Gisborne Boys’ High School has invested heavily in its ICT facilities, providing their students with, fast, reliable, high quality access to curriculum programs, resources and the Internet. Each student is provided with a safe computer environment where he can research, create, explore, learn new skills, solve problems and develop ideas from almost anywhere in the school.
These facilities and resources include 3 computer labs, 6 Curriculum computer pods, single classroom workstations, a broadband, Internet connection and network printing.
The Digital Technologies Department offers a wide range of courses, from NCEA Achievement and Unit Standards Levels 1-3 to specialist Computer Industry courses such as Microsoft’s Office Specialist (MOS) and Computer Literacy (IC3) and CISCO’s Networking (CCNA) and IT Essentials I. It is current experiencing a time of transition from NCEA Unit Standards based Computing courses to Achievement Standards based based Digital technologies courses. These courses will be available from 2011 and will include the following content strands:
- Digital Concepts and Tools Year 11
- Digital Society Years 11-13
- Business Technology Years 11-13
- Digital Media Years 11-13
- Programming Year 11
- Software Development and Programming Years 12-13
- Electronics and Control Years 12-13
- Digital and Electronic Environment and Systems Year 11
- Digital Environments and Systems Years 11-13
Current Courses
At Year 9: Students will study Information Technology, with an emphasis on words, numbers, diagrams, Internet Research skills, multimedia presentations and CAD.
At Year 10: Students will lay the ground work for computing courses in Years 11 and 12, with an emphasis on keyboarding, word processing, desktop publishing, Spreadsheets, multimedia presentations and graphics.
At Year 11: Students have the option of choosing an NCEA, Level 1, Achievement Standard course worth 24 credits called, ‘Information Management’.
At Year 12: Students have the option of choosing either an entry level business course, Internet and Computing Core Certification (IC3) from Microsoft, worth 42 Level 2 credits or a more advanced CISCO Networking course (CCNA) or the CISCO IT Essentials I (Hardware and Software) course. The CISCO courses are however very demanding and while available to year 12 students are more appropriate at year 13.
At Year 13: Students can continue with their Internet and Computing Core Certification course or select one of the advanced CISCO courses available at Year 12 and 13.