Grade 8 Technology Applications OLS Standards

GLOBAL COLLABORATOR: Students use digital tools to broaden their perspectives and enrich their learning by collaborating with others and working effectively in teams locally and globally.

CREATIVE COMMUNICATOR: Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes, such as AI prompt engineering, using platforms, tools, styles, formats, and digital media appropriate to their goals.

COMPUTATIONAL THINKER: Students develop and employ strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the power of technological methods to develop and test solutions.

INNOVATIVE DESIGNER: Students use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new, useful, or imaginative solutions.

KNOWLEDGE CONSTRUCTOR: Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools, such as Artificial Intelligence chatbots, to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts, and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others.

DIGITAL CITIZEN: Students recognize the responsibilities and opportunities for contributing to their digital communities, including making safe, legal, and ethical decisions using Artificial Intelligence.

EMPOWERED LEARNER: Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving, and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences.

Students select appropriate platforms and tools to create, share, and communicate their work effectively.

Students create original works or responsibly repurpose other digital resources into new creative works.

Students communicate complex ideas clearly using various digital tools to convey the concepts textually, visually, graphically, etc.

Students publish or present content designed for specific audiences and select platforms that will effectively convey their ideas to those audiences.

Students practice defining problems to solve by computing for data analysis, modeling, or algorithmic thinking.

Students find or organize data and use technology to analyze and represent it to solve problems and make decisions.

Students break problems into component parts, identify key pieces, and use that information to problem-solve.

Students demonstrate an understanding of how automation works and use algorithmic thinking to design and automate solutions.

Students manage their digital identities and reputations within school policy, including demonstrating an understanding of how digital actions are never fully erasable.

Students demonstrate and advocate for positive, safe, legal, and ethical habits when using technology and when interacting with others online.

Students demonstrate and advocate for an understanding of intellectual property with both print and digital media — including copyright, permission, and fair use — by creating a variety of media products that include appropriate citation and attribution elements.

Students demonstrate an understanding of what personal data is and how to keep it private and secure, including the awareness of terms such as encryption, HTTPS, password, cookies, and computer viruses; they also understand the limitations of data management and how data-collection technologies work.

Students articulate personal learning goals, select and manage appropriate technologies to achieve them and reflect on their successes and areas of improvement in working toward their goals.

Students identify and develop online networks within school policy and customize their learning environments in ways that support their learning, in collaboration with an educator.

Students actively seek performance feedback from people, including teachers, and from functionalities embedded in digital tools to improve their learning process, and they select technology to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.

Students are able to navigate a variety of technologies and transfer their knowledge and skills to learn how to use new technologies.

Students use digital tools to interact with others to develop a richer understanding of different perspectives and cultures.

Students use collaborative technologies to connect with others, including peers, experts, and community members, to learn about issues and problems or to gain a broader perspective.

Students determine their role in a team to meet goals, based on their knowledge of technology and content and personal preference.

Students select collaborative technologies and use them to work with others to investigate and develop solutions related to local and global issues.

Students engage in a design process and employ it to generate ideas, create innovative products, or solve authentic problems.

Students select and use digital tools to support a design process and expand their understanding to identify constraints and trade-offs and weigh risks.

Students engage in a design process to develop, test, and revise prototypes, embracing the cyclical process of trial and error and understanding problems or setbacks as potential opportunities for improvement.

Students demonstrate the ability to persevere and handle greater ambiguity as they work to solve open-ended problems.

Students demonstrate and practice the ability to effectively use research strategies to locate appropriate digital resources in support of their learning.

Students practice and demonstrate the ability to evaluate resources for accuracy, perspective, credibility, and relevance.

Students locate and collect resources from a variety of sources and organize assets into collections for a wide range of projects and purposes.

Students explore real-world issues and problems and actively pursue an understanding of them and solutions for them.

IT FundamentalsLearners apply fundamental principles of IT, including the history of IT and its impact on society, common industry terms, systems theory, information storage and retrieval, database management, and computer hardware, software, and peripheral device configuration and installation. This base of knowledge and skills may be applied across the career field.

TroubleshootingSelect and apply troubleshooting methodologies for problem solving.

Identify the problem.

Select troubleshooting methodology (e.g., top down, bottom up, follow the path, spot the differences).

Investigate symptoms based on the selected methodology.

Gather and analyze data about the problem.

Design a solution.

Test a solution.

Implement a solution.

Document the problem and the verified solution.

Performance Tests and Acceptance PlansDevelop performance tests and acceptance plans.

Create a written procedure agreed by the stakeholders and project team for determining the acceptability of the project deliverables.

Develop a test system that accurately mimics external interfaces.

Develop test cases that are realistic, compare with expected performance, and include targeted platforms and device types.

Develop, perform, and document usability and testing integration.

Make corrections indicated by test results.

