About the data

I am working on a project at the moment which has the potential to help inform what is happening with a subject area. The data is only one part of the story. I need to have a FAQ about what this data actually means.

Why do this?
We need to see what the story is, we constantly get reported in the media that IT is not being taught in schools. We are now in the fourth year of Level One Digital Technologies, it is time to start to see what is working and what isn't.

What is this data looking at?
Shown in this website is the results data from NZQA for the domain Digital Technologies. The data shows results for the past three years since the introduction of NCEA Digital Technologies.  This data only looks at the new standards and at there implementation within New Zealand Schools.
Results in the Achievement Standards, a result is tagged as a N, A, M, E or V.

What does this mean, a result is tagged as?
N - Not Achieved
A - Achieved
M - Merit
E - Excellence
V- Void which means V is the code for not attempting a standard that they are entered in (this is normally used for External Reports)

Results in the Unit Standards, a results is tagged as a N or A.
N - Not Achieved
A - Achieved

I have not separated the result data, as this project is not about looking at individual Achievement data with schools. Just the number of results that have been published to NZQA.

Why make this data public?
We need to make people aware of what is going on in schools, rather than through heresy, lets make the data public, that way industry, media, and other teachers can see what the picture is.

But I teach Generic Technology Standards, why are they not showing?
This data tells one part of the story. I cannot show the other standards that are carried out within a course as courses within schools can be named differently.

Some courses include Technology Achievement Standards, I cannot show this data as there is no current method for tagging Technology Achievement Standards to a Digital Technologies course.

Why just the result data and not numbers of students entered. 
A single result is all that this needed to report on. We need to look at the numbers of students who are taking the Achievement Standards, not the breakdown on Achievement.

Why include the National Certificate of Computing?
In the past the National Certificate of Computing was a qualification that a number of students were working towards obtaining.
The National Certificate in Computing L2 required students to reach 42 credits, included in this are they standards 2780, 2781 and a requirement to obtain 5 credits out of the Business Administration Domain.
This shows data shows that a number of schools are still offering the National Certificate in Computing L2 and L3. But it also raises another question, if students are not obtaining the National Certificate in Computing, why is the school still offering Unit Standards, one answer may be Vocational Pathways.

Looking at Vocational Pathways
Vocational Pathways are now considered an opportunity for students to develop a pathway of learning, The following have been taken from the Manufacturing and Technology area of Vocational Pathways.

Level One

Std No.	Matrix/ Domain	Title	Credits
2792	Comp	Produce simple desktop published documents using templates	2	R
5946	Comp	Use computer technology to create and deliver a presentation from given content	3	R
18734	Comp	Create a web page using a template	2	R
18743	Comp	Produce a spreadsheet from instructions using supplied data	2	R
18758	Comp	Find information using the Internet	2	R
25659	Comp	Create a web page using a mark-up language with a text editor	2	R
26745	Comp	Produce still images for a range of digital media	3	R

Std No.	Matrix/ Domain	Title	Credits
18739	Software	Create and use simple command sequences in a computer language	2	R

Level Two

Std No.	Matrix/ Domain	Title	Credits
2781	Comp	Manage and protect data in a personal computer system	3	R
2783	Comp	Demonstrate knowledge of the components of personal computer systems	3	R
2784	Comp	Create and use a computer spreadsheet to solve a problem	3	R
2786	Comp	Create and use a computer database to solve a problem	3	R
2788	Comp	Produce desktop published documents to meet a set brief	5	R
2790	Comp	Use and maintain personal computer peripherals	3	R
2791	Comp	Integrate spreadsheet and database data into word processed documents to meet a set brief	3	R
5940	Comp	Produce a presentation using a desktop presentation computer application	3	R
5957	Comp	Produce schematic diagrams using a computer application	2	R
6743	Comp	Demonstrate an understanding of ergonomic principles for computer workstations	2	R
20332	Comp	Use the Internet for information retrieval in an organisation	3	R
25655	Comp	Create a website using a dedicated web-authoring tool to meet a set brief	3	R
25656	Comp	Create a website using a mark-up language to meet a set brief	3	R
25662	Comp	Use digital communications technologies	3	R
26744	Comp	Produce a media application for use on a communication device to meet a set brief	5	R

