IT Launch is the introductory course in the CS/IT pathway. It is designed to be “a mile wide and an inch deep.” We start with the history of Computer Science and study a current topic of importance. Some issues we’ve looked at are Net Neutrality, Privacy and Encryption, and censorship.
We then move on to programming in Scratch, learning about algorithms and basic data structures. After that we touch on web design with basic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for a few weeks. Next we build our own mobile apps with Thunkable, and then we learn basic programming skills in Python.
Finally, we break out the Raspberry Pi computers and some LED’s. It’s amazing what the students can come up with using just basic electronic components, the Python programming language and their imagination.
We also have guest speakers every 2 weeks from a wide variety of careers, including atmospheric study, electronic trading, and Cyber-security.