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Information Technology Curriculum

By Jason Bedell, on July 5th, 2010

Today is actually the last day of my summer vacation. It’s odd, but I am starting my new job as an Educational Technology Specialist tomorrow. While I do not necessarily see the logic behind hiring me for a coaching position (in that I want to co-plan and co-teach with all of the teachers that I work with) and then removing me from that position to teach my own class for 1 period a day, I will be teaching 1 period of Information Technology to middle school students (not sure which grade). While I still think having me teach for 1 period is slightly illogical because it somewhat limits my ability to co-teach and work with teachers on their planning periods, I am excited to try many things next year that I can only do with my own kids, like standards-based grading.

I have been given carte-blanche, within reason, to design my own curriculum. I would like some feedback on what you think I should include. The school operates on a four-quarter schedule, so I was thinking of 4 big units. Here are some options that I am considering.

  1. Computer programming with Scratch, or possibly eToys at the prompting of @afowles.
  2. Digital storytelling. This would include many tools, such as iMovie/Movie Maker, Prezi, Voicethread, Animoto, etc… and is a very important skill to have.
  3. Productivity and graphic design. It kills me to think about teaching Microsoft Word, but I think some productivity skills are required to be taught, so Open or Microsoft Office, Google Docs, and Photoshop/Gimp, at the least.
  4. What do you think? How can I make the curriculum more relevant, interesting, and useful. I thought about iPhone/Android apps, but I think that may be getting too far ahead of myself with middle school students.

What else do you feel I should include?

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  • Cathy Brophy

    Hey Jason!
    I am going to be working with my middle school computer teacher to overhaul his curriculum and bring it into the 21c-am planning to use the NETS-S as the backbone. What about research skills such as advanced searching techniques, social bookmarking sites such as diigo and delicious, collaborative writing tools and copyright?

    I also want to build Internet safety -in perhaps PSA’s.

  • http://jasontbedell.com Jason T Bedell

    Thanks Cathy! I really like that idea. I think I’ll try to incorporate Internet safety throughout the year. I like the idea of a research unit; I saw last year in the library that most students don’t have these skills.
    I can envision a large research project after working through the requisite skills and allowing the students to choose which tools to use to demonstrate the newly found knowledge, such as designing a poster in Photoshop, writing a program in Scratch, or making a digital story.
    Jason T Bedell´s last [type] ..Staff Letter

  • Debbie Gottsleben

    Can’t believe it just wrote a huge long response and the captcha code didn’t work and it all got erased! So here goes again! Jason I like what Cathy suggested. I would also suggest that you introduce how to evaluate a website. We used to use an acronym called CARB for Current, Accurate/Authoritative,Relevant, and is it Biased? That proved way to difficult for most students to understand so we have now adopted the criteria suggested by Mark Moran from FindingDulcinea Who wrote it? When did they write it and Why did they write it? Your curriculum is going to dovetail what the K-5 media specialists and my co-librarian Bilqis and I do at the high school do. It would also be helpful to go over the different types of information – peridicals, magazines, journals, search engines, wikipedia, and online databases. Showing how to use the online databases that Frelinghuysen subscribes to would be helpful. They have Britannica and I believe ABC-CLIO. We also had EBSCO from the state but it was cut in the most recent budget. Funds have been restored but I’m not sure if EBSCO for all schools will be restored. It would also be useful to go over the research process. I found a process on youtube called DISCOVER Information Literacy- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWzigkpR7yg and we really liked the way the steps were laid out. Using the advanced search in google and maybe introducing some other search engines would be helpful. Students probably have never been taught how to cite. We subscribe to noodletools. I know that there are free tools but we liked the way that noodletools walks students through the process rather than just doing it for them. We also have started using noodletools notetaking feature. I hope that I am remembering everything that I had in here originally. I also think getting students to understand what type of information would work best for their information need- ie would a book be best, wikipedia because you need up-to-date current info that a book or online database just cant’ provide (this is actually part of the DISCOVER process- it’s the I for inquire). I’ll try to think of other things but hopefully this will give you plenty of ideas for your course.

  • http://jasontbedell.com Jason T Bedell

    Thanks Debbie. I think that if I setup one of the quarters to focus on research skills, I’ll definitely include what you’ve mentioned. I used a different framework, but taught website evaluation several times last year. It can be a fun unit to do.
    Sorry about the captcha. It’s happened to me to, but I have abou 95% less spam because of it. P
    Jason T Bedell´s last [type] ..Staff Letter

  • Daniel

    Seconding Debbie here: I think online research tends to get missed in a lot of primary/secondary education at the moment. I don’t know what access you have to databases (being a history student, my favorite is JSTOR, but that’s probably not useful to most of your students).

    Still, even without academic databases, there’s a lot to be said for learning how to use Google/other search engines more effectively (advanced options, choosing keywords, etc.)

