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Brennan I have your page in front of me, and I see that it's titled "Science Fiction and Physics." What about these topics interests you? In the beginning of eighth grade--no, I guess it was before that--ever since I was a little kid, I have been interested in science fiction because I've always liked space, and ever since I was a couple of years old, I've been watching Star Trek. Your page says physics, too. I'm also interested in science. It's pretty interesting and it plays an important part in science fiction. So I thought it would be fun to incorporate the physics aspect into my page also. |
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I read your review of The Physics of Star Trek by
Lawrence M. Krauss that you've put up on your page. Can you tell me a bit
about what the book is about? The book explains some of the problems and theories that go along with Star Trek, like why certain things would or wouldn't work. Whether it's implausible or whether it would take so much energy it would be completely impractical. It also explains basic physics. What made you want to write a review? On the Web page, I had been planning to write some sort of reviews. I found it to be an interesting book and a pretty enjoyable read, and I decided that since it is a science fiction and physics book, that it would fit perfectly. |
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Had you seen that connection between science fiction and physics before,
or were these just two interests that you had? Yes. It was clear to me that many ideas in science fiction have their basis in theoretical physics, so I wanted to explore this connection more thoroughly. Do you do much looking on the Web for science fiction or physics sites? Yes. Every couple of days I'll spend a while, an hour or so, surfing the Web trying to find useful sites that might be interesting to look at or that I could add links to on my page. |
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How did you learn HTML? Well, in eighth grade, I was a technology aide at my school, and I was supposed to do some sort of big project, to show I learned something during the school year, so I decided I'd like to give a Web page a try. My teacher said okay, that was a pretty good project to try out. So I gave it a shot. So when you gave it a shot, was this all on your own? Originally, I was going to try to work on it during my class at school--that was my teacher's goal. But it never really worked out. So I worked on it at home mainly, because I had access to the stuff I needed here. What kind of stuff are you talking about? A good HTML editor and a good connection to the Internet. Is there a connection at school? There's a connection, but it crashes a bunch. The school was implementing a new system that still had a few bugs. |
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When you decided you were going to do this Web page, did you know
anything about how to do that? No. I knew what HTML was called, but I didn't know how it worked. How did you learn? My teacher knew a little bit about it, and she taught me what she knew. Mostly, I went to the Netscape homepage that has lists of links to various sites that have information on HTML, and I printed out a bare-bones guide to HTML and a couple of other guides. I read through them and taught myself how to do it. Do you enjoy doing that? Yeah. It's pretty fun. |
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How do you feel about having a page up? I think it's pretty neat. It's not that hard to do once you learn how, but most people don't seem to do it because they don't have a connection to the Internet, or they think it might be too hard, or they aren't interested. Do you think at all about people coming to your site? Does that appeal to you? Yes, I think I like it. I guess it's just sort of fun to have something out there that people can see. |
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How long has it been up? It's been up since February. I've gotten a few hits. Do you update it--add things and change things--pretty frequently? Recently I've done some work. I am planning to add more reviews and links, but I don't have a lot of time to work on the page. Can you tell me what it means to be a technology aide at your school? At my school last year, it was the second year they did the technology aide program. I've liked computers for a long time, so I signed up for the class. I got that class, because not very many people wanted it. The way it works is the aide will go around to different classrooms when a teacher needs help with a computer. I'll trouble-shoot programs, or the Internet connection when it crashes, and I'll install new programs on computers. Sometimes I set up new hardware. I just try to help wherever people have computer problems throughout the school. |
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When you signed up for that class were you asked whether you knew
anything about computers? Yes, they asked, "Do you know anything about computers?" and, "Will you be able to do what we need you to do?" I said yes, I think so, and I was. |
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"Most of the teachers were really glad that someone could
help them. Whether it was a student or not didn't really
matter to them, as long as the problem got solved." |
It seems like some teachers are very receptive to learning from their
students, and for some teachers, that's a little harder to do. What kind of
