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The Purpose of the eCommEd™ Course
eCommEd™, and its associated website, ScoresUp.com™, help fulfill your high school business program's need to produce graduates who are prepared to meet the challenges of doing business in today's technology-based environment.
This course introduces students to the exciting world of e-Commerce and provides them with the opportunity to acquire basic business, e-Commerce and general career skills through traditional learning methods and the operation of their own e-Commerce business, right from your classroom!
Students become familiar with traditional business principles and learn how these principles are adapting to incorporate advances in technology and information transfer. By supplementing theory with hands-on application, students come out of the eCommEd program with a better understanding of how business really works in an environment where efficient use of technology is critical and content is king.
Addressing New York State Learning Standards
The primary objective of eCommEd is to involve students in the dynamic, on-the-job learning process that exists in the business world. This is difficult to accomplish through traditional textbook teaching alone. Getting students to understand the changing face of business, as it relates to the myriad advances in technology, promotes creative problem-solving, analytical and critical thinking, teamwork and enhanced communication skills. eCommEd has been specifically designed to assist students in acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary to progress toward success in college level programs and gainful employment in a high-tech business environment. Because of this, this curriculum successfully fulfills the requirements for meeting a combination of learning standards set forth by the New York State Education Department.
The eCommEd curriculum addresses the following New York State Career Development and Occupational Studies Learning Standards:
Std. 1: Career Development - Students explore the world of work, career options, personal skills, aptitudes, and choices in future career decision-making.
Std. 2: Applied/Integrated Learning - Students demonstrate how academic knowledge and skills can be applied in the workplace and other settings.
Std. 3a: Universal Foundation Skills (SCAN Skills) - Students demonstrate mastery of the foundation skills and competencies essential for success in the work environment.
Std. 3b: Business/Information Systems - Students who continue on to post-secondary programs in the areas of business, e-Commerce, or marketing will have acquired the career-specific technical knowledge/skills necessary to progress towards gainful employment, career advancement, and academic success.
The Course Package
The eCommEd course package includes your teacher training, the full eCommEd curriculum, including all student and teacher course materials, your school's own fully functional website, and support for all your technical and classroom needs. You get everything you need to be 100% prepared for a successful year of eCommEd!
At your teacher training you received all of your teaching materials in hard copy. In addition, remember that all course materials are available online, easily printed out, using standard print commands, and accessible to anyone with an Internet browser, like Microsoft's "Internet Explorer" or Netscape's "Navigator."
Here is a quick list of the curriculum resources available to you and your class this year:
- Lesson Plans with detailed instructional material
- Activity Sheets that help students follow along with each lesson and associated activities
- Supplements to aid your student's understanding
- Tutorials which serve to provide more in-depth material on key subjects
- Quizzes used to reinforce Tutorial topics
- Your ScoresUp.com website
The ScoresUp.com Website
With the eCommEd program, your class has the opportunity to operate its own online information service and e-commerce business using the ScoresUp.com website. You form an Internet-based news company providing information about your school's student organizations, sports teams, students and athletes. You can post general school announcements and stories at your site, create pages for academic groups or clubs, provide in-depth coverage for your school's interscholastic sports teams feature student written personal advice and review columns, and even conduct on-line polls.
In addition, your class can use a variety of the e-commerce tools that come with the ScoresUp site to generate revenues. These tools include an on-line store, an on-line auction, banner ad generation, and e-coupons. Other schools that use eCommEd have used these and other ScoresUp site capabilities to generate thousands of dollars of revenues for their class, their school, and non-profit groups within their schools and communities.
Managing a Web information service means paying close attention to providing users of your site with quality content. This program suggests that your class be divided into teams with various responsibilities. A structure for these teams is suggested but you and your class are free to change it if you wish to do so. The program suggests that one of these teams be responsible for the content of your site. This team will need to make sure the site's content is always current and refreshed on a consistent basis so it does not grow stale. Your school maintains total control over all content displayed on ScoresUp.com web pages through password security measures, filtering software, and content staging.
By maintaining and managing the ScoresUp.com site, students learn to plan, organize and run the website as an e-Commerce business on many different levels. They also learn how to attract and retain visitor traffic, advertisers and online consumers, as well as monitor and analyze site statistics to help sell online advertising to local community businesses.
The Course Structure
The eCommEd Curriculum package is designed for both flexible and practical application. Enough Lesson Plans and course materials are provided to make it possible for your school to implement eCommEd as a full year e-commerce course requiring approximately 108 hours of instruction. It is also possible for teachers to pick and choose individual lesson plans from the package to create a half-year course on e-commerce or to supplement existing courses in marketing, business management, entrepreneurship, advertising, and Web design.
