DESIGN TECHNOLOGY

FRESHMAN SEMINAR Course Number:​ 8064 Credit Value:​ 1

Grade level: ​9 Prerequisite:​ N/A

The Freshman Seminar course is an innovative, yearlong course that studies human wellbeing through the lens of design thinking. Students will explore topics related to self-identity, health education, mindfulness, and study skills while applying design technology strategies and mindsets to answer questions about themselves, their communities, and the world. Throughout the course, students will practice and develop skills essential for high school success. This course will award students .5 credit in health and .5 credit in computer technology.

CODING Course Number:​ 6509 Grade level: ​10-12 Credit Value:​ .5 Prerequisite: none This course introduces students to the principles of programming, including algorithms and logic. Students will engage in hands-on programming tasks in the JavaScript language as they write and test their own code using approaches real programmers use in the field. A broad range of foundational concepts such as variables, loops, data types, functions, and conditional statements will be explored. Students will exercise their creativity and problem-solving skills to create a series of simple applications (apps) that live on the web.

DESIGN LAB* Course Number: ​ 6508 Grade level: ​9-12 Credit Value:​ .5 Prerequisite:​ One semester of Freshman Seminar or Teacher Permission In this class, students will explore and apply the principles of Design Thinking in a Project Based Learning environment. Working both individually and in teams, students will acquire making and fabricating skills and use them to create a positive impact in their school, community, and world. Drawing inspiration from the Human Centered Design movement, students gain experience taking others’ perspectives by collaborating with constituents outside of the classroom to find authentic situations in need of improvement and developing effective, iterative solutions to these real world problems.

Design Lab is a levelled class comprised both of students who have taken the class before and students who have not. Students taking Design Lab for the first time (“Novice” students) will use the design program Rhinoceros to digitally fabricate (vinyl cut, laser cut, and 3D print) original designs and problem solutions. Students repeating Design Lab (“Intermediate” students) will join the Novice students for some activities, will become trained as MakerLab technicians, and will choose from a number of extended and often highly independent project work as they extend their design and digital fabrication skills and learn new making techniques including, but not limited to, using the CNC router, using Arduinos, sewing, basic, woodworking, Virtual Reality, etc. ​*This course may be repeated for credit.

SOUND AND STAGE ENGINEERING Course Number: 6424 Grade level: ​9-12 Credit Value:​ .5 Prerequisite: none

This course offers an opportunity to learn about the technical aspects of theater and performance; most of what happens backstage to make a play technically synchronized to a script. From sound to light, and sketch to design, the array of subjects studied during this course will help the student develop skills to: be well versed in audio, illumination, and stage terminology, as well as to create technical scripts for plays, and to design and model sets for a play or film.

FILM Course Number: ​6505 Credit Value:​ .5

Grade level: ​10-12 Prerequisite: none

Digital Video is a​ course that serves as a foundation for further exploration in digital video artwork and storytelling. Students will write, direct, act, shoot, and edit short videos, with beginning and intermediate instruction. Areas like the fundamentals of shooting, sound, lighting, and editing, among other production issues are addressed in this course. Students will work mostly in teams where they will put the learned techniques into practice. Evaluation will be based on tests and projects.

GRAPHIC DESIGN Course Number: ​6506 Grade level: ​10-12 Credit Value:​ .5 Prerequisite: None Graphic Design focuses on finding creative visual solutions to communication problems using technical skills. In this course, students will learn how to inform, persuade, and attract attention by creating and organizing the elements of typography, images, and white space. Students will complete a variety of authentic projects and will gain a solid foundation in the use of professional design software.