Seek stakeholder acceptance upon successful completion of the test plan.

Rollout and HandoffPlan rollout and facilitate handoff to customer.

Include overall project goals and timelines in the rollout plan.

Communicate rollout plans to key stakeholders in a timely manner.

Conduct final review and approvals according to company standards.

Identify support staff, training needs, and contingency plans in the rollout plan.

Test delivered application to assure that it is fully functional for the customer or user and meets all requirements.

Deliver support and training materials.

Data EncodingExplain and describe data encoding basics.

Identify and explain coding information and representation of characters (e.g., American Standard Code for Information Interchange [ASCII], Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code [EBCDIC], Unicode).

Convert between numbering systems (e.g., binary, hexadecimal, decimal).

Project Concept ProposalDevelop a project concept proposal.

Identify and incorporate branding strategies.

Determine the scope and purpose of the project.

Determine the target audience, client needs, expected outcomes, objectives, and budget.

Develop a conceptual model and design brief for the project.

Develop a timeline, a communication plan, a task breakdown, costs (e.g., equipment, labor), deliverables, and responsibilities for completion.

Develop and present a comprehensive proposal to stakeholders.

Programming and Software SystemsLearners apply principles of computer programming and software development to develop code; build, test, and debug programs; create finished products; and plan, analyze, design, develop, implement, and support software applications.

Programming ConceptsDescribe programming concepts.

Describe how computer programs and scripts can be used to solve problems (e.g., desktop, mobile, enterprise).

Explain how algorithms and data structures are used in information processing.

Model the solution using both graphic tools (e.g., flowcharts) and pseudocode techniques.

Describe, compare, and contrast the basics of procedural, structured, object-oriented (OO), and event driven programming.

Describe the concepts of data management through programming languages.

Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of different languages for solving a specific problem.

Compare the functions and operations of compilers and interpreters.

Describe version control and the relevance of documentation.

Computational and String OperationsDevelop code that performs computational and string operations.

Compare primitive types of numeric and nonnumeric data (e.g., integers, floats, Boolean, strings).

Identify the scope of data (e.g., global versus local, variables, constants, arrays).

Write code that uses arithmetic operations.

Write code that uses subtotals and final totals.

Write code that applies string operations (e.g., concatenation, pattern matching, substring).

Logical Operations and Control StructuresDevelop code that uses logical operations and control structures.

Explain Boolean logic.

Code error handling techniques.

Write code to access data repositories.

Write code to create classes, objects, and methods.

Solve a truth table.

Write code that uses logical operators (e.g., and, or, not).

Write code that uses relational operators and compound conditions.

Write code that uses conditional control structures (e.g., if, if-then-else).

Write code that uses repetition control structures (e.g., while, for).

Write code that uses selection control structures (e.g., case, switch).

Write code that uses nested structures and recursion.

Write code that creates and calls functions.

Integrated Development EnvironmentBuild and test a program using an integrated development environment (IDE).

Configure options, preferences, and tools.

Write and edit code in the integrated development environment (IDE).

Compile or interpret a working program.

Define test cases.

Test the program using defined test cases.

Correct syntax and runtime errors.

Debug logic errors.

Programming ConventionsDevelop programs using applications security practices.

Develop programs using data validation techniques.

Develop programs that use reuse libraries.

Develop programs using operating system calls.

Develop programs that call other programs.

Use appropriate naming conventions and apply comments.

Format output (e.g., desktop, mobile, enterprise, reports, data files).

Software Development LifecycleApply the software development lifecycle (SDLC).

Determine requirements specification documentation.

Present the system design to stakeholders.

Develop the application.

Compare software methodologies (e.g., agile, waterfall).

Perform code reviews (e.g., peer walkthrough, static analysis).

Ensure code quality by testing and debugging the application (e.g., system testing, user acceptance testing).

Train stakeholders.

Deploy the application.

Collect application feedback and maintain the application.

Identify constraints and system processing requirements.

Develop and adhere to timelines.

Identify a programming language, framework, and an integrated development environment (IDE).

Identify input and output (I/O) requirements.

Design system inputs, outputs, and processes.

Document a design using the appropriate tools (e.g., program flowchart, dataflow diagrams, Unified Modeling Language [UML]).

Create documentation (e.g., implementation plan, contingency plan, data dictionary, user help).

Review the design (e.g., peer walkthrough).

Configuration/Change ManagementDescribe configuration management activities.

Explain version management and interface control.

Explain baseline and software lifecycle phases.

Analyze the impact of changes.

Web DevelopmentLearners apply principles of design and technology, including programming standards and protocols, to create, test, host, and maintain web pages and websites with text, graphics, multimedia, scripting, linking, and data integration in a structure that is easy to navigate and accessible for all users via a variety of hardware and software platforms.

ScriptingIntegrate scripting into a web page.

Select and apply scripting languages used in web development.