STEMNET Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Network

This has been enlightening. The same questions and issues have gone through my mind. With all your comments I am ready to go. Thanks again

Same as Dave - I've been busy with work and STEM activities so do not keep up to date with blogs. I just wanted to point out an alternative approach. If you do not see any requests for help then try the other way and go looking. Defending on the size of your company your HR or Communications dept may already have links with local schools. You can use these to contact the schools and make them aware of your skill set and availability. You can also contact the schools directly. I'm involved with two primary schools through work links where we supplied funding but no actual contact. I visited and spoke with a teacher contact at each school explained what we could do and they were only too delighted to set some activities up. I have also engaged with two primary schools local to where I live through my own kids PTA. A lot of schools appear to be unaware of STEMNET or at least have not made contact but when you go and speak to them they bite your hand off. I think you should start making links which could just be a careers visit and build from there. It's actually easier that way as the school and pupils start to get to know you and what you can do. When you talk with them you will probably be surprised with how the chat leads down routes were you can identify ways you can help them in a way that excites you as well as them. Don't give up as it is a great buzz and very rewarding.

I've only just seen this, so I apologise for re-starting the discussion long after the last comment. I have to say that I have some sympathy with Alan's point of view, as I work in High Performance Computing - another area of IT that few people are aware of, and fewer understand. Although I'm a sysadmin, most of my colleagues are domain scientists or software engineers, all working on scientific application codes for HPC.
I suspect the trick is to focus on the outcome or purpose of your work, not the work itself. For example, HPC supports pretty much every area of the physical sciences; economics and finance; engineering and product design; even the social sciences make use of HPC. So whatever an individual's area of interest, I should be able to demonstrate how HPC makes advances in that field possible.
My evidence for this comes from the one talk I have so far given, which was to a group of year 9 pupils, (I have other talks in the pipeline). I was nervous about that first talk, because I wasn't certain that HPC would be an appropriate subject. But my fellow STEM Ambassadors on that day included an astro-physicist, a nuclear engineer, and two cardiac nurses - all areas in which HPC is a key driver. I was therefore able to demonstrate how my subject supported the others.

I believe that new STEM Challenge 6: The Website Challenge is a really good opportunity for IT Ambassadors to become active! More about STEM Challenge is here: http://www.stemchallenges.net/challenges/challenge-6
Your local stempoint contract holders will probably promote this competition to local schools, like we do in Tyne and Wear. IT experts will be needed to help students develop their IT/web ideas and then to judge their final presentations.
Deadline for registrations for schools is 20th April 2011.
Good luck!
Anna

@Administrator, thanks for the pointer to the Derbyshire contract holder, I'll get in touch with them directly.

Please be aware that not all requests for STEM Ambassadors are displayed in the ‘Requests for STEM Ambassadors’ area of STEMNetworking. STEMNetworking has only been live since June 2010 so whilst we encourage teachers to make their requests online, many of them may still contact the local STEM Ambassadors Contract Holder for their area directly and not via STEMNetworking. There are lots of STEM related activities taking place in the Derbyshire area and if you would like to find out more about these then you can contact the local STEM Ambassadors Contract Holder for Derbyshire directly, their full contact details can be found at: http://networking.stemnet.org.uk/users/79838.

Thanks for starting this interesting discussion. We’ve been working hard to address the current shortage of IT and Technology based volunteering opportunities for Ambassadors. We recognise this is a very important area of STEM so we have been working with e-skills UK and BT to support them in setting up the IT Ambassadors scheme which has a focus on IT and Technology based activities for STEM Ambassadors. Full details of this can be seen in the UK-wide STEM Ambassadors newsletter that went out yesterday to over 25,000 STEM Ambassadors (see features 4 and 5 in the newsletter).

@Michael, I agree entirely that software is difficult to talk about because it's hard to illustrate in an engaging way, and it sounds like my kids have had the same experience of ICT as yours. As an operating systems engineer there's no easy way to put across to what I do because it's almost completely invisible.

The increasingly popular area of Physical Computing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_computing) might be one way of helping engage kids, because there's a clear link between software and the physical world - see for example this drumming machine made by a friend of mine using a microcontroller board, solenoids salvaged from a broken printer and, of course, some software that he wrote - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Sc3SsdRcNk. I think the combination of taking apart old stuff to see how it works, recycling and things that move, flash and/or make a noise might well provide the hook that's needed to engage kids' interest.

I understand your point of view - though I don't think that giving up is the right course of action. By training I am a physicist and astronomer, now working in nuclear power. However, I am also a CITP and CEng because a lot of my work is in safety-related software engineering. I find opportunities to talk about energy-related issues (this is part of the national curriculum), and even about using maths in my job, but so far it is difficult to see how I can make my software work accessible to the students. From what I have seen of my kid's ICT stuff, it looks pretty unchallenging and uninspiring, certainly for the brighter students, and it has definitely turned mine off ICT. (I heard from a professor of sofware engineering recently bemoaning that it was now possible to go all the way through to a degree in IT at his university, never having done ANY programming at all.) Nevertheless, that just means that it is more important to show the kids that there is a huge range of possibilities in computing related careers. I suspect part of the problem is a lack of appreciation of what is possible on both sides. Perhaps the may be opportunities to propose or support extension projects - such as building Web sites for local charities short on cash, resources and expertise.

I'm happy to help out and/or talk to anyone who is interested in doing something IT-related, but as I said there seem to be very few opportunities in the IT area. I'm specifically interested in raising awareness of the fact that IT doesn't just equal PCs, word processing and websites. I'm a operating systems engineer myself and there lots of 'traditional engineering' companies who are dependent on IT for their products - think aerospace, industrial process control and automotive for example. There are a number of existing 'technology outreach' groups in the area, for example http://www.fablabmanchester.org/. http://madlab.org.uk/ and http://hacman.org.uk/, perhaps the STEMNET organisers should get in touch with them to see if there's scope for joint projects?

I should also have mentioned that we have a request for an ambassador to visit a college in Warrington (not far from Greater Manchester) during Science week in Mar next year

- Computing are interested in talks from people working in the IT industry, especially if they work with computer applications, back procedures, different types of operating systems and batch processing.

If you would be interested in helping with this we would be happy to put you in touch

Sorry you feel that way and maybe in the next Ambassador Newsletter you will feel that STEMNET are doing something to address your fears by working with the IT industry to help set up the IT ambassador scheme to provide a connection with the IT industry and education to provide role models to young people and encourage them into the IT industry. The scheme will be run by e-skills and more details are in the next Ambassador newsletter.

As to your comment about not having the opportunity to involve with schools in a meaningful way I would say any exposiure to people with the skills and knowledge you have would be beneficial to students. At a mock interview there is always the opportunity to talk to students and staff about what is happening in your field.

I am sure you are a very busy person but perhaps you could put together a presentation on your career that would engage young people and make them aware of the opportunities in your industry and then offer this to your local STEM office and then they can pass on this information to schools and they can then see the benefits of requesting you to visit their school. Schools need encouragement and if they know what you can offer then watch the requests for your services increase!