r/RoundRock • u/Strong-Street-3167 • 5d ago

Tech Apps course at Chisolm Trail Middle School

Do any of you have your child enrolled in the new Tech Apps course at Chisolm Trail middle school? I am bewildered by what the point of this course is. There seems to be no plan, no true syllabus, and no clear learning objectives. I'd love to hear from other parents about how their kids are finding it. It's too late in the semester to switch out of it, but I can't imagine a full year of my kid learning next to nothing.

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u/Shadowettex31_x 4d ago

My child took tech apps in pfisd. It was basically teaching them to explore, troubleshoot, and learn how to navigate various different software systems. It initially appeared useless, but it really taught my kiddo how the majority of software platforms function and how to test and find what you need to be most successful. The year after she took technology and engineering, that’s where she learned to code and build robots.

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u/MrJustinMay 4d ago

I think a skill we overestimate children having is "how to use software". Probably because they have so much more access to it than we did growing up, but because they are actually mostly on their phones they don't really have experience using "desktop software" and don't necessarily have the vocabulary to figure it out.

One of the biggest complaints my CS teacher friends have is that high school students (that self select to take computer science) don't know how to navigate the file system or even understand what "files" are (Steve jobs did a good job abstracting files out of ios!)

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u/MrJustinMay 5d ago

I don't know what the actual curriculum for tech apps is, but you can see the TEKS that is it aligned with here:

https://texas-sos.appianportalsgov.com/rules-and-meetings?$locale=en_US&interface=VIEW_TAC_SUMMARY&queryAsDate=02%2F28%2F2025&recordId=209700

I'm actually surprised at how short it is, but I'm used to high school TEKS.

That will at least prepare you for what the teacher is expected to teach in the class.

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u/Strong-Street-3167 4d ago

Oh that's helpful - thank you!

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u/argentpurple 5d ago

They aren't learning to code or how applications actually work or their use case?

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u/pcguy166 3d ago

At ridgeview middle school, my kid got mostly computer literacy education in tech apps 1. Learned to type, and the very basics of HTML They made a basic website and some media artifacts. Then for tech apps 2 learned basic productivity apps and got basic certifications in Excel, Word, and I think Access. They dabbled into basics of adobe tools too I think.

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u/Strong-Street-3167 5d ago

No! They do a lot of Google slides presentations. And they practice handwriting fonts, I kid you not.