Introduction

My students are available for service to other students and teachers in the building. For instance, you may be asked to create products for teachers to use in their classes. Your peers will likely ask for your help when your core classes go to the computer lab for an assignment. You will have the opportunity to learn the most advanced programs that are available to students at Ford. With that privilege and your talent comes responsibility. I hope you’ll be willing to help others.

Technology Applications

Tech Apps is a one-semester class that uses state objectives mentioned in the previous section. Tech Apps students concentrate on the graphics, animation, and web portions of those objectives. If you are in one of my Tech Apps classes, you’ll use the Microsoft Office products (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Access) routinely on a daily basis. In addition you’ll learn to write HTML code, learning the basic elements, as well as tables. You’ll learn to edit images and incorporate them into multimedia presentations which you will create using PowerPoint, HTML, and Flash. You will make your own animations using GIF Construction Set, PowerPoint, and Flash. You’ll also learn about teamwork, the ethics of privacy and copyright issues, and effective teaching practices. You will work on a team to produce web pages because that’s how people produce them in businesses. You will learn to use the digital cameras and probably be called upon to take pictures during your class period in other classes for the yearbook or for teacher’s portfolios.

Business Apps

Business Apps is a semester class. If you are a student in this class, you will learn the Microsoft Office products (Word, PowerPoint, and Excel) and you will also be working on your keyboarding skills. You may get a chance to learn a few basic photography skills and work with the cameras as needed. You’ll also learn about teamwork, the ethics of privacy and copyright issues, and effective teaching practices. You will work on a team to produce web pages because that’s how people produce them in businesses.

Multimedia

Multimedia is a full year class. If you are a student in this class, you will use the skills you learned previously and add new ones. You’ll learn more about editing sound and images. In addition to raster graphics, you will create vector art using Illustrator. You’ll learn how to incorporate frames and a limited amount of Java Script into your web pages, which you will create using FrontPage, if you’re tired of writing code. You’ll learn to make web sites using Macromedia’s Flash. You will expand your use of scripting in Flash and make simple games. Like the Tech Apps classes, you investigate privacy and copyright issues as they pertain to your use of computers and the Internet.

Every year students from my classes will produce a digital scrapbook to be sold to the teachers and students at Ford as a project to make money to buy software for the lab. We also create slide shows for assemblies and graduation. The year will end with a 5-week long business simulation in which teams of students act as a special projects team of a multimedia business. In this activity you will produce resumes, business cards, budgets, time sheets, advertising media, multimedia presentations, and a team web site. Your work will all be compiled into a portfolio at the end of the year, so that you can take it with you when the class is over.

What's Really Important

Learning software is good, but learning the things listed below is better. These are characteristics and skills that you’ll need to be successful in whatever you do after you leave my class. These are my real goals for you this year.