A Stable Beginning: CompuScholar, Inc.: Digital Savvy ~ a TOS review

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

CompuScholar, Inc.: Digital Savvy ~ a TOS review

My oldest daughter at home this year is Madison. She is 16 years old and has dreams of going to the Air Force Academy. Upon researching admission requirements I found that she needed a year long computer class. But what exactly does that mean? After many hours of ~~stressing out~~ praying and talking with a friend whose son has just be admitted to the Academy I figured out what she needed and began my search for a class. I kid you not, a few days into my research we were offered to review a new computer program called Digital Savvy from CompuScholar, Inc.! It has been the answer to my prayers!

CompuScholar, Inc. is also the company formerly known as Homeschool Programming and was founded in 2008 by Chris and Andrea Yust, so you may already be familiar with them. Chris and Andrea know that a love of computers begins at an early age so they set out to equip and inspire a new generation of students by creating courses that teach professional programming in a fun and exciting way. At the same time, they realize that most parents and teachers are not fluent in the technical aspects of computer programming so they made Computer Science education easy and approachable for all involved.

The Digital Savvy course we received is a two-semester course that is equivalent to an introductory information technology course. Basic computer knowledge like knowing how to log into the computer and launch a program as well as how to use the mouse and keyboard are all that are needed to start. This may sound trivial in this digital age, but some students and older adults do not know these basic skills.

The Digital Savvy course has enough material to cover 36 weeks of learning. You, the parent need to decide with your student if you will take the course as a self-study course or teacher-led course. Pricing for each option is a bit different yet cost effective for your budget.

Self-study ~ $15.00/month or $120.00/year

Teacher-led ~ $35.00/month or $300/year

*** Choosing the 1-year option allows you to add an additional sibling to the same class for $40 (self-study) or $220 (teacher-led). ***

This course requires a computer running on a Windows or Mac operating systems. Course materials and interactive online systems can be accessed from any HTML5-compliant web browser on standard computers, laptops, or tablets with a solid internet connection. However, to complete the hands-on projects within the course, students will need to use a computer with one of the following operating systems:

• Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10

• Mac OS version 10.7 or higher

The course covers the fundamental computing topics and skills students need such as:

• Hardware, software, and operating systems

• Managing files and folders

• Basic networking

• Online safety and computer security

• Using Word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation programs

• Creating simple databases

• Image editing

• Using social media and email communications

• Introductory website design

• Simple computer programming concepts

• Exploration of computing careers

A detailed course syllabus for all 25 chapters is included online. Each chapter has topics divided into multiple lessons and gives an estimated number of days to complete. Lessons are presented in a similar fashion throughout and contain:

• Video instruction ~ clearly taught video instruction that includes demonstrations of the computer concepts being taught. Perfect for auditory learners.
• Text ~ detailed written texts of the video lesson.
• Quizzes/Tests ~ an automatically graded multiple choice quiz covering the written text material. Chapter tests are also graded automatically at the end of every chapter.
• Projects ~ hands-on learning to help students practice what they have learned.

Teachers/parents are given access to their own administrative login account to track the students progress. A Teachers Guide includes a summary of the lesson, teaching objectives, copy of the student text, suggested order of lesson activities, and class discussion questions. There is also a Quiz Answer Key provided in this account feature.

The only difficulty of using this program in our household was actually getting my duaghter started. But that is at no fault of the actual program because it is easy to set up and get started within a matter of minutes. Madison was (and still is) super excited to take this class and get started, however, it was a busy season when we received the log-in info. I thought she was capable of logging in and starting on the material for the class on her own without any handholding from me, so I let her go at it. Big mistake on my part and lesson learned. She is still a young adult and needs my guidance and double checking.

While Madison has not made as much progress as I had hoped she would have, she is making strides now through the program and truly enjoying the class. I am confident that she will be finished with the first semester of the course over the summer so that we may begin the second semester when our school year starts up again at the end of July.

Having access to this course has been a lifesaver for me. Not only does my daughter get to satisfy the “computer class” requirement for the Academy, she gets to have fun in a hands-on online class. I am confident that this Digital Savvy class exceeds the “computer class” requirement and look forward to Madison's successful completion of Principles of Information Technology in January 2018.

Be sure to check out what my CrewMates thought of this program, Digital Savvy, and the other two programs offered for review, Web Design and Java Programming, by clicking the banner below.