Std No.	Matrix/ Domain	Title	Credits
18740	Software	Create a simple computer program to meet a set brief	3	R

Std No.	Matrix/ Domain	Title	Credits
91070	1.40	Demonstrate understanding of basic concepts of information management	3	R
91071	1.41	Implement basic procedures to produce a specified digital information outcome	4	R
91072	1.42	Demonstrate understanding of basic concepts of digital media	3	R
91073	1.43	Implement basic procedures to produce a specified digital media outcome	4	R
91074	1.44	Demonstrate understanding of basic concepts from computer science	3	R
91075	1.45	Construct a plan for a basic computer program for a specified task	3	R
91076	1.46	Construct a basic computer program for a specified task	3	R
91077	1.47	Demonstrate understanding of basic concepts used in the design and construction of electronic environments	3	R
91078	1.48	Implement basic interfacing procedures in a specified electronic environment	3	R
91079	1.49	Implement basic techniques in constructing a specified electronic and embedded system	3	R
91080	1.50	Demonstrate understanding of the common components of basic digital infrastructures	3	R
91081	1.51	Implement basic procedures for servicing a personal computer system	4	R

Though it does need to be considered, that the above are only recommended. To gain your vocational pathways endorsement you need to have 20 credits that are Strongly Recommended

Std No.	Matrix/ Domain	Title	Credits
91367	2.40	Demonstrate understanding of advanced concepts relating to managing shared information within information systems	3	SR
91368	2.41	Implement advanced procedures to produce a specified digital information outcome with dynamically linked data	6	SR
91369	2.42	Demonstrate understanding of advanced concepts of digital media	4	SR
91370	2.43	Implement advanced procedures to produce a specified digital media outcome	4	SR
91371	2.44	Demonstrate understanding of advanced concepts from computer science	4	SR
91372	2.45	Construct a plan for an advanced computer program for a specified task	3	SR
91373	2.46	Construct an advanced computer program for a specified task	3	SR
91374	2.47	Demonstrate understanding of advanced concepts used in the construction of electronic environments	3	SR
91375	2.48	Implement advanced interfacing procedures in a specified electronic environment	3	SR
91376	2.49	Implement advanced techniques in constructing a specified advanced electronic and embedded system	3	SR
91377	2.50	Demonstrate understanding of local area network technologies	3	SR
91378	2.51	Implement procedures for administering a local area network	4	SR

I need to have some information with the project that shows how unit standards fit in with vocational pathways.

Construction and Infrastructure L1 - none
Construction and Infrastructure L2

td No.	Matrix/ Domain	Title	Credits
2781		Manage and protect data in a personal computer system	3	R
2783		Demonstrate knowledge of the components of personal computer systems	3	R
2784		Create and use a computer spreadsheet to solve a problem	3	R
2786		Create and use a computer database to solve a problem	3	R
2788		Produce desktop published documents to meet a set brief	5	R
2790		Use and maintain personal computer peripherals	3	R
2791		Integrate spreadsheet and database data into word processed documents to meet a set brief	3	R
5940		Produce a presentation using a desktop presentation computer application	3	R
5957		Produce schematic diagrams using a computer application	2	R
20332		Use the Internet for information retrieval in an organisation	3	R
25662		Use digital communications technologies	3	R

http://youthguarantee.net.nz/vocational-pathways/education-providers-/

function getChineseZodiac($year){

    switch ($year % 12) :
        case  0: return 'Monkey';  // Years 0, 12, 1200, 2004...
        case  1: return 'Rooster';
        case  2: return 'Dog';
        case  3: return 'Boar';
        case  4: return 'Rat';
        case  5: return 'Ox';
        case  6: return 'Tiger';
        case  7: return 'Rabit';
        case  8: return 'Dragon';
        case  9: return 'Snake';
        case 10: return 'Horse';
        case 11: return 'Lamb';
    endswitch;
}

echo getChineseZodiac(2016);?>



Table design idea
using radio buttons

http://jimmybonney.com/articles/column_header_rotation_css/

Another idea is to display the results of assessment in a stacked format.

