Friday 30 June 2017

Challenge - Digital Technologies Curriculum

Since the announcement, I have been thinking about some of the ideas that have come out from it and these are some of the ideas around some questions that we could be asking ourselves.

What would some responses look like for some of these questions?

What does digital technologies currently look like in your school for years 9-10 students?

I have written a number of posts in relation to this over the 3 years I have been at HPSS now.
For me, it hasn't been about the "toys", it has been about developing the concepts of computational thinking, as well as design and developing digital outcomes.

This is from a blog post that talks about where is the fun stuff?
my fun stuff has been brief development where students developed a brief for new training equipment to develop a skillset in PE. (no specific requirement on any tech area)
my fun stuff has been technological modelling where students have been developing ideas around an app for developing skills with the primary school students years 4-6
my fun stuff has been technological outcomes were students made a stop motion video around relationships for visual text through an english context.
my fun stuff has been elements of design creating graphic novels through an english context.
my fun stuff has been digital information using documents and sheets
my fun stuff has been digital media photoshop looking at students photo editing skills, collage development and incorporating mixed media to support the ideas required for level one.
my fun stuff has been SketchUp recreating building around the hobsonville point for historical purposes.
my fun stuff has been developing personal vinyl stickers to identify BYOD devices and who they belong to.
my fun stuff has been developing a technological outcome for 5 years through scratch
my fun stuff has been programming through ardunio using the mindkits brainboard develop prototypes
my fun stuff has been programming through python to develop games through technological systems
my fun stuff has been digital information, creating guess who through mysql console for technological modelling.
my fun stuff has been digital media through developing simple websites using notepad++ through outcome development.
my fun stuff has been teaching students about algorithms, human computer interfaces, data representation which has covered a lot of technological systems.
my fun stuff has been integrating aspects of drama into getting students to understand computer science concepts.
my fun stuff has been integrating aspects of drama into getting students to develop digital citizenship related videos.
my fun stuff has been getting students to develop landmarks/building/new recycling bin ideas through 3d printing.
my fun stuff has been students using the local area and finding out more about it to update websites, apps and develop information signage to go around our community.
my fun stuff has been getting students understanding about self driving cars through the LEGO ev-3 Mindstorms systems and learning about testing.
my fun stuff has been getting students working with digital media-video to create social action ad's that can go on the visual signage around the school.
A lot of this has taken place from the student voice we get from the students, as well as conversations that I have with students in the modules. What is it that they want to get out of school, from the area. Where will this take them. I look forward to what the students will be doing in the next couple of years with the knowledge and skills that they have obtained through technology and digital technologies.

What are some of the barriers that are currently in the way of working towards the new digital technologies curriculum?

For me, it is the difficulty of what digital technologies is to people, the community, and other teachers. This is one of the most difficult parts at present. The name itself. ind you, technology, computer science, and ICT all have baggage with them as well. The ideas that we are trying to get through to the students who at present who have high anxiety over their English and Maths results from every time they are tested or reported on.  The baggage of the technology curriculum. While strands and achievement objectives have been important, these are not evident in the new digital technologies curriculum. The move to progress outcomes will cause considerable issues within schools as they are not curriculum level. How does one show a Basic, Proficient and Advanced mastery of this? Getting schools to rethink reports for a particular learning area is going to be a challenge. I am lucky in the way that our school functions around our Learning Design Model in the way that we report. I guess it is around the conversations that we have. I need to be better at the Open Learning Conversations and sit down and talk with our principal about some of the barriers that he sees as a school.
Being the only teacher? This one is still a hard one to delve into, I was challenged in my thinking around this yesterday, However, looking at it from a different lens, I am not the only teacher in the school. There are others who have an interest, who are innovating in their practice in the school. I need to be talking with them more, developing that thinking and ideas.


How does the current timetable in your school support the ideas of the new digital technologies curriculum?
Has our timetable stopped changing? No. We are in our fourth year of operating as a school. The changing nature of our school in adding a new year level each year providing challenges and opportunities. Modules provide opportunities to work together with another learning area and provide an integrated curriculum.
Technology - Digital Technologies and English
Technology - Digital Technologies and PE
Technology - Digital Technologies and PE
Technology - Digital Technologies and The Arts - Drama
Technology - Digital Technologies and Social Sciences
Technology - Digital Technologies and Mathematics 
These are the areas that I have been working with over my time here. Through our integrated learning approach, such wonderful rich connections

It is not only just being taught through one area.
SYMTEXT uses Edison robots to get students to develop algorithms to think about how they can be successful through providing step by step instructions.
Mytimes provided opportunities for students to develop pixel art as well as developing paper based electronics.
Projects has allowed students to develop electronics, access virtual reality, robotics.

