LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Lake County Office of Education Career Technical Education Department is offering a free ROP Introductory Computer Science course for the 2012-13 school year.

This is an introductory course focusing on the study of computation and computer technology, hardware, and software.

Utilizing the programming language of Java, students will learn the fundamental skills involved in the study of computer science.

This class is not just for students who would like to be computer programmers. The skills and knowledge acquired are useful to any student interested in a technology related career, and every student will benefit with the development of critical thinking skills.

This career technical education course will help prepare students for success in post secondary education and in college general education courses.

The course will follow the Advanced Placement (AP) structure for students who wish to take the AP exam.

Major topics to be covered are object-oriented program design, program implementation and analysis, data structures, algorithms, and ethical and social implications of computing systems.

Students will be utilizing Moodle, the same software platform used in many online college courses, and will be completing coursework in a blended learning environment, thus allowing for schedule flexibility and extra-curricular activities.

A blended course means that most course time will be online with weekly face to face meetings.

Class meetings will be held on Mondays, Sept. 24, 2012, to May 20, 2013, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Location of class meetings will be determined by the location of the students enrolled.

Students will be required to have weekly access to a computer with high speed Internet as well as Java download capability.

In addition, students are required to have successfully completed algebra and be at least a freshman in high school.

To register online visit the Lake County Office of Education Web site www.lakecoe.org or 707-262-4162. Space is limited to 20 students.