 var data = google.visualization.arrayToDataTable([
        ['Genre', 'Fantasy & Sci Fi', 'Romance', 'Mystery/Crime', 'General',
         'Western', 'Literature', { role: 'annotation' } ],
        ['2010', 10, 24, 20, 32, 18, 5, ''],
        ['2020', 16, 22, 23, 30, 16, 9, ''],
        ['2030', 28, 19, 29, 30, 12, 13, '']
      ]);

      var options = {
        width: 600,
        height: 400,
        legend: { position: 'top', maxLines: 3 },
 bar: { groupWidth: '75%' },
        isStacked: true,
      };

I have had another idea around the display of the maps, we wanted to show where the school is https://developers.google.com/chart/interactive/docs/gallery/map this could be an answer towards this

Charting data

I am busy working on a project at present to map result data from schools.

One of the cool thing that I am working with in charting data through google maps, though I have found some difficulty in this as google maps engine lite only allows me to have 100 rows of data, currently I am sitting on around 398 rows.

Working in the space I am also using charts to display the display the data, visually is more appealing that just looking at numbers. The google chart has been easy to set up once I read the code a couple of time and put the code I was trying to develop on the same page so I could see where I was going wrong.
https://developers.google.com/chart/interactive/docs/gallery/linechart

I think this is going to keep me up at night. It has and it has been keeping me occupied during times at work as well

Now I need to figure out how to do a three table join
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3709560/mysql-join-three-tables

The data has shown me a number of stories already, one that I have to work out how to share with non teachers as well.

I need to work out how to define the five separate strands as well as levels.

One thing that I need to consider is line vs column vs bar chart. I am going to have to have a chat with our head of mathematics at school to see which one I should be using.

One thing that has to be thought about is how the development of vocational pathways impacts on this. Is this a possible reason why schools are looking at these standards. Though I need to work out what standards relate to each vocational pathways. Are there standards that don't marry up.

confused, do we need programmers or digital media students

IT path opens as Microsoft NZ pledges million-dollar Tech Youth investment

Microsoft New Zealand is donating $1 million in cash, software and services investment to the High Tech Youth Network, designed to provide pathways for young, underserved Kiwis into the IT industry.

Speaking today at One Tree Hill College in Penrose, Microsoft NZ Managing Director, Paul Muckleston made the announcement in front of Prime Minister John Key, who joined students and the CEO of the High Tech Youth Network for the official ground-breaking for the construction of a new High Tech Youth Studio and Academy.

The One Tree Hill College Academy is the latest site set for development by the High Tech Youth Network to offer vocational and education pathways for students into high-performance digital learning and training.

There are currently six High Tech Youth Studios, located in West Auckland, Manukau City, Hamilton, Tauranga, Moerewa (Northland) and Whakatane. Sites in Dunedin, Fiji and Hawaii are also currently in development.

The studios target young people aged 8 – 25 years in underserved communities, providing NCEA and industry related secondary and tertiary credentialing, as well as workplace internships and mentoring of young people in the High-Tech and Digital Media industries.

At the studios, young people learn project management and technical skills such as computer game design, electronic publishing, Photoshop, animation and 3D graphic design.

Muckleston believes that initiatives like the High Tech Youth Network will help secure the future of young New Zealanders with pathways into the tech sector.

“The High Tech Youth Network has paved the way to address the technology capability gap,” he says.

“This is why Microsoft is an enthusiastic long term supporter of the High Tech Youth Network, because our goals closely align.

“We want to empower young people and communities to help bridge the technology gap to ensure equity of access, skills, and opportunities for all New Zealanders.”

Muckleston says Microsoft’s investment in the High Tech Youth Network is part of a wider commitment to building a smart, connected, competitive New Zealand, in which all New Zealanders have the opportunity to reach their full potential.

“Through our partnership with the High Tech Youth Network, we hope to inspire young New Zealanders to imagine and build a better future for themselves – all while building a skilled and innovative workforce in New Zealand that is equipped to prosper in the global economy,” he adds.

Muckleston says the million-dollar grant – made under Microsoft’s global YouthSpark programme – includes a commitment of investment to providing ICT industry credentialing opportunities, industry mentors and 4 -10 week work placements through High Tech Youth Academies for young people aged 16-24 years.