A lot of that different "stuff" has also been around what students come and ask for, be it recording, using maky maky's for HCI experiments, go pro's that allow students to record their learning. Also access to arduino's for students to develop some electronics sensor recording. Having high quality camera for students to be creative. It is having these on hand for students to develop their understanding that is outside the classroom.

Also had opportunities to work with the primary students in them developing their coding, as well as digital media.

I suppose the thinking around this, is that students learn through a more integrated curriculum, the learning of Digital Technologies is happening in other places, it is not limited to. Students Explore, Make Sense, Focus Generate, Test, Refine, and Evaluate through the Design Thinking Process whenever they are developing a Digital Outcome. How do we provide the tools and thinking to support other teachers through this.

What do the progress outcomes mean for reporting digital technologies within your school and to your parents?
We are sitting rather well around this, as we don't report achievement objectives, instead;
"Progress is reported against curriculum levels that align with Learning Area (subject) learning objectives. Students are measured against the New Zealand Curriculum, utilising curriculum and sub levels to signal the depth of thinking and understanding. This is one of the ways that we share achievement and progress with parents and whanau." - HPSS Summative Progress Report

How might you as a leader of digital technologies help promote the ideas of the new curriculum to senior management?
Have already started the conversation, I haven't gone in with the attitude of things must change, it is about listening to them and providing them the understanding. Yesterday I sat down with our principal and had a discussion with him about what he saw and heard at the cross sector forum.
------------some notes from that meeting----------

Changing feast - always changing.

Starters in conversation, how do I change the open to learning conversation.
Active listening.

Change reporting in school to match the digital technologies outcome statements.

Message from robotics, not using digital, but being digital. 
Looking at a way to capture the resources, getting our students digitally fluent, achieving these progress outcomes.

That our school be seen as a beacon of quality digital citizenship and digital ethics

Developing computational thinking

Provide connections between learning areas. 

Access through our facilities management building management system, data from energy, water use, waste. Through our community.
Need to get access to this.

How do we take the technology curriculum to all students and teachers.
The process of learning/ design thinking/ process that should drive learning for all learning areas.

Achievement Objectives vs progress outcomes.

What is the process of learning, learning design model, learning is a process. In other school learning is the delivery of stuff. Teacher and student may not understand what the process is. How do we show depth of thinking?
-----------------
Some of these may be answered within just a couple of words, but as we go through the consultation period,

I for one would like to see some discussion on the questions that are in the consultation document. Especially around,

What does this mean for Technology in schools? This is one that I am trying to come to grasp with at the moment, what does this look like for me as Learning Design Leader - technology. Does the specific skills in Technology (Food, DVC, Materials) need to change? Considering the ideas of Designing and Developing Digital Outcomes, aspects of the work in these areas are now more digital based, textiles have access to laser cutter, embroadory machines, and e-textiles. DVC has access to rhino and other 3D creation packages where students are developing their drawings into imagined worlds. Materials have the laser cutter where exact measurements are being cut and accurate use of materials. The area of Technology is becoming more digitised.

For us, I believe that we are well placed for the changes.

How useful is the consultation material in considering how to integrate and adapt the proposed DT|HM content to design local curriculum for your students?
I have been thinking about what local curriculum is, one of the ideas is to use what we started off with in our school. That was about Our Community, being able to think about us as a school, our community, our region and New Zealand.
As a school we generate a huge amount of data through our Building Management System, what is it that we can gather and use through the sensors that we have already, start some interesting conversations around.
The community, while it has been talked about for a while now, getting students starting to develop their own businesses in the use of digital technologies. How do this look like in practice?
I use the community to enable students to go out and get their original content, it has been rather great to be in a space that is always changing, has public art, pretty cool historic buildings, and has some great parks. These provide opportunities for students to be creative as well as opportunities for the community to see learning outside the school.
I guess in someways it has been something we have already considered within our school. Innovate. Engage. Inspire. It will be how do we show this in a more visible way.

How might we reflect digital technologies learning in the name of the Technology Learning Area?
Technology has so many issues with names, when you say Technology outside of the education system, people already assume the use of devices and associated peripherals.
I would like to propose, Design and Digital Technologies.

Sunday 11 June 2017

Ideas for goal setting, reflection

I have been watching some kickstarter ideas, I keep coming back to how we can better help our students with the ideas of reflections and personal goals.

The idea I am looking at today is https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/53020943/the-perfect-notebook/

Online or paper based. 

