Computer Technology

     The goal of the Computer Technology Magnet at Central is to give its students a well-rounded and marketable set of skills. Students will leave Central with a good understanding of computers and computer networking.

Grade Ten

Curriculum: A+ Certification Course

     The A+ Certification credential is a valued certification for professionals who want to study basic networking and installation, configuring, troubleshooting, and performing preventive maintenance on core hardware and operating systems.

     A+ Core Hardware gives you the necessary experience for installing, configuring, and upgrading computers and computer components in a variety of environments. Students learn to diagnose and troubleshoot common problems, perform routine maintenance, install and configure peripheral devices, and perform upgrades to motherboards, CPUs, and memory. Students also learn the basics of various types of printers and their associated care and service techniques. Basic networking including network cards and cabling are covered.

     In A+ Operating System Technologies, students learn the fundamentals of the most common operating systems. They also learn to create, view, and manage files. The processes of installing, configuring, and upgrading operating systems, configuring device drivers, and diagnosing and troubleshooting common system messages also are covered. Finally, students are introduced to the Windows Domain structure and basic procedures for setting up a system for Internet access.

Grade Eleven

Curriculum: Network+ Certification Course

     The Network+ Certification credential is a valued certification for professionals who want to study basic networking and installation, configuring, troubleshooting, and performing preventive maintenance on core hardware and operating systems.

     A Network+ Certification provides students with the necessary experience for installing, administering, and troubleshooting computer networks and their components in a variety of computing environments. Students learn to recognize logical and physical topologies such as Star, Bus, Mesh, and Ring. They learn the characteristics of each of the Ethernet (802.3) standards including speed, length, topology, cabling and connectors. Students learn the use of various hardware components such as hubs, switches, routers, gateways, Network cards, and modems.

     An introduction to network standards starts with the OSI model and includes addressing, protocols, interoperability, and naming conventions. All of the major networking protocols such as TCP/IP, FTP, SMTP, HTTP, Telnet, and TCP and UDP are covered. The entire TCP/IP suite is covered in depth, including IP addressing, subnetting, and default subnet masks. Wan Technologies such as Frame-Relay, ISDN, FDDI, T1/E1, T3/E3, and ATM are discussed. An introduction to remote access coves protocols and services, including the latest security protocols is covered. Network Implementation covers shared services under Unix, Netware, and Windows operating systems. The use of authentication methods and firewalls and proxies are covered, as well as the concepts of fault tolerance and disaster recovery. Finally, the introduction to network support covers troubleshooting using the command line utilities such as PING, ARP, TRACERT, NetSTAT, NBTSTAT, IPCONFIG, and WINIPCFG. Various troubleshooting scenarios will develop skills in identifying the causes and corrective action in solving network problems.

Senior Year

Curriculum: Co-Op and Seminar

     If eligible in the senior year, students co-op in a position with a local company in a computer-related field. Students also spend seminar time in discussion and study of computer-related topics not discussed in sophomore and junior year. Students also can expand on topics learned earlier.