Career/Technical Courses

Students use an informative interactive process to explore career and life options in this course. They begin with a thorough examination of their own interests, aptitudes, achievements, and personality styles. Instructional material then helps them match job market information, interview techniques, training requirements, and educational paths to potential careers that suit their strengths and personal priorities. Successfully completing this course gives students the ability to identify and describe their personal interests, aptitudes, and lifestyle goals; locate and evaluate information about different careers; identify the skills and knowledge needed for careers of interest and how to obtain them; and create an entrepreneurial business plan.

Prerequisites: None

Students must be able to effectively use technology to research, organize, create, and evaluate information. In this introductory course, students become familiar with the basic principles of a personal computer, including internal hardware, operating system, and software applications. Students gain practice in using key applications such a word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software as well as understand social and ethical issues around the Internet, information, and security.  In the first part of the course, the focus is on the fundamentals: learning and using the applications, and understanding the basic roles and responsibilities of the  software, hardware, and operating system. In the second part, the focus is on gathering and analyzing data, and using the right tools and methods to collect and present data.

Prerequisites: None

In this exploratory course, students learn the elements and principles of design, as well as foundational concepts of visual communication. While surveying a variety of media and art, students use image editing, animation, and digital drawing to put into practice the art principles they've learned. They explore career opportunities in the design, production, display and presentation of digital artwork. They respond to the artwork of others, and learn how to combine artistic elements to create finished pieces that effectively communicate their ideas.

Prerequisites: None

This introductory design course is for students who want to create compelling, professional-looking graphic designs and photos. Students learn the basics of composition, color, and layout through the use of hands-on projects that allow them to use their creativity while developing important foundational skills. They use GIMP software to create a graphic design portfolio with a wide variety of projects involving the mastery of technical topics, such as working with layers and masks, adding special effects, and effectively using typefaces to create visual impact. The projects help students develop the skills they need to create and edit images of their own.

Prerequisites: None

This course is a Project Based Learning course (PBL). This course is for students who wish to learn core skills in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. Students work through real-world, hands-on projects to hone skills in formatting text, page layout, images, charts, and a vast variety of commonly used word processing and presentation tools. This course prepares students for the Microsoft Word 2019 Associate and Microsoft PowerPoint 2019 Associate certifications. 

This course is a Project Based Learning course (PBL). This course is for students who wish to learn core skills in Microsoft Excel, and Access. Students work through hands-on projects to hone skills in data entry and management, formula creation, email management and a vast variety of commonly used email, spreadsheet, and database tools. This course prepares students for the Microsoft Excel 2019 Associate certification. 

Software Apps: PowerPoint with Exam Prep is MSi curriculum that prepares students for the Microsoft Office Specialist Exam. This course introduces users to PowerPoint 2019 and covers: managing presentations, slides, text, shapes, and images, tables, charts, and SmartArt, 3D models and media, and transitions and animations. Students will learn basic terminology, modify slide masters and layouts, add/remove properties, set up slide shows and print options, use zoom techniques, add headers and footers, apply formatting and styles, insert hyperlinks and sections, resize and crop images, create shapes, insert audio/video clips, and set transition/animation effects and motion paths.

Software Apps: Word with Exam Prep is MSi curriculum that prepares students for the Microsoft Office Specialist Exam. This course teaches learners how to use the Word Application Interface and familiarize themselves with Word options. It covers topics such as navigating and customizing the ribbon, editing documents, formatting text, managing comments, and tracking changes to create professional documents. 

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the essentials of web design, from planning page layouts to publishing a complete site to the web. Students learn how to use HTML to design their own web pages. The course covers basic HTML tags for formatting text as well as more advanced tags. Through real-world design scenarios and hands-on projects, students create compelling, usable websites using the latest suite of tools.

Prerequisites: None

This is the first part of a 2 part course that teaches students how to build their own web pages. Students will learn the languages HTML and CSS, and will create their own live homepages to serve as portfolios of their creations. By the end of this course, students will be able to explain how web pages are developed and viewed on the Internet, analyze and fix errors in existing websites, and create their very own multi page websites. Students will learn the foundations of user interface design, rapid prototyping and user testing, and will work together to create professional, mobile responsive websites. Each unit of the course is broken down into lessons. Lessons consist of video tutorials, short quizzes, example web pages to explore, and web design exercises in which students develop and publish their own web sites. Each lesson includes at least one formative short multiple choice quiz. At the end of each unit, students take a summative multiple choice unit quiz that assesses their knowledge of the concepts covered in the unit. 

This is the second part of a 2 part course that teaches students how to build their own web pages. Students will learn the languages HTML and CSS, and will create their own live homepages to serve as portfolios of their creations. By the end of this course, students will be able to explain how web pages are developed and viewed on the Internet, analyze and fix errors in existing websites, and create their very own multi page websites. Students will learn the foundations of user interface design, rapid prototyping and user testing, and will work together to create professional, mobile responsive websites. Each unit of the course is broken down into lessons. Lessons consist of video tutorials, short quizzes, example web pages to explore, and web design exercises in which students develop and publish their own web sites. Each lesson includes at least one formative short multiple choice quiz. At the end of each unit, students take a summative multiple choice unit quiz that assesses their knowledge of the concepts covered in the unit.