Your thoughts on these Home Learning Tasks?

From September 2013, the ICT/Computing department at my school has decided to stop setting homework on a week-by-week basis! By its very nature, weekly homework can be fragmented for the students and difficult to manage for the teachers. Instead, we will be setting one large homework task every half-term. We are referring to these tasks as Home Learning Tasks and we hope that they will allow students to explore aspects of ICT/Computing to a greater depth than would be possible with traditional homework.

The tables below list the tasks that we are planning to set. To be honest, although I'm reasonably happy with the list, I was looking for some kind of big idea. I don't know quite what that big idea should look like, but I feel as if I didn't quite find it. For that reason, this is still a work in progress. Let me know what you think of the tasks. Do you have any suggestions of tasks that could be added? Is there a better way of doing something like this?

Update 16 June '13: Thanks to @ReaDavis, @DCallanIT, @TessBoag, @paulwill and @Stephen_Berne for your retweets, comments and favorites. Here are a few tasks that I can consider adding to the list:

• Programming languages
• History of software
• Off-the-shelf mobile apps
• Custom mobile apps
• Game creation

Year 7
Half-Term	Topic	Task
1	History of Computers	Create  a timeline illustrating the history of computers
2	Famous Dot COM	Describe the history of a well-known internet based company
3	A Computer System	Illustrate the different parts of a typical home computer system
4	Computer Acronyms	Explains a range of well-known computer acronyms ( i.e. WWW)
5	How we Communicate	Illustrate the different ways we can communicate using computers
6	Computer Humour	Make people laugh by telling computer-related jokes

Year 8
Half-Term	Topic	Task
1	Famous in Computing	Tell the story of a famous computer scientist
2	Data Measurement	Illustrate the units of data measurement
3	My Home Network	Illustrate the parts that make up your own home network
4	Computer Jargon	Explain examples of computer jargon (i.e. applet, buffer, cache)
5	Internet Advantages	Illustrate the advantages of using the internet
6	Internet Disadvantages	Illustrate the disadvantages of using the internet

Year 9
Half-Term	Topic	Task
1	Careers in Computing	Illustrate the careers that are possible with ICT or Computer Science qualifications
2	Data Storage	Show the different methods of data storage used today
3	Social Networking	Create a timeline that illustrates the history of social networking
4	Inside a Computer	Describe the parts of a motherboard and what those parts connect to
5	Internet Uses	Illustrate the different ways in which we use the internet (watch videos, send emails etc)
6	History of Mobiles	Show a timeline that illustrates the history of mobile phones