Tech Survey
Essential skills and confidence
Tech Survey is a course for all Freshman students. The goal is to give them the key computing skills essential for a 21st century student and to introduce students to the programs offered here in the computer lab. I want them to be skilled with a full-scale operating system, to be fascinated by what is posible with these amazing creative tools, and to be confident they will be successful when they come back to the lab later in high school.
Tools and Resources
Exploratory Ventures
XV: A Riverdale Tradition of student leadership
XV is a student-led, project driven class. Each year, students propose projects for the next year's XV class, and, if chosen, spend one trimester preparing and then one trimester leading the project for a class with the support of Mr. McLain. Past projects have included data collection using weather balloons, submersible ROV deployments off the Oregon Coast, self-driving model cars, drones, and more.
Tech for a Better World
Problem-based learning
With its debut in the 2023-24 school year, Tech for a Better World introduced the idea of problem-based learning. Tech for a Better World focused on ALS in its first year. Students learned about ALS through readings and videos, heard from representatives of the ALS Association about the disease, and met a person living with ALS and their caregiver. Then they went through a process of identifying challenges for patients and loved ones, and imagined possible technological solutions that might address some of those challenges.
The remainder of the trimester was psent creating prototypes for those solutions before presenting again to the ALS Association representatives.
Shown here is the class learning about the kind of wheelchair so many ALS patients spend their time in.