Computer Skills Curriculum


Essential Computer Skills, a home school curriculum
An Educational Resource for Home Schools


Scotto's Place at 2009 Homeschool Conventions!

I am very excited to announce that Scotto's Place is planning to have a vendor booth at the following events in 2009:


There is an event in KY that we are waiting to hear back from as well. We hope to meet some of you at these events!

Scotto


Background

Welcome to my home school curriculum page!! Back in 2005 my 2 boys started telling me they wanted to learn more about using computers. So I began an Internet search for a home school curriculum that taught computer skills. Much to my surprise, I found there to be a lack of choices in this subject! Maybe that is because you can go to any library or bookstore and pick up a book on any facet of computer knowledge that interests you (or your children).

But how does the homeschooling parent (or child) choose where to begin? In the sea of computer-related subjects, which ones should a child learn? What computer knowledge is in some way essential for our children to possess? I decided that I would teach my own children some essential computer skills, write down the lessons, and eventually make them available to other home schooling families.

My career has been in the Information Technology area, both in the business world and in the scientific arena. I have a good idea of the essential computer skills that my children need to learn before entering the job market. My goal is to provide a series of workbooks which will cover these essentials for the home school family.



Planned Books in the Essential Computer Skills Curriculum
Book Title/Subject Estimated Availability
Essential Office Applications 1 NOW! (View sample lessons!)
Essential Office Applications 2 NOW!
Essential Web Site Development 2009
Essential PC Knowledge 2009


Cost of the Curriculum
 As much as possible, I base the curriculum on FREE tools that can be found on the Internet. This allows me to offer the curriculum and any needed software at a reasonable cost. See the ordering page for specific pricing information.


Essential Office Applications 1

(Ages 10+. 130 pages, 10 lessons. Includes student exercises, quizzes, and final exam.) The first book in the series provides a solid introduction to the skills of word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation software. Creating these types of documents is one of the most basic uses of computers today, and I am amazed at how many folks don't understand most of what these applications can do. This book will arm your child with more knowledge than many employees have!

These lessons are based on the FREE OpenOffice.org application, which is very similar to Microsoft Office. If you use a different word processor or spreadsheet program, don't despair! The curriculum teaches you things that you should learn how to do in your programs. If you use Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) all of the features taught will be available there as well, and the curriculum points out any differences in the Microsoft Office applications. (Also includes notes to support MS Office 2007 users.)

Read more about OpenOffice.org and other cool programs that are FREE.


Download sample lessons from this workbook here!!!
Introduction, Full Table of Contents, and Lesson 1: Document Basics EOA1_L1.pdf (353KB)
From Lesson 6: Spreadsheet Basics EOA1_L6.pdf (251KB)

Ordering Information
Click here to go to my online ordering page.



Essential Office Applications 2

(Ages 13+. 158 pages, 8 lessons. Includes student exercises, quizzes, and final exam.) This book is a followup to Book 1, and teaches an intermediate level of skills needed to effectively create professional quality documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.

NOTE that Book 1 and Book 2 together present a good amount of work for a semester of High School - 18 lessons over 18 weeks.

These lessons are based on the FREE OpenOffice.org programs, which are very similar to Microsoft Office. If you use Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) all of the features taught will be available there as well, and the curriculum points out any differences in the Microsoft Office applications. (Also includes notes to support MS Office 2007 users.)

Download the complete Table of Contents here: EOA2_TOC.pdf (55KB).

Read more about OpenOffice.org and other cool programs that are FREE.


Ordering Information
Click here to go to my online ordering page.



Essential Web Site Development

This book will introduce the student to the following skills:
(Kompozer is a FREE Web Authoring Tool, which allows you to create Web pages in much the same way as you would use a word processor to create a document.  It makes things easier than trying to program directly in HTML.  Learning to use a tool like this will teach the basic concepts of Web Site design.)

Ordering Information
Available in 2009.

© 2005-2009 Scott Weberg. All rights reserved.