I teach an 8th grade Digital Media class at my school. I don't have a real syllabus or structure to the class. It is a pure elective and I am given great latitude to rely on my discretion as to what happens in class. The ONLY goal for the class is to allow students (10 of them this year) to explore ways to promote their school, community, faith, church, family, etc using digital tools that are available to them. So the tone of the class depends much on the composition of the students enrolled.
Currently, there are three projects going on:
- Class blog to chronicle and document everything that happens in class (we use Posterous as our tool). It's private right now as they get more accustomed to posting.
- School calendar - fund raising project to create a slick, glossy calendar that can be sold to school families.
- Minecraft - a virtual world builder that is being used to create the school grounds property. One student, again an eighth grader, set up a Minecraft server in our computer lab and at any given time, there are up to 5 or 6 students working on sections of the school. They all paid for premium accounts and it is incredible to see them organize themselves and work together for a common goal.
Future projects may include:
- Google Sketchup 3D rendering of our school grounds
- 8th grade tribute video
- Programming using Scratch, Alice, or GameMaker - to help PreK and K students with basic skills
It's going to be a great year!
