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Asummercamp that computes

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By KATHY STEELE ksteele@tampatrib.com

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 3, 2009

Software installation dragged at a snail's pace for Duane Geary. His classmates fairly zipped through their Windows XP instructions.

It felt like half an hour had gone by. "Other people took like five minutes," he said.

Instead of calling on a technician, Geary, 13, and Alex Gibner, 14, popped open a pair of computers and swapped out the hard drives.

Things speeded up for Geary. His hands-on lessons at computer summer camp had put him in control of trouble-shooting a problem.

And that is the point of the 16-session, one-month computer course taught by the nonprofit Computer Mentors Group at Memorial Middle School.

One more thing: the six students who completed the course last week took their computers and tool kits home.

For Geary, who has no home computer, that's a big deal. "I can use it to do homework," he said. He also has a new career choice to consider.

"It's a primer class to expose students to computer technician as a career choice," said John Corsell, director of the Computer Mentors program.

Kathy Steele

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