A couple of weeks ago I went to meet with my son’s class to talk about “Circuits, Switches, and Everyday Communications”. Here is the presentation if you’re interested. What a great time I had watching them LEARN about our topic.
Now remember, these are 9-10 year olds, so their understanding of communications and telephony is nothing like ours. We get most of it and understand how we got to these points in technology but they don’t fully know. They don’t know what internet dial up was, or what Crocket held to his ear, and most importantly what is in front of them.
What they do know is the DSL or higher internet experience, cell phone availability, wireless internet connectivity, and even Facebook. Yeah, one of them mentioned it as a form of communication which is what Jeff Pulver is arguing is a growing market right now at the SocComm meetup in NY.
The kids knew that these technologies were around them but they didn’t know how delivery was accomplished and as I started to dive into how the fundamentals of an electrical circuit and switch have led us to where we are today; their mouths dropped. They couldn’t believe it. The same thing happened to me about 9 years ago when I first learned how packet based voice works. I couldn’t believe it was done so fast.
Of everything we talked about, my highlight was when one of the kids said, “American Telephone & Telegraph is AT&T…now I get it”. It was so cool to see it come together and I think I was having more fun than them.
So as much as they’ve said “thank you” to me…I have to tell them, THANK YOU!
I can’t wait for our next session.
Ben
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