Kid becomes Network Admin at 11

[SYNACK]

Just found this article on slashdot. Some 11 year old in the US has been helping out the staff and recommending stuff for their network.

 

Good stuff for the kid but I think that it is a standard case of the media blowing stuff out of proportion. I was practically a network admin at my school at 11 and I'm sure that at least a few of the others on here were to.

[torledo]

Just found this article on slashdot. Some 11 year old in the US has been helping out the staff and recommending stuff for their network.

 

Good stuff for the kid but I think that it is a standard case of the media blowing stuff out of proportion. I was practically a network admin at my school at 11 and I'm sure that at least a few of the others on here were to.

 

At that age I don't think i'd ever used a computer, the nearest i got was using a scientific calculator at school.

 

I wasn't one of those kids who was opening up the TV's and doing other geeky stuff. So to me being able to do any kind of sysadmin at 11 is quite impressive, but i agree with you i'm sure there are a load of kids nowadays who have the interest who can do what this kid has done. Particularly if they have a parent who works in IT and has helped them get a headstart.

[localzuk]

I know I was helping out a lot at that age, for example producing leaflets for others to use with tips on how to do things in what was then 'Claris Works'. I was more of a network admin at about 14/15, with 30 machines which I maintained and a linux server I'd built.

 

It isn't all that schocking really, considering the bizarre way some schools fund ICT.

[Joanne]

shouldn't that kid be running round in the playground playing tig??

 

Some children want to be adults so bad it sickens me.

[kingswood]

This is silly.

 

That's all I have to say

[torledo]

shouldn't that kid be running round in the playground playing tig??

 

Some children want to be adults so bad it sickens me.

 

Playing tig ??? Nahh, much better for him to be doing the more mature stuff.

 

There's nothing to say he doesn't play tig or ride a bike when he's not helping out with the network. Some child prodigy's also have balanced lives.

 

children at 11 are at all sorts of varying development phases. Some are content to play with dolls or colouring in, others are helping to repair cars. What i don't like is this idea of what a child at 11 *should* or shouldn't be doing.

[elsiegee40]

Computers didn't exist in modern formats when I was 11! The calculator I had when I was 14 was the size of a brick!

[Dos_Box]

When I was 11 they released the ZX81

[Joanne]

All I'm saying is that a kid at the age of 11 should be learning other things as well as just computers... you know like life skills and how to deal with people, relationships all that stuff too instead of evaluating anti-virus software that will run on ancient computers!

[plock]

I supported a network at the age of 11/12.

 

I built my first Windows AD domain, DNS, DHCP etc at the age of 15 I think...

[jcollings]

All I'm saying is that a kid at the age of 11 should be learning other things as well as just computers... you know like life skills and how to deal with people, relationships all that stuff too instead of evaluating anti-virus software that will run on ancient computers!

 

Couldn't agree with you more. Kids need to spend time being kids. Fine if that's his hobby and he has other activities that balance his life but my guess is he probably doesn't.

[enjay]

Does it worry anyone else that this school has published a nice colour photo, the kid's name age and school address on the Internet??

[Joanne]

maybe its an early april fools...

[sidewinder]

Couldn't agree with you more. Kids need to spend time being kids. Fine if that's his hobby and he has other activities that balance his life but my guess is he probably doesn't.

 

Exactly

He might well have loads of experiance when he leaves school but my bet is he wont have many social skills...

 

I always was interested in computers but apart from taking my home one apart, I didnt do anything advanced until I was 16 and went to college, and I had barely touched networking, AD etc until I was 20 (since college was all theory)

[SpuffMonkey]

When I was 11 they released the ZX81

 

When I was 11 they landed on the moon

[Butuz]

When I was 11 they landed on the moon

 

Aah - but did they really?

 

Butuz

[cookie_monster]

Does it worry anyone else that this school has published a nice colour photo, the kid's name age and school address on the Internet??

 

I agree there is a bit too much info but it's important to remember that contrary to what the gov would have us believe there isn't a paedophile on every corner ;-)

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Yeh they landed on the moon but realised that they couldn't film it so faked the footage ;-)

[enjay]

I agree there is a bit too much info but it's important to remember that contrary to what the gov would have us believe there isn't a paedophile on every corner ;-)

 

True, there isn't one on every corner, just some of the corners. Not everyone in the world is burglar either, but I bet you still lock your door when you leave in the morning. It is only sensible to take measures to protect ourselves...

[cookie_monster]

I forgot to lock my car door one night and some git nicked my stereo, the funny thing is that they didn't even try the door and still smashed the window :-)

[torledo]

Couldn't agree with you more. Kids need to spend time being kids. Fine if that's his hobby and he has other activities that balance his life but my guess is he probably doesn't.

 

Yes, computer nerds tend not to have that balance. But a friend of mine was fixing TV's, VCR's and god knows what else at that age. A few years later and there was nothing he couldn't put his hand to. For him his hobby became a career and he's probably the coolest and most sociable person i know.

 

Ofcourse it helped that at that age he wasn't whiling his time away on the internet or playing computer games, but electronics is kindof a geeky past time. And he was anything but geeky.

 

The trouble with computing/networks as a hobby is that it can take up an awful lot of you're time, and that's what i worry about with my son. That he develops an interest in an area that is so difficult to keep up with such as computers. Much rather he got into meccano or lego technic, as it's something that can lead him to develop skills an engineer later on in life.

[dhicks]

Some 11 year old in the US has been helping out the staff and recommending stuff for their network.

 

Which implies one of two things: either the child in question is some sort of prodigy/genius/idiot savant, or that fixing broken computers and installing anti-virus software is so easy the average 11-year-old can do it.

 

--

David Hicks

[Joanne]

I'll go with the latter

[enjay]

Which implies ... that fixing broken computers and installing anti-virus software is so easy the average 11-year-old can do it.

 

Considering what this particular kid did was boot some PCs from image CDs and evaluate different anti-virus programs, it probably is something that any smart 11-yr-old could do.

[russdev]

@torledo

 

I know where you are coming from my son currently likes anything with wires.

 

He currently has an old n/w cable which he has worked out goes in his baby laptop

 

http://www.comparestoreprices.co.uk/images/vt/vtech-baby-laptop.jpg

 

Dam vtech for not providing a network port

 

But one thing we still do is make sure that has wide range and he stays active does lots of outside play as well..

 

Russ

[el8linuxel8]

I forgot to lock my car door one night and some git nicked my stereo, the funny thing is that they didn't even try the door and still smashed the window :-)

 

Wait, how do you know he didnt smash the window then unlock it?