Curriculum Overview

The Computing Explorations curriculum is comprised of two courses that span as a year-long project. The curriculum was designed to meet:

the curriculum standards developed by the Georgia Department of Education for
- - the Foundations of Computer Programming (FoCP) course,
  - the Foundations of Interactive Design (FoID) course,
and the standards developed by the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) Level 2 for K-12 education.

Computing Explorations of Computer Programming

The first semester is Computing Explorations of Computer Programming with three units covering engagement context, and the last unit covering functioning context, all of which introduce students to programming and application building.

Unit 1: Problem of Interest Selection

Students are introduced to the course and asked to think about a problem that is meaningful to them personally, socially, or culturally. Students then work in pairs to research this problem, and analyze the problem at a deeper level following provided criteria. Skills and content covered: Problem identification, search, and synthesis.

Unit 2: Music Programming Design Challenge

Students explore computer programming concepts within the digital music creation platform EarSketch¹⁶. EarSketch is a free, web-based platform that allows users to create new musical compositions by mixing musical stems using Python or JavaScript programming languages. Students use this program to create four pieces of music to accompany four facts they researched in Unit 1 and will create a playlist app for in Unit 3. Skills and content covered: Understanding data types, variables, function parameters, storyboarding, looping, debugging, and copyright.

Unit 3: Information Playlist App Challenge

Students explore app building, as well as additional computer programming content, culminating their project by using an app design platform to design an app that increases awareness about their topic from Unit 1. Skills and content covered: Collaborative software development, list, booleans and conditionals, and event-centered programming.

Unit 4: microBit Piano Challenge

Students explore the intersection between hardware and software through the creation of an instrument. Creativity and design of the instrument encourage students to express themselves while introducing the interaction between coding and microcontrollers concepts. Skills and content covered: Micro-controller interactions, event-centered programming, and physical world interaction.

Computing Explorations of Interactive Design

The second semester is Computing Explorations of Interactive Design with two units covering problem awareness context, and the last unit covering engagement context, all of which introduce students to user interface / user experience (UI/UX) design.

Unit 1: Problem Research and Selection

Similar to Unit 1 in Computing Explorations for Computer Programming, students are introduced to the course and asked to think about a problem that is meaningful to them personally, socially, or culturally. They will build on this by then working in pairs to research this problem, and to develop a narrated PowerPoint presentation intended to inform an audience about this issue. Creation of this digital artifact relies heavily on students’ background research on their problem, as well as their utilization of Microsoft PowerPoint software, including the recording and narration feature. Skills and content covered: Media analysis, word processing, slideshow presentations, problem decomposition, search and information retrieval, data gathering and synthesis.

Unit 2: Introduction to Web Design

Students merge into groups of four or five and develop a website to raise awareness about their focal issue, and to motivate website users to engage and work to address this problem in some way. They utilize design knowledge and planning to layout their website in a way that best suits their issues in addition to learning about web privacy. Skills and content covered: Learning design process, empathy and perspective-taking, developing problems as stories and using media as narrative, web design, HTML basics, privacy, and video integration.

Unit 3: Introduction to Game Design

Students explore algorithms and other computer programming concepts to code a quiz game based on their selected issue used in Unit 1 and 2. They practice individual game sections to experiment with different coding mechanisms before combining them together into one game to showcase. Skills and content covered: Understanding data types, variables, team software development, game design, boolean logic and conditionals, design for code reuse, event-centered programming, and debugging.

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