Every student is different, I talked with one of Friday, she has started to write down things that she is happy for each day, as well as giving herself a star rating. Thinking about her mental wellbeing, also using a sheet to write down what is due and what is required from her classes. Asked about digital or paper, at the moment paper, because I can cross it off. It is always with me.

“A lot of tech people I know are going back to paper, because a paper planner … there’s still no better tool than a paper planner.” organization and time-management guru, David Allen, said during a recent Wired.com interview.

WHY PAPER?

While many applications for time management exist, none can replace the added value of sitting down with a pen and paper. It’s just faster, way more convenient, and therefore you will actually use it.  

So happy that the while I get a physical copy of the book, I also get a PDF copy as well.

Here is what Amy Schellenbaum, Popular Science, had to say:
“Writing things down can make you feel better, mentally and physically.” 
 
“...Once you’ve written down all the tiny things you need to get done, you give your brain the capacity and the encouragement to actually do the things.” 
 
“The manual effort: It’s easy to underestimate the swell of satisfaction from making progress on something physical. To-do lists give nerds like me the thrill of checking something off. It’s a genuinely pleasurable experience.”


Sunday 4 June 2017

Big Data and NZ Digital Technologies NCEA Level 3 idea

How do students create understanding of Big Data, what can be some of the ideas that they can understand. Plotting data on a map to understand a crash analysis database(need to register to access, research purposes). This I did a couple of years ago. Now I am looking at the ideas of infographics. One that has helped me to understand a bit better the opportunities around this is Brian Foo, the creator of Climate Change Coloring Book on kickstarter.

The Climate Change Coloring Book contains guided coloring activities that explore scientific research and data related to climate change. The goal is to encourage learning, exploration, and reflection on issues related to climate change through act of coloring.

One of the great things about his kickstarter has been the sharing of the code, the code used to generated the art in the book will also freely available to use and extend. This has allowed me to think about what data we have in New Zealand and what could be used to demonstrate the understanding.


Pushing the ideas.
Since working in Christchurch I am used to seeing in the papers the number of days that there was poor air quality. This is from http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/82329452/Canterbury-unlikely-to-meet-air-quality-standards to be able to think about what the ideas of having and showing data could look like.
Gathering data to use from http://data.ecan.govt.nz/Catalogue/Method?MethodId=98
Seems like it does not like to show data from some sites, this could be that the data is no longer being gathered.

DateTime,StationName,CO (mg/m3),NO2 (ug/m3),NOx (ppb),PM10 (ug/m3),PM2.5 (ug/m3),PMCoarse (ug/m3),Relative humidity (%),Temperature (near ground - top of mast) (DegC),Temperature 10m (DegC),Temperature 2m (DegC),Wind maximum (m/s),Wind speed (m/s)
2017-06-01,St Albans,0.354879349470139,15.7742910385132,13.4651327133179,14.1038541793823,8.67333316802979,5.43052053451538,90.6372528076172,0.032423734664917,9.91655158996582,9.94897556304932,2.42499995231628,1.32716655731201

Looking at the data, we need to gather the PM10 (ug/m3), however the data that is being collected for the code in the coloring book above is for PM25. It seems that the New Zealand measurement is PM10 http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/ED1706/S00006/air-quality-monitoring-continues-in-alexandra.htm

What students will need to understand is what is the data recorded, and how it is being used.

The "phigital" student

“phigital”—unwilling or unable to draw a distinction between the physical world and its digital equivalent.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2017/05/31/schools-gen-z-phigital-student/
Thought it rather an interesting article, when you start to read the idea behind it.

We are now entering a world where the students that we have in the classroom have never been without access to digital devices, the internet.

"Since education has been focusing more on adapting itself to its students, rather than students learning to adapt to its educators..."

When I start looking at the conversations that this group has been talking about in the past two weeks, as well as conversations I have had with others in the past. Have digital technologies courses put the student at the centre, or have they had the teacher at the centre?

What talents do students bring to class?

"Because of this upbringing, Gen Z would rather focus on their own unique talents and interests, rather than pre-determined skills and interests agreed upon by a group. The Stillmans say that Gen Z typically likes to work independently and likes to create their own job or project title/description.

Mirroring this trend, innovative schools are making personalization and individualization of instruction for every student a major priority.

But outside of individualizing instruction through adaptive learning and LMS and teacher-based pedagogical strategies, some schools are going a step beyond by giving students choice in both learning materials and how they plan to reach project-based learning goals."

While this may not be new to teachers of the technology process, it maybe something new to the other learning areas.