    You might be able to combine this somewhat with your digital storytelling unit, either in researching the topics, or in finding (and appropriately citing) materials for them. (Maybe even something like Flickr’s CC search, if you want to head in the open-content direction).

  • http://www.journeywithtechnology.com Damianne R President

    I’m going to go through a similar process during the next few weeks. I will be teaching a quarter of computers to each middle school class. My ideas (so far) are online identity, internet safety and security, programming, research skills, evaluation and review of websites and apps, presentation skills, news reporting (including filming and podcasting). Internet safety will be threaded throughout, as well as networking (using blogs, diigo, etc.). I agree with you that some familiarity with applications such as image editing and word processing are important. I like my classwork to be project/problem based and I’ve integrated with other classes in the past. I’ll be interested in what you decide since I’ll be going through a similar process.
    Damianne R President´s last [type] ..Critical Thinking

  • Debbie Gottsleben

    Jason you’re getting lots of good ideas. Let us know what you decide to do. Definitely keep me in the loop as we will eventually get your kids so it will be good to know what they’ve been taught already. What framework did you use for research? We used to use the Big 6 research steps but loved the DISCOVER acronym which made it easy to use K-12.
    @Daniel our district (I’m in the same district as Jason now)has access to quite a few online databases although the middle school doesn’t have as many as the high school. We are just getting JSTOR this year. I think it may be too high for middle school but if I remember correctly our access is districtwide so Jason take a look and see what you think.
    Just made sure to copy what I just wrote so I don’t lose everything if I type in the captcha code incorrectly. Not making that mistake twice!

  • http://weemooseus.edublogs.org Carl

    Perhaps some collaborative online project would be interesting to the students, I haven’t decided to teach HTML or use a WISIWYG editor or not, but I am definitely looking at ThinkQuest as a way to tie in research, Internet safety, online identity, etc.

    I know I will be having the following: 1 quarter of Office Apps, 1 of Scratch, and 1 of media production (podcasting, video, etc). I will be using our Moodle server for assignments, evaluations, and as a center for students. I usually incorporate as many Web2.0 tools as I can.

    All in all, I don’t think its a bad thing you are teaching one class, it will help you consolidate ideas for your position and help you see problems that are keeping other staff from adapting the use of tech in their classes.
    Carl´s last [type] ..Managing a Twitter Account

  • http://ilearntechnology.com ktenkely

    My suggestion is to focus on the skills not the programs when you are teaching. I learned how to use Claris Works as my word processor in school. Non-existent today. Instead of focusing on a specific tool, focus on what the tool enables kids to do and show them multiple tools that will do that. Teach them the basics skills that will cross over (i.e. fonts, style, color, etc.).

    You will be great! Enjoy your last few days of your break.
    ktenkely´s last [type] ..ISTE 10 Recap- From Add-on Technology to Essential Technology- Constructing a 1-to-1 Aware Curriculum

  • http://mattarguello.wordpress.com Matt Arguello

    The research skills are a must. Other than that I think you’ve got great ideas. I’ve been using Scratch a lot with 4th and 5th graders and they have taken off. I’m planning on using it with middle school next year.

    Kelly has a good point, teach the skills not the programs. For graphic design you may want to check out Aviary or Sumo Paint. Both are web-based and pretty straightforward. Both can still introduce students to layers and the various tools common to graphics programs.

    As much as I love GIMP, it’s a bit esoteric if you’re not familiar with Photoshop. I’ve used it with middle school and they had an easier time with the online editors.

    Let us know how it goes!

  • Oh_the_Places

    Guess I missed this post/tweet awhile back. I overhauled my preschool-8th grade curriculum last summer including grade level objectives, school wide scope and sequence and resulting long range plans. I’m sure some people would disagree with my design, but it’s there for the altering if you want:
    http://www.oakhilldayschool.org/cms/CMSimages/Tech_Curr.pdf

    And related to your other more despairing post, a list of software programs by grade level:
    http://www.oakhilldayschool.org/cms/CMSimages/software.pdf

  • http://mattarguello.wordpress.com Matt Arguello

    Oh_the_Places, thanks for posting those docs. I was looking for a long range document like your curriculum. I wanted to see how others are doing K-8 technology.
    Matt Arguello´s last [type] ..Site recommendations- Web Urbanist -amp Web Ecoist

  • Marianne

    Jason,
    Thank you for this informative and for me, timely, blog. I will definately explore some of these ideas. If you have a minute, I’d appreciate you thoughts on the following:I have been teaching K-5 Computer classes for eight years. I developed most of my lessons using what I taught as an consultant for a training company. Most revolved around the MS applications and came as easily as teaching “how to log on”.
    Now I am asked to come up with a curriculum, or to adopt a published curriculum.
    There is very little time and no extrta funds for developing. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
    Many thanks,
    MMF

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