The current version of the curriculum is online! The website has two pathways for creating apps: the Tech Pathway and the Civics & CS Pathway. Students and teachers can use the Tech Pathway to learn how to make apps as a standalone skill or the Civics & CS Pathway to make apps for civics projects.
Taking the Tech Pathway means following a “traditional” sequence of lesson plans to learn how to design and program apps. To spark students’ interest, they make apps that connect them to their communities. That’s communities with a small “c” instead of a big “C” (as in Community Service) because everybody has a different idea of their true community or group of people they identify with and make them feel part of something bigger than themselves. Students learn design and programming concepts as they make increasingly more “complex” apps that can connect them to others.
Taking the Civics & CS Pathway means learning to create apps as tools to make a difference in your community. This time we are talking about community with a big “C,” or a group of people that you are actively part of and have civic responsibility for. Students learn app development skills and knowledge to make apps to help them meet that responsibility.
This means that students learn and use app design and programming knowledge in specific orders that fit their projects and get the job done. Most recently, students in Lowell and Methuen have developed apps to support Generation Citizen action civics projects.
In both pathways, students learn the basics of event-based programming. However, in the Tech Pathway, the CS knowledge students learn next is based on a computer science learning sequence, while in the Civics & CS Pathway the CS knowledge they learn next depends on the app’s purpose in the civics project, which may be to collect information, organize, or educate. The Tech Pathway is concept-based. The Civics & CS Pathway is function-based.
To support learning along both pathways, in addition to unit lessons the web site provides examples of apps, code, media explaining CS concepts, and instructions for making different kinds of apps.
Middle School Pathways in Computer Science 