We're always excited to announce a new title! Let's explore our forthcoming Tech Essentials course.
Tech Essentials Highlights
Tech Essentials is our first course aimed exclusively at middle school students. Other courses are "friendly" to both middle and high school students, but Tech Essentials is just for middle school. Additionally, while many of our courses cover two full semesters, Tech Essentials is intentionally a single-semester course to better fit into a hectic middle school schedule.
You can view the course syllabus and images of student work at the new course description page:
Visit the Tech Essentials Course Description Page
Subjects Covered
Tech Essentials covers introductory digital literacy and coding concepts, including:
- Basic computer skills
- Basic application use (spreadsheets, word processors, etc.)
- Doing online research and making presentations
- Simple coding concepts (block-based and Python)
- Digital citizenship and online safety
Tech Essentials vs. Digital Savvy
Longtime CompuScholar fans know our Digital Savvy course covers many of the same concepts as Tech Essentials. What's the difference?
Simply put, Digital Savvy is a longer, more detailed course that is most frequently used at the high school level. We wanted something shorter, lighter, and tailored exclusively for middle school students, so Tech Essentials was born!
Coding Approach
You know we like to teach coding here at CompuScholar, and Tech Essentials has several chapters covering basic coding concepts (variables, decision-making, loops, and simple algorithms). We present all of these concepts in both Blockly (a block-based language and in Python! Your students can simultaneously become comfortable with coding concepts in each language.
We are particularly proud of our Blockly implementation, as students can code by dragging and dropping blocks right in the web browser (similar to MIT's Scratch). Unlike Scratch, our Blockly implementation is tightly integrated into our course and lesson pages and is fully auto-graded by our system!
Release Timeline
Tech Essentials will be available for public/private school classrooms in the Fall of 2023. Teachers in public/private schools will be able to review the course later this summer. Stay tuned for updates!
Our anticipated release for homeschool families is Spring of 2024.
For More Information
Check out our May, 2023 Professional Development Webinar - "Introducing the Tech Essentials Course" - for further discussion and a video walk-through. As always, please Contact Us if you have questions!