Intermediate Computer Skills Course
Digital Natives in a Global Village

Basic Course Info Teacher: John Mcsweeney email: johnmcs@sover.net

Cabot School Library:
Class web page: www.cabotschool.org/computerskills_05
Other electronic content:
Moodle computer skills online course calendar, resources and quizzes
computer skills blog address

COMPUTER CLASS BLOG

Online keyboarding site to check out

List of online keyboarding sites

Good Tutorials . com

COURSE GOALS

Students will develop new skills and improve existing skills to become more capable and knowledgable users of digital information technology tools. Goals, Instruction, assignments, and grading will be based on the Vermont IT Grade Level Expectations for grades 9-12. Students will learn about a range of technology tools used in education and many occupations for productivity, creativity, information access and application,

GUIDELINES and TEACHER EXPECTATIONS

You will need to make sure you have an email account and a network account and password... See Mr Mcsweeney if you need help on this everyone will receive a user name and password for the Moodle class web site and the course blog.
Rules:
1. follow basic school rules respecting each other, space and equipment and the learning process.
2. no music players, ipods, cds except with specific teacher permission and during specific activities.
3. Attendance: follows cabot school policy- academic jeopardy after x#absences
4. Tardiness- If you are late to class , you must have a signed pass stating why.. If you do not have a pass you will have to make up accumulated late time working on specific assignments. If regular lateness becomes an issue- cabot school rules and process will be followed
5. Be kind to substitutes -This will affect your grade....
Keyboarding expectation...
Each of you will take a 5 minute wpm/accuracy test, a 10 minute test, and a 20 minute test with proper finger technique and average scores to establish your personal baseline (starting point). We will decide how often to have keyboarding practice and you can always practice outside of class , home. chatting/im by using proper finger...
Your keyboarding grade will be based on meeting your improvement goal 5-10 words per minute improvement per semester which means if you are currently 25-30 wpm you should be able to get to 30-35 wpm semester 1 and 35-40 wpm semester 2
Homework:
Homework is not a large part of this class. I expect a majority of the project and lesson work to be done in class. You will be expected to read assigned articles and be ready to respond in class and in writing on the moodle site or the blog site This requires excellent time management skills on the part of the student and leaves little time for socializing or wasting time. Students will be given deadlines they must meet. If a student feels that a deadline cannot be met, open lab hours after & before school will be provided for catch up. I will on various occasions assign homework that can be done at home and expect it to be finished by the due date.

Grades::

Exact percentages of these will be available by Sept. 9
Readings and written responses 10/quarter assignments @10 pts = 200 possible points
improvement of keyboarding skills- 5-10 wpm x 10pts per wpm increase= 50 - 100 possible points
class behavior, attendance and participation = 100 pts /quarter = 200 possible points / semester
content quizes and performance skill based assessments 5/quarter @10 pts = 100 possible points
quarterly projects ( options to be announced) Q1 @100 points Q2@100 pts = 200 possible points.

IT grade level expectations- based on percentage of expectation skills taught checked off = 200 points

Total possible points = 1000 Grades will follow Cabot grading based on a 100 point scale..