As one of Foothill’s required classes, every student goes through the Education in the Digital Age (EDA) program taught by Conni Carr and Kristen Pelfrey. This year, the class has been revamped to broaden the curriculum.

In past years, EDA has had a focus on learning computer programs like Adobe Fireworks and Microsoft Excel. Also, students explored careers and colleges that interested them.

Although they will be covering many of the same topics as in previous years, EDA 2.0 is now a semester of career and college readiness and then a semester of exploring computer science, computational thinking activities and coding. The two parts will be blended throughout the year to continuously learn those skills.  

If students complete the semester of career and college readiness, then it will count towards college credits as well as for their A-G requirements.

“It is a class articulated with Ventura College, so if the students do all the work and do their online portfolio, they can actually get college credit for that first half,” Carr said regarding the first semester of the class.

“[The change was] for the benefit of our students, so that they can get the A-G credit on their transcripts to help with college entrance, to get them started in earning college credits, to get them using more technology and computer science early on, […] and to get the kids hands on and enjoying some engineering and technology work, rather than a lot of theoretical stuff,” Carr said.