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Information Technology Syllabus

By Jason Bedell, on July 16th, 2010

After my principal told me I could come up with my own curriculum to submit for her approval, I decided to go ahead and spend much of today working on my syllabus for 6th grade information technology. It includes the scope of the course, an explanation of standards based grading, and expectations of both parents and students. What do you think? Is there anything you would add, change, or remove? Thanks always for your help.

Information Technology Syllabus by Jason T. Bedell

Dear Students and Parents,
This is an exciting time. You have the opportunity to participate in a new, student led class. This class revolves around taking your passions and letting you use exciting technology to learn more about them in an authentic way. From the first day, you will be working with your peers on projects that hopefully are important to you. Read on to find out more. Don’t hesitate to contact me for any reason if you need anything. My email is jasontbedell@gmail.com and my phone is (973) 292-2200.

Sincerely Jason T. Bedell, Learning Facilitator.

Scope of Course
 The course is broken up into four quarters, each of which have a different focus.The common strand is that throughout the year, students will be working in real-world contexts and be publishing to real audiences when the students are comfortable doing so. Be assured, student privacy is of the utmost importance and last names will never be used online unless both the student and the parents want to use them. By actually publishing work, instead of just turning it in, it becomes more real. We have more of an ownership of it and it can make a difference to other people.
In each quarter, there will be a foundation of important concepts that the students will all have to master. Afterwards, you will have a choice in terms of what interests you and which aspects of the overarching field that you are most interested in.

  1. The first quarter will focus on computer programming. Wait, isn’t computer programming too hard for middle school students? Not at all. We will be using a tool called Scratch. It lets students build programs visually, as though they are putting together a puzzle. This will give them much needed experience, skills, and confidence that will help them to get through both the course and their middle school careers. Once they understand the basic logic behind programming, there is no limit to what they can do in the technology field. This logic will also help them to read critically in English and understand problems in Math.
    1. The students will be setup with their blog, which will be monitored by me. It is a network.
    2. The students will also be introduced to Moodle. It is the online community where will have discussions, post assignments, and turn in work.
  2. The second quarter will focus on web design.
    1. Building on the skill that students learned in Scratch, every student will learn the basics of writing a website in HTML.
    2. You will have a few options once you are competent with basic HTML. You will be able to further customize your blog with your HTML skills.
    3. You can work on building a website in a WYSIWYG editor that will do a lot of the coding for you. This is equivalent to using a calculator after you already know your addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
    4. You can learn basic CSS, which is what websites use to make themselves look better. Appearance is very important on the web and CSS can help you with that.
    5. You can learn some PHP, which is a great and simple way to let you interact with people online. For example, if you build a form, you can use PHP to do something, such as send you the results in an email. PHP is easy to learn, but very powerful.
  3. The third quarter will focus on digital media production.
    1. You will be able to make and publish podcasts (They are like radio shows) and vodcasts (They are like TV shows).
    2. You will be able to make digital stories that coherently get your point across. Some of the tools that we will have access to are:
      1. Windows Movie Maker
      2. Photostory
      3. Voicethread
      4. Animoto
      5. Xtranormal
    3. You will be able to edit photographs. We will probably use Aviary online and GIMP on the computer.
  4. The fourth quarter will focus on productivity, safety, and research.
    1. You will learn about online safety and create public service announcements for the school using any of the tools you have learned so far. So, you could build a web site, make podcast, make a digital story, make an interactive program, or more.
    2. You will be able to demonstrate the basic competencies and some of the advanced functionalities of Microsoft Office, which includes Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. A pre-assessment will show if you are already good at using any of these programs. If you are, you will have the option of moving on to a topic of more interest to you or tutoring some of your peers.
    3. You will learn about how to find information online and how to evaluate a website. This will culminate in a research project on a school appropriate topic of your choosing.

Expectations of students
 My expectations are simple. Students will respect everyone in the class, including themselves, and try their best. Everything else will follow. The class will be a small, collaborative community. Since we will all be working together a lot, it is essential that we help each other. Remember, the goal is not to win or get the best grade. The goal is that everyone learns to the best of their potential.

Evaluations
Students, teachers, and parents all get distracted by grades sometimes. I want to be completely up front about what grades will be in this class. Grades serve two purposes. The first is to tell the teacher, the student, and the parents or guardians what exactly the student really know. The second, if the student does not know what he or she was expected to learn, grades should serve as a guide to help them.
So, in light of those to things, there will not be any tests in this class. I am going to evaluate students based on standards and objectives. Let me give you an example, if a student forgets his homework and then brings it in a week late and is given a 50, this does not tell me what the student knows. I will not grade by assignment because my goal is not to punish students.
The gradebook will state a standard or objective. Such as, “Students will be able to use audio effectively in a digital story.” If the student can demonstrate in class that he or she can indeed use light well in a digital story, then he or she will receive a good grade proportional to his or her grasp on the concept. If the student cannot, then he or she will receive a poor grade until he or she can demonstrate competence. If at any time the student shows that he or she has progressed and learned an objective, I will go back and change the grade to show that. I realize this is not grading system that most people are used to. However, I really think that it will help the students grow. If you have any questions, please contact me at any time.

