Hour of code

Picture of my desk - what does your desk look like during this weeks hour of code.

The New Zealand Curriculum

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Curious Minds, What might Digital Technologies look like

This week saw the fourth meeting of the Curious Minds, Review of the Positioning of Digital technologies in the New Zealand Curriculum.

What the Ministry have heard

There is a "Digital Imperative".

• Digital Technologies need an increased presence or focus in the National Curriculum
• Work is needed to determine if the curriculum support/reflects this.
• Digital Citizenship is important in Years 0 - 13

Vision and Principles in the NZC

• The vision may need to be reviewed to include 'digitally capable'

Achievement Objectives in the NZC

• Every learner needs to know how to be critical consumer of digital technologies
• Computational and logical thinking through active learning needs to be supported for learners from Y0-13.
• Learner need to know how to create, not just use artefacts.

Technology Learning Area

• Digital Technologies should remain as part of the Technology learning Learning Area but be strengthened and structured with explicit progressions for digital technology.
• As long as the teaching and learning of digital technologies occurs, as above, it did not matter whether it remained within technology or was imbedded across the curriculum.

Implementation

• There needs to be significant, well funded, relevant and ongoing PLD to shift practice for ALL teachers.
• Exemplars of authentic programmes of work and lesson plans are needed to show contextualized learning.
• Resources are needed at all levels, including - PLD, ITE, teacher support materials.
• This must be part of a larger transformational change across the sector (ITE, PLD, infrastructure, guidance, parents, families and whanau)

Community

• There needs to be an acknowledgement of learner and whanau demand.

Teaching and Learning

• Authentic and integrated experiences to enable high quality teaching and learning is the key driver.
• Learners will flourish in a digital world.
• Pedagogy needs to inform planning, teaching and learning.
• Evidence, examplars and guidance about how to teach digital technologies is required.
• The support of leadership is imperative.

Assessment

• Assessment tools need to link pedagogy to the future
• There needs to be a change in the assessment system and the tools available.

The ministry put up a slide in What they haven't heard.

• No change is required to the national curriculum.
• Schools, leaders and teachers are fully equipped to teach digital technologies
• Digital technologies is relevant to some students.
• Digital technologies is coding.
• Coding should be compulsory from Y0-13
• Digital technologies is already sufficiently explicit in the curriculum.

My Comment

One of the biggest issues that has still really to be resolved is what is Digital technologies, Learning with Digital technologies is still a huge issue and one that is causing issues. While the ministry agree that concepts of skills and knowledge in Digital technologies/Computational thinking/Computer Science is necessary, it still gets caught by the digital technologies used within classrooms and the changing nature of teaching and learning for all students.

I think the intention was to gather information, then they'll write the plan, based upon some of the suggestions that have been given along the way.

One thing that has come through every discussion has been that the technology Curriculum needs fixed. Digital Technologies needs to be fully independent  or a fully independent area within technology.

I include the proposal of what a Digital technologies curriculum could look like, this was looked at in Meeting 3, and some more comments in meeting 4, before another proposal was put forward and the elephant in the room was discussed.

We do have a full endorsement that it's important, that it needs prominence, and that it needs to be from primary levels up.

So four options have been talked about through the meeting

- Separate area

- Address the shortcomings of technology as a learning area. (It was interesting seeing a possible model be captured which would have meant the removal of Design and Visual Communication)

- Look at integrated/restructured delivery

- Be added to the Humanities area

The ministry have taken what has been captured and talked about, and are looking at possible trials and pilots of what this could look like. So we wait to see what that could be.

What came out nice and clear, is what is digital technologies isn't.

It is not Unit standards, it is not Digital Information (office productivity tools)
It is not knowing how to use ms access. 

It is around developing understanding and using databases, however MS access removes the complexity required for understanding of how databases are used and created. Simple Queries of drag and drop components do not help develop the deep understanding. 

It is not around just using software programs. 

This is what they are saying Digital Technologies is, it is Computational thinking, maybe this is what the Learning area could be called, "Computational Participation".

Computational thinking (CT) is a problem-solving process that includes (but is not limited to) the following characteristics: 

• Formulating problems in a way that enables us to use a computer and other tools to help solve them. 
• Logically organizing and analyzing data 
• Representing data through abstractions such as models and simulations 
• Automating solutions through algorithmic thinking (a series of ordered steps) 
• Identifying, analyzing, and implementing possible solutions with the goal of achieving the most efficient and effective combination of steps and resources 
• Generalizing and transferring this problem solving process to a wide variety of problems 

These skills are supported and enhanced by a number of dispositions or attitudes that are essential dimensions of CT. These dispositions or attitudes include: 

• Confidence in dealing with complexity 
• Persistence in working with difficult problems 
• Tolerance for ambiguity 
• The ability to deal with open ended problems 
• The ability to communicate and work with others to achieve a common goal or solution
  http://csta.acm.org/Curriculum/sub/CurrFiles/CompThinkingFlyer.pdf

It is not simple media, using wizards or tools, its not WYSIWYG. It is about higher level computational thinking applied across contexts.

