Technology - Upper School
	Goals and Objectives Technology provides many varied opportunities for children to practice and apply newly learned skills and concepts. When integrated properly, use of technology will enrich students’ growth in literacy, mathematical understanding and content area learning. Computers and Technology in education at East Woods, and the world, is continually growing. Technology is an exciting, challenging and forever changing field. The ability to access information, and then interpret, manipulate and present that information effectively, will be a key to future success. East Woods is committed to offering our students the best possible learning environment to prepare them for their future. In our effort to establish a progressive, cohesive Technology curriculum, we have found it necessary to repeat certain skills and units at multiple grade levels. The objectives of the Upper School Technology program are: to create a cohesive implementation of technology in Fifth through Ninth Grade, allowing all spheres of East Woods to be served in an integrated manner to keep students’ interest as learners central to our planning, implementation and assessment of technology at East Woods to create an environment of continuous technological growth and self-evaluation to offer a more innovative work environment for our faculty to offer continued support for faculty in order to increase their technological literacy, thereby allowing them to grow with their students to prepare our students to be computer literate, confident about applying their technology skills and to acquire a solid understanding that technology is a tool that facilitates learning In the Upper Grades, specific learning outcomes of Technology are: to gain knowledge of computer hardware components to understand different types of application software to obtain word processing and desktop publishing applications to use advanced word processing skills to use advanced formatting procedures to identify desktop publishing software to identify major page layout features of word processing and desktop publishing software to understand the difference between a word processing and a desktop publishing application to understand and utilize skills in computer graphics to identify different types of computer graphics programs to describe the difference between draw and paint application software to identify the fundamental tools in different graphics programs to understand different ways of inputting graphics including the scanner and the digital camera develop use of CD-ROM applications for reference, resource, and research to utilize computer technology in the area of communications to understand how to access the Internet and extract targeted information to understand how to navigate on-line services to describe how telecommunications can expand access to information to discuss safety issues concerning telecommunications to utilize computer technology in multimedia applications to use multiple applications to create collaborative multimedia projects to integrate multimedia projects into other classroom activities to understand the relationship of computers to the environment to discuss the importance of the privacy and protection of data to understand how computers influence our lives constantly to describe how computers are used in our day-to-day lives Curriculum Fifth Grade Students in the Fifth Grade begin the year by developing their keyboarding skills with KeyQuest, a self-paced keyboarding program. Later, they work with Microsoft Word, learning how to align text, change font size and spacing and import graphics. The remainder of the year is spent designing and printing travel brochures, using Microsoft Word and PageMaker. Sixth Grade In the Sixth Grade the focus is on learning the basics of desktop publishing. Students first learn the elements of Photoshop, importing scanned or digital photos, adjusting their size and resolution, correcting color balance and contrast and finally adjusting image sharpness. The final photographs are used in a personal newsletter produced in PageMaker. Seventh Grade The Seventh Grade computer class uses a variety of programs and skills to learn the basics of page design and layout. The page design and layout is done using Adobe PageMaker. A main focus of the program is understanding how to work in layers. Text items, such as short stories or news articles, are prepared in a word processing program, such as Microsoft Word, so that they may be spell-checked and proofread for content, and are inserted into PageMaker. Students use a variety of sources for graphical content, including clip art files from other programs (such as Microsoft Office) and downloading graphical content from the Internet. Students use a scanner to import graphic content from books, magazines and other sources, and edit those graphics in Adobe PhotoShop. Graphical content is then imported into PageMaker for use in the page layout. Within PageMaker itself, students learn how to import and manipulate text and graphics, how to use frames, how to create lines and shapes and how to arrange layers of content, number of pages, single or facing pages and page numbering. Eighth Grade The Eighth Grade computer class uses a variety of programs and skills to learn the basics of multimedia presentations. The project is done in conjunction with History and Library Research classes to create a multimedia presentation using Microsoft PowerPoint, an industry standard for presentation software. Students conduct research and write a paper on an aspect of American History decided on by the involved faculty. The students then use that research and paper to create a multimedia presentation. Presentations are graded and the grades are applied to the students’ History average. Students must meet outlined requirements for number of slides and number and types of content items. Within PowerPoint, students learn the various functions of the program, such as: creating slides using both blank slides and pre-formatted layouts, importing text, audio, video and images into the program, animation effects, slide transitions, slide and animation timings, slide views and arranging layers of content. Additional programs are used to allow for the capture, editing and importing of media content items such as audio, video and images. Images may be downloaded from the Internet and scanned and manipulated using Adobe PhotoShop from magazines, books and other sources. Ninth Grade The Ninth Grade computer class uses a variety of programs to apply the skills of page layout and design towards the creation of their yearbook. Special attention is paid to the concept of resolution. Students become familiar with the application of different output resolutions for publication, web design and other output uses. The page design and layout is done using Adobe PageMaker, an industry standard for page layout. The main focus of the program is to understand how to work in layers. Text items, such as short stories or news articles, are prepared in a word processing program, such as Microsoft Word, so that they may be spell-checked and proofed for content and are inserted into PageMaker. Students use a variety of sources for graphical content, including clip art files from CD-ROMs and other programs. Along with digital photographs, students use a scanner to import graphic content from books, magazines and other sources and edit those graphics in Adobe PhotoShop, the industry standard for photo manipulation. Graphical content is then imported into PageMaker for use in the page layout. Within PageMaker itself, students learn how to import and manipulate text and graphics, how to use frames, how to create lines and shapes, drop-shadows and text headers and how to arrange layers of content. Students also learn how to manipulate page parameters such as margins, output resolution, number of pages, single or facing pages and page numbering.