Expectations of parents and guardians
Dear parents and guardians,
I really consider you a partner in helping your child grow. If there is anything you need me to do to help your child, please contact me and tell me. I will contact you very quickly if your child starts falling behind, is having any problems in class, if there is good news I want to report, or if there is just something that I am concerned about. I would appreciate it if you would do a few things to help me better help your child:

  1. Give me good contact information at the beginning of the year, preferably an email address and a phone number. The email is vital as I will send out regular updates about what is going on in class.
  2. Let me know if something happens outside of school that is going to affect your child. While I realize there are some things you may not want to tell me, which I fully respect, there are some things that definitely affect students. For example, I have had students whose parents were deployed to Iraq or were diagnosed with terminal illnesses in the last few years. If I know this, I can better support your child, both academically and emotionally as someone I want to look out for.
  3. Check the class website regularly and let me know if there is anything concerning you. The class will have an online component called Moodle where I will post assignments, students will have discussions about class topics, and students will turn in work. Please make sure you understand the assignments and check up on your child. Talk to them and see if they are having trouble. Sometimes, children will be more likely to talk to a parent than a teacher. I will make you an account at the beginning of the year so you can get on the website.
  4. Check the grades regularly and let me know if there is anything concerning you. Moodle has a gradebook and you will have access to it at all times.
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  • http://www.worldatways.com Barbara Lindsey

    Thanks so much for sharing this wonderful, clear description of the goals, objectives and assessments you will use with your students, Jason.

    We need more published examples of educators willing and able to implement a mastery learning model in their curriculum. Your syllabus reminds me of the Mobile Learning Institute interview with Alan November. You’ve taken many of the pedagogical arguments voiced in this interview and put them into practice with your course.

    I hope you can share updates with us on how your students, their parents and your colleagues receive your evaluation method and rationale.
    Barbara Lindsey´s last [type] ..cAsTa Ways- An Interview with Travis Allen

  • http://educatoral.com/ Alfonso Gonzalez

    Hi Jason,

    Thanks for posting your syllabus. It sounds great and sounds like a class I would be happy to have both my kids in! You’ve also given me some ideas as I’ve been putting off writing my course syllabi for the Fall. Going grade-less has made that syllabi really important as it will set the tone for the whole year!

    One question I have for you is what will your “grades” or feedback look like? Do they have to be letters or numbers or do you have some leeway? I try not to give any marks until midterm or final reporting as per our school policy and then I’ve started just giving P’s for pass to everyone who participates in my course knowing that there is no such think as failure. Now I need to express that in such a way that will not send the message that my class is not important or something that they can “blow off.”

    That’s why I’m putting off writing my syllabus! :)

    Good luck to you, with the new class and the grant!

  • http://www.daddymoose.wordpress.com Keith Wadley

    Hey Jason,

    Very intriguing, 6th graders doing programming and writing their own Websites. Here is my frustration with public education. You are going to have some students who seriously cannot do these things. The concepts are going to be too far beyond them at this point in their life. While others will have enough of a conceptual background in Math and English to grasp it and move forward. It will indeed sharpen both of those subjects. What are you going to do with those who are not there?

    Very interesting on the grading. I can’t stand our current system as it is. In the military it was “go” or “no go”. Either you could do the skill or you couldn’t, there was no part way. If you couldn’t complete the task then you had not mastered it. You knew what you needed to work on to move forward. Sure, the goal is to have every student master as much as possible. But not everyone will fall in love with what you are doing or some learning disability has been breed into them with an “I can’t” attitude.

    I am curious to see how the class goes for you. It sounds like too much for one year but you are amazing with technology. I haven’t seen you work with students otherwise I could comment on that.

    Regards,

    Keith Wadley

  • http://jasontbedell.com Jason Bedell

    Keith,
    You are right to be skeptical, but there are two things to keep in mind. First, your curriculum has been crippled (Keith and I taught in the same school last year). There is absolutely no reason kids need that long to learn Office. Second, I think you may be underestimating kids. They often live up to our expectations of them and I want to set that bar high.
    Scratch is actually a programming language for kids that resembles building a puzzle. A Twitter friend, @Matt_Arguello, uses Scratch successfully with 4th and 5th graders. As for building websites, they already do this and have learned much through play. Have you even see a kid manipulate or change his/her MySpace page? It requires HTML.
    It may end up being too much for one year. We have to go by our kids. I will see how they adapt and continually reassess. If someone is not able to learn everything that someone else is, that is ok. It’s at the heart of differentiated instruction. Every child is different, with a different staring point and capacity in a given subject. The only real commonality is that they can learn something. I will not be giving the same assignment to every kid. Often, 30 students will be working on 30 different, but related, things or 5 groups will be working on 5 different things. I care that all kids learn and grow; it is less important to me that they all get to the same end point. However, by focusing on their learning, we will likely be able to push them further than would otherwise have been able to.

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