Hands-On Experience in HPC with Secondary School Students

D. FERNÁNDEZ SLEZAK; P. TURJANSKI; D. MONTALDO; E. MOCSKOS

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION

IEEE

Año: 2010 vol. 53 p. 128 - 135

0018-9359

It is a global concern that the number of students in Computing related fields has been decreasing in the last few years. As a way to improve this situation, several institutions have been implementing programmes to attract and keep students in science and technological related majors.Through this work, a proposal is shown for a High Performance Computing course intended for secondary school students, which requires only the most basic infrastructure. In this hands-on workshop the students learn how to assemble, install and test a cluster.In parallel, students are exposed to a complete new area of knowledge, providing a more accurate view of the Computer Science discipline, increasing confidence in their ability to follow a Computer Science major, providing opportunities for students to meet scientists, and clearing misconceptions and negative stereotypes about general science and Computer Science.The aim is to share the course materials, the organization of classes, the key concepts included in each of them, the given examples and, finally, the global experience.