response did you find? Most of the teachers were really glad that someone could help them. Whether it was a student or not didn't really matter to them, as long as the problem got solved. Only a couple of the teachers were sort of hostile, and they didn't take my suggestions too seriously. So then they would call down an adult. Why do you think they wanted that advice from an older person? Because adults have more experience. I think teachers feel intimidated by the students. But most of the teachers were pretty receptive to your help? Yes. Nearly all of them. |
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So there was one class period during the day when you were free to do
these things? Yes. Were you busy? During different parts of the school year. During the middle, there was not much going on, so I would help solve problems and install software and run virus checks. But during the beginning and end of the year, some of the teachers were doing really big projects with their classes on computers, so then I was pretty busy helping people down in the computer lab with any problems they might have or just with teaching them how to use Netscape or other programs like Microsoft Excel or PowerPoint. |
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Did you encounter problems that you didn't know how to solve? Yes. How did you deal with them? I just tried some of the simple solutions I could think of right then, but if it wasn't something that needed to be solved quickly, I would call my teacher and she would help out. She would come down there and say, well, this is how you do this. How did this program begin at your school? Up until last year, we had a bunch of old Macintoshes, and no one really liked to use them very much because you couldn't do anything on them. But then a technology bond was passed in our district, so there was a bunch of money for buying new computers. Then there were a whole bunch of new computers, so they decided they needed some students who felt comfortable with computers to help people who weren't quite so comfortable with them. |
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Let me ask you a few questions about the stuff that you do outside of
school. First, I wanted to talk with you about your little brother and your
mom. Let's go back before that even. You said you learned a lot about
computers before eighth grade, and I wanted to know where you learned
that. As long as I can remember, we've always had a computer. Both of my parents are computer literate, so I picked a bunch of stuff up from them. Always having a computer in the house has helped. A lot of people don't have access to a computer, so I feel pretty fortunate in that respect. |
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"I just like helping people if I can. And making it easier for
people to get what they need to done." |
Do you and your brother work together at all? Yes, we work together a bit. What kind of things do you do? Whenever he has a problem on the computer, I try to help him with it, and we'll play games together and stuff. What kind of games do you play? On the computer, we play simulation games, like SimCity and the Oregon Trail. When he needs to come to you for help, is that a pretty comfortable thing? Yes. Do you enjoy that? Yes. Why? I don't know. I just like helping people if I can. And making it easier for people to get what they need to do. |
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Did you work with your mom on her page? A little. If I find an interesting Web site that might go on the encylcopedia or K-12 pages, I'll tell her. Or if I notice that a link is broken. Or sometimes, I give her advice about how to code something. Does she do the same with you? Not a lot. Sometimes we discuss HTML code. Did she help you with learning HTML? Yes, she helped me quite a bit. Did you go and tell her you were interested in this, or how did that come about? She knew I was doing a project at school that was dealing with HTML, so she decided that it might be pretty interesting to make a Web page of her own, so she took an HTML class. Then she bought some space on our Internet provider. Then she gave me a chunk of space I could use, and I built my page on it. |
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What other kinds of things do you like doing, outside of school and
computers? I like to write stories, usually, almost any kind of story. Are they sci-fi stories? Sometimes. Other times if there's some idea about something, I'll write different parts to see how it might work, what I might need to do to change it, to make it better. |
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When you think about your future, what do you think you're going to be
doing after high school? I'm going to go to college I hope. After that, I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do. I like journalism and science. Do you see technology as being part of that future? Maybe. I mean there are just so many options, it's just overwhelming to think about it. Right now, I'm trying to keep my Web page up. I want to expand it and make it bigger. I want to try to add more reviews, another book, or some more books. I'm also planning on making another page about places I've been and things that I've done. |
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How do you feel about technology? Technology is becoming increasingly important because students and teachers are all going to need to learn how to use computers. They're going to need to feel comfortable with them because over the next decade or so computers are going to become more and more important to people. And everyone's going to need to know how to use them pretty well. Otherwise they won't be able to do their jobs as well or get their work in on time. Visit Brennan's Science Fiction and Physics Web page. Continue to the interview with Tristan, Brennan's younger brother. |
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