Each of the 41 lesson plans is given estimated class time needed to complete the lesson. You may find that a lesson will take more or less time depending on your class size, students, and teaching approach. The times given are a mere guideline for you to progress smoothly from September to June.
The course is designed to have students spend approximately 50% of their class time participating in hands-on activities related to the management and operation of their in-class business. With this in mind, some of the main objectives of the course include:
- Creating a Business Plan to be followed throughout the year
- Forming Work Teams and delegating responsibilities within and between teams
- Creating and maintaining a professional Web site
- Learning techniques and concepts to increase the flow of visitor traffic to a Web site
- Planning and implementing revenue generating e-commerce business activities
- Responsibly following through with service activities, such as writing and posting site articles, graphics and information, conducting business meetings, and monitoring the ScoresUp.com website
To successfully run the ScoresUp.com business, it is suggested that you divide your class into work teams. Each team becomes responsible for one of the main functions of your class' e-Commerce business. Four such teams are suggested: Marketing & Sales, Journalism, Website Operations, and Management & Finance. Together, these teams cover all aspects of a typical e-Commerce business with you the teacher acting as the Business Leader. Feel free to use different numbers of work teams with different functions in your class.
To create a meaningful business within the year, teams will have to initiate their activities at the onset of the course. As a result, students may be asked to do things relating to material not yet covered in class. This method of "learning by doing" is common in the business world. During these early classes you may have to give students some additional guidance. However, when the materials are then discussed as a part of a later lesson, you can call on various students to share their knowledge and experience with their peers. It is a great way for students to become more experienced in organizing their thoughts and communicating information in a formal presentation style.
Each quarter, teams will rotate, enabling students to participate in each of the team activities within the year. They will be graded each quarter according to their class participation and the quality of their efforts. They will keep track of their work and the time they spend on ScoresUp.com related tasks in and outside of class. This information, along with other class assignments, will be recorded in a Student Journal and submitted with their Quarterly Review Portfolio at the end of each quarter. Handing in this portfolio gives students an opportunity to show you what they have accomplished during each quarter and evaluate their individual and team performance.
Practical Lessons from e-Commerce
Another important teaching objective of this course is to help your students understand how truly dynamic and powerful e-Commerce can be and the many faces it can have. It is important to remember that e-Commerce is in its infancy. In just the past few years we have seen small dot.com businesses become stock market favorites, generating billions of dollars of investment capital in amazingly short amounts of time. However, we have also seen many of those dot.com companies go bust, just as quickly.
Business experts have now had the opportunity to study and evaluate both phenomena. In doing so, a clearer understanding of the "do's and don'ts" of successful e-Commerce has emerged. Throughout the year, the staff at Genium Group, Inc. will distribute resources that you can use in class to keep your students up-to-date with the latest e-Commerce business trends and analysis.
Perhaps the single biggest reason early e-Commerce businesses have failed is that, amidst all of the hype of the dot.com revolution, they de-emphasized the fundamental need for a business to make profits if they are to survive. Investment capital for e-Commerce companies was so readily available that even businesses experiencing huge operating losses every quarter were seeing the price of their stock skyrocket. This seemingly endless pool of money made it possible for inefficient businesses to continue operating under the illusion that all a dot.com had to do to be successful was build big fancy websites and spend lots of money on flashy ad campaigns to generate site traffic.
In this course your students learn how to apply sound and proven business principles to an e-Commerce application. They learn that the true value of an e-Commerce business is its ability to use technology to more cost-effectively reach its market and make available quality information, products and services. Most importantly, they learn to focus on their business' bottom line. In the process, they develop practical business skills, promote your high school, provide a beneficial service to your community and offer a valuable marketing resource for local businesses.
General Tips
The goal of this curriculum is to provide you with all of the tools that you need to run a meaningful and successful e-Commerce business course with benefits to your students, your school and your community at large. While certain key components of the curriculum are crucial, such as creating a Business Plan, forming business teams, emphasizing quality content, and generating profits, there is still flexibility within the program that will allow you to make it work best for your students and your school. We have given you the toolbox and are now excited to see what you will build!
It is recommended that you review each lesson plan and corresponding materials before the beginning of each class and visit all of the websites referenced in the plans to become familiar with their content and how they will be used in class.
Also, it is encouraged that you use guest speakers involved in e-Commerce to give students real-world examples of issues discussed in class. If you need help finding suitable individuals contact us at Genium Group, Inc. and we would be happy to help you arrange something.
And that is it! You are ready to engage your students over the next year in an innovative and stimulating way, while contributing to their marketability and professional skill levels. All that is left to do now is get creative and have some fun!
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