IT 11 Course Overview

Please see the completed course overview below. This entire course is designed around the principles of SRL. Though each unit (except for Unit 4) contains explicit instruction, after Unit 1, students are going to be spending the majority of their time working on the material by themselves. Ideally each week will begin with a day of instruction followed by four days of practice. Throughout the course, students will explicitly work to develop their self-efficacy through the use of proximal goals, mastery-orientations, peer collaboration and internet exploration.

Unit 1: What are computers

Learning about component parts, system memory, processor, motherboard, etc. Learning about operating systems and software, how does software interact with hardware, installing operating systems (and looking at different kinds)

Big Idea:

What is a computer?

How do they work?

How can you protect your information and yourself?

What are the different parts of a computer?

What are common problems that a computer can have?

How can you make sure your computer is safe?

How can you fix your computer if you have any problems?

Weekly Breakdown:

Week One - What is a computer and how does it function?

Project: Have students “design” a computer using their existing knowledge. What are the different parts that are necessary to make a computer, and how do they function to make the computer work.

Key Vocab: CPU, RAM, Memory, Input/Output, Operating Systems, Hardware, Software, Open vs. Closed source software

Week Two - Protecting yourself and you information

Project: Students will research one major hack or hacking method, detail how the attackers compromised the system, and reflect on how they can protect themselves from this kind of hack. Example – Ransomware, Heartbreak exploit, passwords stolen from large websites, phishing, spear phising, etc.

Day One: Disc Management, formatting, defragmenting, etc.

Day Two: Backing up your information, what to use and why?

Day Three: Open vs. Closed software, what are the benefits of each? Which is safer and why?

Day Four and Five – Student-teacher conferences and presentations.

Week Three - How do Computers think?

Project: Students will brainstorm how computers can manipulate ones and zeroes to create the functions that we use them for. Students will create a model of their own understanding of how computers complete this function, and then afterwards, create our user experience.

Day One: Students will brainstorm how students can transform 0s and 1s into meaningful information.

Day Two-Four: Looking at what a CPU is, and how it functions. How do CPUs transfer data.

Day Five: Students revisit their models from the beginning of the week and modify them to reflect their new understandings.

Key Vocab: CPU, RAM, AND/OR/NOT Gates, Binary, Data

Week Four - Exploring the Command Line and Getting to Know Computer more Deeply

Activity: These units are “practical” units for the course. Students will learn how to navigate file structures through the command line and some basic scripting. This is to develop a somewhat deeper understanding of how computers function, and also familiarize students with how to navigate file systems through text which will be necessary when getting into coding later on.

Day One-Four: Introduction to command line navigation, permissions, what NOT to do, and basic scripting

Day Five: Test and portfolio review

Resources:

Books/Material: Youtube, But How Do it Know – J. Clark Scott, Human Resource Machine


Unit 2: Web Development

Learning basic HTML and CSS with the intention of building simple websites, learning about web servers and setting them up.

Week One

Big idea: How does your computer know what to load for a website.

Main ideas: Looking at the different components and types of code that make up a website, then considering their function. . . HTML/CSS/Javascript/SQL/Flash etc.

Activity: Beginning to construct a simple website.

Concepts: What is HTML and what is CSS?

Follow Codecademy's HTML/CSS Lessons 1-3

Week Two:

Delving deeper into HTML

Codecademy Lessons 4-9

Week Three:

Intro to CSS

Codecademy Lesson 10-16

Week Four:

Codecademy Lesson 17-20

Starting to develop our personal websites

Week Five:

Finishing up our websites

Resources:


Unit 3:Introduction to Scripting and Programming with Python/Scratch

Introducing students to the general concepts of scripting and coding using the python language.

Week One: Introduction to Programming

Content: Looking at basic functions of the python. Considering Simple operations, floats, ints, strings, boolean. Looking at results with and/or/not. Reading and writing from a file. Writing to variables.

Project: Make a simple note-taker program that takes input from the user and saves it to file. When the user starts the next time it prints whatever they wrote and takes a new input.

Week Two: Control Structures

Activities: You are making a robot that can explore dangerous places. How can the robot know if it is walking into lava (temperature sensors), there is danger from predators (visual sensors), and two other dangers that you have to invent yourself. How will the robot know how to react?

The robots job is to go collect some precious minerals and bring them back ten times. How can you do this without repeating your command again and again? (loops)

Content: while/for loops, breaking a loop, if statements.

Project: Making a simple calculator

Week Three: Functions

Activity: Revisit task from week one. How can you make it so you only have to explain yourself once? You don’t need to repeat how to pick up (move hand, lower hand, close hand, lift hand) each time? (Functions)

Content: How to call functions, using GPIO basics, recursive function calls in Towers of Hanoi and Fibonacci’s Sequence

Project: Making a memory game/other activity with the raspberry pi

Week Four:

Codecademy Lesson 17-20

Starting to develop our personal websites

Week Five: Functions/GPIO (con't) - Error Catching

Content: Continued from last week with error catching emphasized.

Week Five: Classes/Objects

Activity: Introduction to OOP! Choose five different kinds of animals, list what they have in common, what is different.

Content: What are classes and how do you use them?

This section leads into Unit 4 which will be students making their own project, a self-set goal that needs to be fully planned and accounted for. Big emphasis will be put on planning and outlining beforehand to make sure that the program runs well.

Resources:


Unit 4: Student's Projects

Students will take what they have learned in class and design a project that will accomplish a task, such as... Helping people live healthier lives

Rubrics will be co-created with the class to ensure that expectations are clear and met. Regular feedback will be placed as well as the establishment of proximal goals to ensure effective SRL by the students.

Main focuses of this unit will be in students outlining and planning their project. Designing realistic expectations for themselves, and justifying them. Students will need to display a variety of SRL techniques in order to be successful.