The elective media-oriented courses in the Tutorial House teach students the technical skills required to make original digital work. This line of technical study, much of which uses industry-standard technologies, works in tandem with sections on narrative, storyboarding, composition, pacing and graphic design. There is a large campus audience for student work, and many graduates of the program create digital portfolios. Their work helps them gain admission to college programs in film, design and the visual and aural arts.
In addition, students can take an elective course in the Java programming language in which they become familiar with the fundamental concepts of Object Oriented Programming through the use of Java. This course provides them with the appropriate tools to help them succeed in the Computer Science courses offered in Tutorial Three and Tutorial Four.
World Wide Web Design
This course prepares students to make personal, commercial and art Web sites and to publish them on the school network. They use a variety of Web design software to create links, menus, framesets and formatting changes for their sites. A large section of the course is dedicated to editing the image content for their sites, making changes in the contrast, color, size, texture, brightness and opacity of their images. They also experiment with image distortion and the selective application of special effects. Some of the images the students use are original drawings, which are created with a stylus on a touch-sensitive screen. These technical lessons are coupled with lectures on principles of design. At the end of the course, students learn how to program dynamic content in Flash and Scratch, and they learn how to add interactive elements to the design of their Web sites.
3-D Animation (Tutorial Two)
In 3-D animation, students make their first stop-frame animations with clay, jointed characters and the pages of flipbooks. They use video-editing software to change the speed of their footage, adding text, special effects, still images and cross fades to their films. They work in industry-standard three-dimensional modeling software. They learn to sculpt objects by changing their size, shape, rotation and location in a virtual space. As the students work changing the lighting and texture of their models, they learn to animate them and move them through a 3-D environment. Their final projects are screened at a campus film festival at the end of the year.
Advanced Video Production (Tutorial Three and Tutorial Four)
In Advanced Video Production, students use industry standard video editing software to create short experimental, documentary and fiction films. Along with learning technical skills, students learn how to articulate their intention in a group critique, as well as analyze a work after a screening. Students hear presentations about historical and contemporary practices in the visual arts in order to inform and inspire their work. Many students who take this course continue on to film school or study media at a higher level. The school provides cameras, tripods, dollies, lighting equipment, hard drive space and daily editing labs with technical assistance to all aspiring filmmakers.
New Multimedia Technologies
This is a practical hands-on course for Tutorial One to Tutorial Four students to learn current and new multimedia technologies. This course is divided into four sections covering digital art, digital music, robotics and new Web technologies. Students work on practical exercises leading to in-depth projects with the emphasis on building confidence in the use of various skills and software products, which could be useful in other areas of academic and artistic life.
Java Programming
This Tutorial Two program is a comprehensive introduction to the fundamental concepts of Object Oriented Programming (OOP), the Java programming language and central components of the Java Standard Edition (SE) Platform. The course emphasizes hands-on lab exercises that allow students to quickly build proficiency and become familiar with some of the subtler aspects of working with Java. During lab exercises, students write non-trivial Java code that incorporates key features of Java, including interfaces, classes, hierarchies, static and instance methods, collections and arrays and file input/output. This course also provides in-depth coverage of pragmatic testing issues and strategies and prepares students for a smooth transition to the IB Computer Science courses.
Computer Science IB
This Tutorial Three and Tutorial Four course demands logical discipline alongside imaginative creativity in the selection and design of algorithms and the designing, planning, writing, testing and debugging of computer programs.
Computer Science should appeal to students who are good in mathematics but also enjoy the challenge of games and puzzles. Problem-solving strategies will be emphasized in the course work and will be implemented using the Java language.
Students will also study computer architecture, systems analysis, data representation, computer systems and networking theory. The social significance and ethical issues arising from the widespread use of computers in society will also be discussed. A major element of the assessment is by a dossier of students’ programming research and work.
Information Technology in a Global Society
Information Technology in a Global Society (ITGS) is a Tutorial Three program of study and evaluation of the impact of information technology on individuals and society. It explores the advantages and disadvantages of the use of digitized information at the local, national and global level. ITGS provides a framework for the student to make informed judgments and decisions about the use of IT within social contexts. Although ITGS shares methods of critical investigation and analysis with other social sciences, it also considers ethical questions found in the study of philosophy. Students come into contact with IT on a daily basis because it is so pervasive in the world in which we live. This widespread use of IT inevitably raises important questions about social and ethical issues that shape our society today. ITGS offers an opportunity for a systematic study of these issues, whose range is such that they fall outside the scope of any other single discipline.