Communication Breakdown

[azurelunatic]

Fun stuff in Connectivity today. They put the geeks and the BIS crowd together, you see, and previously the teacher for the prerequisite to connectivity that was teaching the BIS students flaked out in the middle of the term, so the BIS students are so, so lost.

So we have half the class nodding and asking questions about what Kurt's doing with the Linux command line there on umbras (his faithful laptop), and then there are the BIS students too shell-shocked to ask questions.

So that little problem got communicated, and Sandstrom backed down when it became apparent that the BIS kids didn't even know DOS (I'd asked, "Would you say that the console here compares fairly well to DOS?" and Kurt said yes, and the BIS students looked even more clueless). The class then swapped over into "Hello, this is a command line and how you use it" mode. I suggested that he show us how to do it in graphical and in command line, which went over very very well.

I think everybody learned. I offered up my services as geek-to-English translator to the leader of the BIS students, which was much appreciated.

Comments

[mnfiddledragon.livejournal.com]

*chuckle* being geek-to-English translator can be fun :)

[azurelunatic]

I've been a Christian-to-pagan translator before, too.

Mama only spoke English, and not geek, when I was living at home. I'm a second-generation computer nut. Things were... interesting.

[mnfiddledragon.livejournal.com]

*nods sagely* ah yes - by the time I could consider myself geeky, I was the only such person in the house - so found myself often translating, especially for my stepmother. (We liked to talk about things that interested us, and if I didn't watch it, her eyes would glaze over quite dramatically!) Now my stepmother is the email queen, my dad has a website when he used to tell me essentially that the internet wasn't really good for anything *laugh*.

Funny how times change...

Mom on the other hand became a geek, but she and I never have really talked about it. Not even now.

[azurelunatic]

FatherSir was the geek before me, but he was also geek sans patience with wife, so I was the designated translator.

After a while, he realized that his communication problem showed up with her and only her, and decided to try teaching it to her as if she were someone else, and the problem went away.

Hopefully things are progressing smoothly at home now....

[juuro.livejournal.com]

At times I am not certain the BIS language is English, either.

[azurelunatic]

Well, no...