“The High Tech Youth Network answers the calls of politicians and business leaders for educators and industry to work together to provide tangible pathways for young New Zealanders into long-term careers through training, mentoring and internships,” he adds.

“It is education aligned to workplace requirements and job opportunities.”

Muckleston, together with the Prime Minister and Ken Whitney, ASB Community Trust’s Chair, jointly launched the network’s Academy program in late 2012, with initial investment from Microsoft and ASB Community Trust.

The government’s 2013 Budget also provided $1.9M to enable the High Tech Youth Network to develop two new studios – including the One Tree Hill College site – and to continue to support young people enrolled at existing studios.

Mike Usmar, CEO of the High Tech Youth Network, expressed his deep gratitude for the new grant of support which he says will enable the Network to expand its reach further than ever before.

“With Microsoft working alongside us as our most valued partner, the future for the High Tech Youth Network is strong, and will be positioned to serve more than 37,000 youth and whanau in the Oceania region towards developing IT skills that will impact them for a lifetime,” he adds.

The High Tech Youth Network has four core objectives, these are:

- To empower young people and communities to become more capable, creative and confident lifelong learners.

- To foster the growth of a learning community, through the sharing of ideas and support.

- To encourage in young people the development of a positive identity and belief in their potential, through linking cultural knowledge and values with technology.

- To champion, support, manage, research and implement services and projects that will further the above objectives within New Zealand and the Pacific.

For more information on the High Tech Youth Network, visit:http://hightechyouth.org/

developing understanding of how useful the edem626 course was to me

I have been working on the regular expression work with formal languages for the last week. I have been watching my students struggle with the work and what is required. Many became disinterested in this. Last night I went through some of the work I did as part of the EDEM course and using the resources had them use this material, working through the university slides students were able to understand what was happening, what each part did. The questions I was getting at the end of the period showed that students have taken to this, I even included the design of a form that allowed for pattern expression to be run from within the browser rather than using a backend script. This allows for students to develop and test the process straight away.

Need to look at what is expected:

• Key problem: matching input text
• Practical application: compilers, web site input fields
• Algorithm/technique: regular expressions
• Evaluation: this is required for excellence, and it’s hard to see how to do a reasonable evaluation; however, an in-depth reflection on the design may be suitable if done well
• Personalised student examples: choice of regular expression to use as an example

What does this code snippet do?…

1	/^[0-9a-zA-Z]+@[0-9a-zA-Z]+[\.]{1}[0-9a-zA-Z]+[\.]?[0-9a-zA-Z]+$/

Those with several years development expertise will realize it’s a regular expression. But even the most astute guru will take a few moments to determine that it checks the validity of an email address. Only a superior subset of that group will comprehend that it’s fairly superficial and won’t check all possibilities.

Regular expressions are extremely powerful search patterns which can be used for string matching and replacement. They’re supported in the majority of languages including JavaScript, PHP, Perl, Java, C#, Python and Ruby.

Individual rules are normally straight-forward, e.g. [a-z] matches a single lowercase character andc.t matches a three letter string starting with ‘c’ and ending with ‘t’ — such as ‘cat’. However, when rules are combined, an indecipherable string of seemingly random codes starts to appear. The one above is relatively simple compared to many you’ll find in the wild.

Creating your own regular expressions is difficult enough and many of us resort to using the force. But it’s easy compared to parsing someone else’s code — which is normally written by someone who has an irrational aversion to comments!

Fortunately, Jeff Avallone has created a solution to your regex woes. RegExper transforms meaningless JavaScript-based expressions into a graphical representation:

Admittedly, you’ll still need a reasonable understanding of pattern matching, but it’s far more evident the expression is analyzing an email address.

Behind the scenes, RegExper is a Ruby application which translates regular expressions into an SVG image. The SVG is embedded in the page, but it should be possible to extract or copy it for use in your own documentation.

Also: great slides that describe regex, http://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse154/13sp/lectures/slides/lecture12-regular-expressions.shtml

Competitions for schools - the issue

They are great, getting real world examples for students to develop, they are interesting, fun and have prizes. 

However, there is an issue. We struggle to break away from our programmes now, is this worth credits is a phrase that I wish we could knock on the head. Competitions in schools need a good lead in, with the pressures of NCEA now upon us, adding a competition in will not get you into this. 

