Hello Group,
My name is Mark Smith and I teach at Oak Hills High School in Hesperia, CA--a smallish "suburb" of San Bernardino/Los Angeles located in the High Desert of Southern California. I was tasked with starting an IT pathway for our district and left teaching English, history, and video productions after 13 years to do this. It might seem an odd fit, but my Master's is in Instructional Technology and I've been messing around with computers since my Commodore 64 in the mid 80's. I have also owned a side business doing IT work and website design/hosting (Linux of course) since 1998.
I started my IT program here five years ago. I was tasked with starting a Cisco Academy, which we--by we I mean I as it's just me lol--have fully implemented at this point with IT Essentials (A+ cert training), CCNA 1 and CCNA 2 (for CCENT training). This year, we expanded more so there is a Freshmen Introduction to Computer Science course focused mainly on Python and CompTIA ITF+ certification. After having met Trisha at a conference, I was inspired to fine tune my pathway to include Red Hat. So my pathway that I'm slowly rolling out is Freshmen year-Intro to Comp Sci, Sophomore year-IT Essentials, Junior year-CCNA 1, and then Senior year will be a capstone where students will either complete CCNA 2 or RH 124 and RH 134. I am so excited to be offering this new infusion. So, theoretically, a high schooler could leave high school with Python knowledge and an ITF+ cert, an A+ cert, and a CCENT or RHCSA cert! To me, this pathway seems like a great start for students to start their IT future. This year I've got about four CCNA 1 students doing RH124 as a beta test. So far, they are eating it up and doing quite well. We also have an after school club that focuses on cybersecurity and the kids do various cybersecurity/hacking competitions with that knowledge.
Fun Fact: Okay, two fun facts. I first started using Linux in the late 90s with Mandrake. I continued with various distros over the years and all of my kids, now adults, grew up running Linux (they were so confused when their peers didn't know what it was lol). I also ran a fairly popular BBS, for the San Gabriel/Inland Empire valleys in Southern California, in the mid eighties. It was a nighttime only BBS--aptly named Star Frontiers after the RPG-because I used to have to take my phone down at night. I was living with my mother and a stepfather who had a private line in my room. They were afraid I would use the phone at night, so I had to physically hand them my phone every night. So I did. Then I plugged in my modem and ran my BBS all night on my C64. I did have one awkward experience when a fellow sysop came over to my house to buy my Atari 2600 off of me. She was a thirty year old woman. I was 12. So she came to my door and asked my mother if I was home--she pointed up upstairs and she came to my room and we conducted our business. My mother never even asked me about that event lol.
