5. NAF Curriculum Highlights: PBL Recognize students’ inherent drive to learn. Encourage collaboration and cooperation. Use performance-based assessments that require a range of skills and knowledge. Highlight questions that lead students to in-depth exploration of authentic and important topics.
6. Principles of Information Technology: Assumptions and Prerequisites Students have some basic understanding that computers are powered by a CPU and use peripherals to expand their functionality. Students have some basic understanding that computers use peripherals to expand their functionality. Students have some basic computer skills (ability to type, use word processing programs, do simple Internet research).
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12. Support from Curriculum Leaders Here to help – both with content and pedagogy. Ready to hear your ideas about how to revise and improve the course. Contact information is always available on the Course Overview page of the NAF Curriculum Library.
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Notes de l'éditeur
Remember: on PowerPoint, less is more. Don’t put entire sentences on your slides or you’ll end up reading them. They should be more of a visual reference for your audience than for you! Helpful presentation hints: No more than 3-5 bullets per slide Keep fonts at 22 pt. minimum No complete sentences, no paragraphs. These are hard to read both for you and your audience. Instead, use bullet points and elaborate vocally. It’s better to have more slides with chunked information than a few slides with too much information.
Just a brief info about the school I teach in. My school happens to be a Magnet high school with a Law Magnet, a Medical Magnet and a Computer Magnet. Within the Comp. Magnet is the AoIT program. However, we offer the Principles of IT course to all of our Computer Magnet 9 th graders as a way to see who would like to continue with AoIT for the remainder of their 3 years in HS. It gives the teachers a chance to get to know the students and a chance for the students to see what they really are in for. (ask audience) How many of your schools offer Principles of IT? Please raise your hands. In the 9 th Grade? What about any other courses in the 9 th grade? Please raise your hands. Other Hospitality courses? (Call on a couple of people and invite them to share what courses they offer.)
The curriculum is based on NAF Core Principles: Standards-based: Every course is built on national academic standards and designed to match up with state and local standards. Rigor: Lessons are designed to be complex, ambiguous, and provocative. They are intended to encourage an emotional response. Relevant: Content and examples that reflect the cultural diversity that plays such a role in today’s classroom. Project-Based Learning: All courses include carefully designed, rigorous projects (more on that later). Literacy Integration: Lessons include literacy activities designed to encourage active reading, vocabulary development, and improvement of reading, writing, and speaking skills. Flexibility: Lessons are designed for maximum flexibility so that teachers can adjust each lesson to best suit their students’ needs. Use this opportunity to provide an example of how one of these principles has affected your experience of the curriculum.
Ask your audience to indicate by a show of hands whether or not they have previously used projects in the classroom. Point out that PBL uses a very specific definition, so not everything the audience thinks of as a project would meet PBL’s standards. Let your audience know that you will be giving them examples of some PBL-acceptable projects a little later in this presentation.
Every course has some basic course assumptions or prerequisites, which are usually listed in the course overview or in Lesson 1. For Principles of IT, students are not expected to have completed any other computer/AoIT courses. For other courses it is very important to take into account the course prerequisites. This is important, because the course assumes students will understand some basic vocabulary and concepts that were introduced in the prerequisite course(s). As a teacher, I need to know if my students meet the course assumptions. If they do not, I may have to build in extra class time to get the students ready for the curriculum.
These are some of the unit titles for the Principles of IT course. Each of these units has two or more lessons in it that are grouped based on these topics. Unit 1: Give students an overview of what they will learn in this course. Students learn strategies of locating information on the Internet and gain a sense of how computers affect our everyday lives. Unit 2: Introduces students to computer hardware technology. Students review the basic functions of computer hardware and indentify uses and benefits of various types of input and output devices. Unit 3: Provides students with the basic categories for different types of software applications. Students will learn to use basic software applications. Unit 4: Gives students a basic overview of how computer networks operate and their relation to the Internet. Students will identify the hardware needed to set up and operate a computer network and learn the basics of Internet Protocols and the client/server technology behind email. They will also practice writing a professional email. Unit 5: Provides students with an overview of the types of operating systems most commonly used by computers today. Students will compare and contrast open source and proprietary software and differentiate among source code, machine code, and compilers. They will also develop a simple computer program using JavaScript and HTML. Unit 6: Students will examine how technology has affected our society and relationships with other people. Students research how society has been impacted by technological innovations and share their findings with the class through a brief oral presentation. (Minor Project) Unit 7: This will help students identify careers related to information technology and understand their roles as IT professionals in business and society. Students learn about the kinds of qualifications employers look for in entry-level professional and the training and educational requirements for various careers. Students will also complete course [Major] projects, and recap what they’ve learned in preparation for continuing their success.
I found the minor project to be really fascinating. It was interesting to hear their perceptions of how they think these same problems are going to either grow or change in the future. The culminating project is really interesting, too. It’s very real world – something you could picture real people doing at some time. The students have to budget for a “dream” computer system. Their natural inclination is to just buy the best of everything…then they realize $3500 really goes quick, and oh yea, I need to buy software too. I can’t just download it illegally? It created some great discussions.
Teach (model) a short activity from the course that uses one of the NAF Handbook strategies. After activity, use next slide to hold brief discussion using questions on slide.
You may wish to use an abbreviated Think, Pair, Share or Think, Group, Share approach. Invite your audience to read the questions on the slide and think about them for a moment, then ask them to share their thoughts with the person or people sitting near them, then invite a few audience members to share their thoughts with the group as a whole.
This can be a couple of slides; duplicate if necessary. Take pictures in your classroom of students working and their products. Student work can be scanned, or if there’s a digital file, we can link it to the PPT. Send me files you’d like linked and I’ll do it for you.
Supplement these points with one or two examples from your own course. Was there a part of the course you originally had questions about? Did you have an important suggestion for a revision or addition to the course? Point out that you will also provide your contact info before the end of the presentation.
Explain what they’ll find in Andy’s blog Course discussion forums are actively monitored and all feedback that is shared here is passed on to the editors to assist with the constant reworking of courses. Highlight 1 or 2 useful Adobe Connect presentations from the Curriculum & Instruction section If your course has a Curriculum Spotlight video, direct participants to them (C & I Online Curriculum Library NAF-Pearson Curriculum Fellow)
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