Competitions need to be structured in a way that it links into the curriculum, 

most competitions offer cool prizes, but where is the learning? 

Your business want to give away money and technology, 

great, but be prepared for little interest, as teacher who will be promoting it won’t see the value in what you are trying to do.

Find a teacher, gather together to group of teachers, work with them to develop a plan of attack, how is this going to link in with the learning, when is a good time of year to offer a competition (not the last weeks of the term, or around term 3) they are a almost no go zone as schools go into revision mode, or assessment mode.

be prepared for other teachers of curriculum areas to take up the challenge, they may not be your key stakeholders, but they have interest, develop that interest in your area. I am a digital technologies teacher, but I have an interest in displaying data especially if it is mapping data at the moment. I am looking at this from a Digital Information level 3 objective. 

I also will look at other students that may not be your primary focus, I have year 9 and 10 students, who I am working with on developing broader skills, let me use your information and competition to help develop that interest, these are the students that will be coming through in the future.

I look forward to your competitions, but just be careful around when you set them.

Junior Assessment for Digital Media #NZCTech

I think this #NZCTech has got me thinking about what we are doing within schools. Tonight I was having a chat with a friend and an idea started to form. One around an event that happens every three years.
Getting students to develop a logo (they do that already), taking photos (they do that already) defining a message... putting it all together to meet the requirements of the election advertising.
http://www.elections.org.nz/media-handbook/part-1-election-advertising

Citizenship, getting students to create a billboard to represent a political party, one that they create and work out what they stand for. Billboards are nothing new to the Digital technologies area, in the past there was a project to get students to look at road safety and create a billboard designed to get students to create a billboard design for students to wear helmets.

Students can design a billboard, using google maps they will need to put it in a location, one that they pick, and explain why. Yes I realise that this links in with so many other curriculum areas, but that is something individual schools could work on.

What colours would students use to define their party. What message would they want to put up.

Now teachers need to be careful with this, they are leaders, they need to show no political bias within this work.

I have put this challenge out to the Digital Technologies teachers group, I need 150+ photos of billboards. Lets see what happens?

#NZCTech first draft level 4

I have been working on Level 4 Technology Systems, I am hoping that I have met what I have highlighted in Red

Technological Systems Level 4
Achievement Objective
Students will:
· Understand how technological systems employ control to allow for the transformation of inputs to outputs.

Teacher Guidance
To support students to develop understanding of technological systems at level 4, teachers could:
- provide students with the opportunity to investigate a range of technological systems and guide them to identify how transformation processes are controlled;
- support students to understand that control mechanisms can function to enhance the fitness for purpose of technological systems by maximising the desired outputs and minimising the undesirable outputs;
- provide students with a scenario outlining technical and acceptability specifications for a system and support them to explore and research components and connectivity factors to determine what components would be suitable and how they could be connected to meet system specifications;
- support students to communicate system related details effectively. System related details include such things as what components would be feasible, layout requirements, and how they would need to be connected. Effective communication uses specialised language and symbols.

Indicators
Students can:

- explain how transformation processes within a system are controlled;
- describe examples to illustrate how the fitness for purpose of technological systems can be enhanced by the use of control mechanisms;
- communicate, using specialised language and drawings, system related details that would allow others to create a system that meets both technical and acceptability specifications.

The first draft of the work includes a robot task using symbols to control a robot to stack cups,

second is a binary task to develop a students name, third is teh input and outputs of a program, students need to develop the code to work. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7XxvF_5OWc_TFg2Ry1GNmZLcmM/edit?usp=sharing

Though I must admit, I am still working out this

Black box

A device, system, or object that can be viewed solely in terms of its input, output and transfer characteristics without any knowledge of its internal workings. The concept of a black box is important in describing technological systems. But while it has many advantages (the reduced need to understand all aspects of the system, the ability to replace faulty subsystem without disrupting the entire system etc), it also has disadvantages (understanding of the entire system can be incomplete, troubleshooting can be difficult etc).

See explanatory paper. See also: Strategies for Engaging Students: Technological Systems: Level Six Black Box Activity: Supports students to identify why subsystems may be ‘black boxed' for development and/or maintenance purposes and guide them to understand how this can result in both advantages and disadvantages.