It is going to involve a series change in thinking from years 9 at present. 

If the goal is to give it creditability alongside physics and calculus, that will come at a cost.

This will require Resources, Professional Development and a new way of thinking, teaching and implementation not seen in New Zealand Schools. Potentially it may not get that funding. We can say it needs funding, but as we know with other implementations, funding is not ongoing.

Meeting a need - nzc explorer

January 29 2014 

Hi there, 

Does anyone have or know where I can locate a spreadsheet or database of all of the Learning Outcomes as they appear in the NZC. We are wanting to build an interactive database where students can pull up LOs by Learning Area, Level and we also want to tag each LO with a corresponding Fluency (our Specialised Learning Leaders have developed a range of fluencies so that we are aiming to evidence student development in more areas than numeracy and literacy).
Any suggestions, advice appreciated!
Cheers
Claire

This got me thinking, is there such a thing. It has been getting at me all year. When startup education weekend happened I thought that this could be a good time to explore this idea a bit more, great for education, but not for a business solution. However, that did not stop me. This weekend I decided that I would work on a prototype to see if I could develop a solution. NZC Explorer was created.

I created a spreadsheet to enter the data in, and from there I have been working away.

Here is an example of what I have created. 

It allows for a Curriculum Area to be selected, and the level, you can add as many Achievement Objectives as you want, and you can clear your selection.

It is available here: http://bit.ly/1pcN17j

This has yet to have all the Achievement Objectives added into it, working on the last one which is English. This has to go through some manipulation before I can add it in due to the Indicators that are included within the English curriculum 

This has got me interested in this area and I am starting to explore what other possibilities there are. Maybe an integration into POND?

Linking two resources together

There has been a large project happening for a number of years, http://csunplugged.com, this project has simplified? the ideas of Computer Science for students. As I have heard it once called, making big words easy to understand.

All of these resources are linked to the New Zealand Curriculum. We need to have it out there that these resources exist, and can be used to help teach technology at lower levels of the curriculum.

There are twenty five tasks...
Binary Numbers
Image Representation
Text Compression
Error Detection
Information Theory
Searching Algorithms
Sorting Algorithms
Sorting Networks
Minimal Spanning Trees
Routing and Deadlock
Finite State Automata
Programming Languages
Graph Colouring
Dominating Sets
Steiner Trees
Information Hiding
Cryptographic Protocols
Public Key Encryption
Human Interface Design
The Turing Test
Phylogenetics Unplugged
Class Simulation of a Computer
Harold the Robot
Modems Unplugged
Santa's Dirty Socks

All of the ideas link to the Technology Achievement Objectives
http://technology.tki.org.nz/Technology-in-the-NZC/Key-publications/Technology-Curriculum-Support/Indicators-of-Progression/Achievement-Objectives

How to develop a way to make this work...

UPDATE:  I have started to work out what links to what level in the Technology Achievement Objectives, and there are some that need some work on identifying what level they should be under.

Mathematics Level 1: Number strategies Use a range of counting, grouping, and equal-sharing strategies with whole numbers and fractions.

Error Detection 

Mathematics Level 1: Equations and expressions Communicate and explain counting, grouping, and equal-sharing strategies, using words, numbers, and pictures.

Image Representation, Error Detection 

Mathematics Level 2: Position and orientation Create and use simple maps to show position and direction.Image Representation Generalise that whole numbers can be partitioned in many ways.

Binary Numbers Find rules for the next member in a sequential pattern.

Binary Numbers Mathematics Level 3: Patterns and relationships Generalise the properties of addition and subtraction with whole numbers.

Binary Numbers Connect members of sequential patterns with their ordinal position and use tables, graphs, and diagrams to find relationships between successive elements of number and spatial patterns.

Binary Numbers Technology Level 1: Characteristics of technology Understand that technology is purposeful intervention through design.

Error Detection Technology Level 1:Technological systems Understand that technological systems have inputs, controlled transformations, and outputs.

Binary Numbers, Text Compression Technology Level 1: Characteristics of technological outcomes Understand that technological outcomes are products or systems developed by people and have a physical nature and a functional nature.

Error Detection Technology Level 3: Technological systems Understand that technological systems are represented by symbolic language tools and understand the role played by the black box in technological systems.

Binary Numbers, Image Representation, Text Compression, Error Detection