Sitting elbow to elbow, camp participants learned how to use their computers to create impressive work.

Ben Conry beams, flashes a thumbs-up sign to one of his eager students, and happily shakes his head at the industry all around him.

“You can’t go wrong with this program,” the Milford Mill Academy instructor says, speaking of the two-week summer camps he taught in June and July at Lansdowne Middle, Western School of Technology, and Winfield Elementary schools. The Dell TechKnow program, he says, continues to draw the interest and excitement of students across Baltimore County even as it expanded this year to include students at five schools.

The reasons for its popularity are clear, says Conry, who was one of three educators who instructed the camp’s students – a total of 150 – this summer. “It’s a great program,” he adds. “You build it, you take it apart, you build it again, and then you take it home.”

At the Dell TechKnow graduation on June 30, instructors Ben Conry and Jaime Cooper (far left) applaud graduates along with Supervisor Mike Weglein (second from right) and Superintendent Dr. Joe A. Hairston (far right)

The taking-home part is key. Students participating in the innovative summer program learn how to take apart and rebuild computers, install software, run diagnostics, fix basic hardware problems, and use word processing and educational software. At the end of the course, students who successfully complete the technology training are awarded their refurbished Dell desktop computer to use at home.

The result of a collaborative partnership between Dell Computers and Baltimore County Public Schools, the program has consistently been among the most popular summer offerings as parents and students alike petition the county’s Office of Technology with requests to expand the program further. To help extend access to technology to Baltimore County’s students, the program was begun three years ago as a way to provide computers to students who might not otherwise have had one.

A group of TechKnow campers dissects the inner workings of their Dell computer.

“This program embodies the idea that learning about technology not only prepares students for the future but is fun, too,” said Mike Weglein, a supervisor in the Office of Career and Technology Education, which oversees the camps.  

At the end of each summer school session, a TechKnow tradition has been an open house in which parents and family members get to see how proficient their students have become in navigating their way around a computer’s innards. They show off computer slide shows that depict their progress in the camp, and receive certificates of completion in the program, which includes free AOL internet access for a year for each student.  

TechKnow participants also delighted in showing off slide presentations of their camp experience for interested parents.

At the camps’ first “graduation” ceremony this summer at Lansdowne Middle School on June 30, Baltimore County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Joe A. Hairston commended the camp participants and told them the skills they learned would serve them well.

Before their proud parents, siblings, and friends, each of the students demonstrated how to remove and replace computer motherboards and other skills of the modern – and well trained – computer user.

And then, joining Ben Conry, it was the parents turn to beam.