are not, or if any US schools are, it is only a very few of them. I believe that this would benefit the USA in a number of ways.
Thanks for your report, Bob.