New Draft Digital Technologies Subject

Posted on 11/04/2013 by avanzati09 — 1 Comment

Digital Technologies in the Australian Curriculum

As future ICT teachers, we need to recognise that there is a new draft Design and Technologies Curriculum which has been written on the assumption that all students from foundation (F) to Year 8 will study the Digital Technologies and Design and Technologies subjects (Australian Curriculum). To me, this sounds very exciting but I am still puzzled as to how teachers will implement this new curriculum. I just want to highlight also, that I found a link between the new Technologies Curriculum and the ICT general capability as it focuses on strengthening specific ICT knowledge and skills.

The Digital Technologies Curriculum is an unfamiliar teaching area for current teachers and those attending University to become teachers as the content of the subject itself is new and still requires the use of new teaching aids, networking groups, and activities surrounding the learning development. While the curriculum sounds intriguing, it is messy as there is very little support for teachers on how to implement this curriculum. No pedagogy. For this reason, I feel it is vital that we keep using our personal learning network (PLN) as the new resources are developed. The Draft Australian Curriculum: Technologies F-10 is available for National consultation until 10 May 2013: http://consultation.australiancurriculum.edu.au/.

Computational thinking (CT) is “integrating the power of human thinking with the capabilities of the computer”. I discovered a connection with CT and the new draft curriculum as it focuses on developing and strengthening students’ knowledge, understanding, and skills in computational thinking and problem-solving capabilities. Additionally, I found this video “Computational Thinking: Digital Age Skills for Everyone” very useful as it focuses on, and provides an insight into CT.

My interpretation of the new draft Digital Technologies Subject is that it aims to build on, and develop computational thinking among students from F to Year 12 through use of digital systems to automate tasks, analyse data, and understand the outcome when instructions do not go to plan (Draft Australian Curriculum). The connection with CT towards the F-10 Scope and Sequence in relation to the new draft Digital Technologies Subject are based on a students’ ability to understand mentally and utilise physically the computer itself, and how the components work together to enable their creative thoughts to be viewed and played with, where it is fun, interactive, thinking, and creative. I believe teachers should encourage students to learn and practice CT skills for life-long learning. One-way of achieving this could potentially be through teaching programming, using Scratch. In my opinion, Scratch is a starting point for teaching the new draft curriculum.

Using Scratch to Teach the New Digital Technologies Subject in the Middle Years

Scratch is a basic visual programming tool, which allows users to learn programming concepts of looping and branching while creative and fantastic in style and format. Scratch can be the basis for future programming and learning, and as a low maintenance free game, it is ideal for all ages, genders, races, and abilities. For the game itself, you can develop the game into potentially something bigger!

Having had no background experience with programming, I feel I have learnt a lot, and developed an understanding of the program and how it could be used to engage learners. I discovered this tool to be a valuable resource because it:

Encourages computational thinking through problem-solving, analysing data, persistence, and trail and error
Promotes self-directed and authentic learning
Inspires the user to think creatively when designing algorithms and developing digital solutions
Instills and equips students with life-long skills in programming and potentially robotics
Allows users to learn programming concepts of looping and branching in a user-friendly manner
Accommodates diverse learning styles and interests
Is fun, creative, simple, and very entertaining

Moreover, students using Scratch as a resource in the middle years Digital Technologies Subject holds value with the ease that it can be learnt and the creative tools can be used to produce almost anything they desire. It is for these reasons; I strongly believe Scratch is a valuable resource for teaching the new Digital Technologies Subject in the middle years. However, I am curious if it would be suitable for students above Year 9, or would they get bored with it, especially if they have used this program in the past?

My Personal Learning Experiences

The concept of “programming” was overwhelming to me at first however, having utilised Scratch software I learnt that programming is not what it seems and it is quite simple to understand to the computer literate. From programming a simple racing car game, pong game, and creating an Etch-A-Sketch to completing self-directed extension projects, I feel I have come a long way with understanding Scratch and how to create games using this tool. Moreover, I discovered that persistence, computational thinking, and analysing data are key elements of game design.

Using Scratch to program a ‘Fruit Pong’ game and a ‘Racing Car’ game, I discovered the many features that Scratch has to offer. Therefore, I learnt how to add variables, change the controls, import and modify backgrounds, record your own voice, add sound effects and a score element, paint new sprites, make objects visible and invisible, and send and share scratch games with other users around the world on the Scratch Website.

I created a separate blog post about my learning experiences with Scratch: https://alishavblog.wordpress.com/2013/04/11/scratch-projects/

Implications of the New Digital Technologies Subject

My professional learning needs will need to take into account my use of the program itself and how I can expand on this knowledge quickly to enable a better understanding before students advance in this area.

The implications of the new Digital Technologies Subject could be:

That it does not explain the pedagogy – the How? How do teachers implement this curriculum?
That there is currently very little support provided to teachers about the curriculum
Students out learn the teacher
Programming becomes difficult to some students
Programming is deemed different to the programming software the students are familiar with
My expansion on the program could be slower than the students as they are in a technologically based society all the time
Because it is a new curriculum, with two distinct subjects: Design and Technologies and Digital Technologies, some teachers may find the material unfamiliar

My future learning goals as a beginning ICT teacher are:

To keep up-to-date with the latest technology
Interact and share with people in my personal learning network (PLN)
Aid all students to seek opportunities to develop and strengthen their computational thinking, logical, and problem-solving skills
To maintain a learning level that is consistently higher than that of my students as they move into a technologically advanced society

I used Storify to tweet my learning of the new Draft Digital Technologies Subject and Scratch. [View the story “The Story of My Scratch Experience ” on Storify]