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Hands-on Tech: Chicago students come to N.C. to share knowledge about working on computers
Journal Photo by Jennifer Rotenizer
Josh Underwood, a rising senior at Carver's Jacket Integrated Academy, works on computers with college student La-Shawn Miller of Chicago.
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Published: August 15, 2009
When Joshua Underwood was 6, his family's computer broke. When he found out that his parents planned to throw it away and get a new one, he asked whether he could have it to tinker with.
"I worked on it for three or four weeks and had it up and running again," Underwood said.
He kept working with computers and learning more about them, and, three years ago, he set up his own computer-repair business in his grandfather's garage in Belews Creek.
So, when Nicole Piggott, the principal of Jacket Integrated Academy at Carver High School, asked Underwood, a rising senior at Jacket, whether he wanted to participate in a weeklong program about computer repair and programming, he was all for it.
"She thought it would be a good experience for me," he said.
And it has been, he said. "It's been a really good experience."
Underwood was one of six Jacket students who participated in the program. As a school within a school at Carver, Jacket concentrates on science, technology, engineering and math.
Lenard Austin, a rising sophomore at Jacket, said that he was already pretty comfortable downloading software but that repairing hardware was a new experience.
"I didn't know how to take them apart and fix them," Austin said.
He also learned how to install hard drives this week.
The program, which included four other North Carolina high schools, was sponsored by the Youth Technology Corps, a nonprofit organization based in Chicago that works after school with high-school students there.
"It's basically not only teaching technology but encouraging them to be part of the local and global community," said James Mazurek, a technology instructor with the corps.
With that in mind, the corps has sponsored programs in Mexico, though it decided to stay in the United States this year.
The teams that came to North Carolina this week included students from five Chicago high schools who have participated in corps programs.
Derrick Taylor, who will be a junior at Hyde Park Career Academy in Chicago, said that he enjoyed working with the students here.
"Everyone's nice -- very nice and very friendly," Taylor said.
After everyone from Chicago and the five North Carolina schools met together in Chapel Hill during the early part of the week, groups dispersed to the individual schools to continue working.
At Jacket, Mazurek and his team of Chicago young people were working with the Winston-Salem students on 20 Dell older-model computers donated by Office Max.
The computers are Jacket's to keep. Nicole said that, after the program ended yesterday, 10 of the Jacket computers would go to nearby Carl H. Russell Community Center for members of the community to use there, and the other 10 would go to Carver students who don't already have computers at home.
The other four schools in Goldsboro, Warrenton, Windsor and Weldon also received 20 computers.
Jacket is what is known as a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) school, and Piggott learned about the corps at an N.C. New Schools program this spring. She said she thought that participating would not only give students a chance to learn more about computers but also help them get to know young people from elsewhere.
"They have gotten so much out of it," she said. "They have met so many new people. They are learning so much about computer hardware and software."
■ Kim Underwood can be reached at 727-7389 or at kunderwood@wsjournal.com.
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