Assessment Part B of Task 1

Technology, in one form or another, has always been part of the teaching and learning environment. Developing students’ knowledge and skills related to ICT in the school years provides an important grounding for later in life. It also provides equity of opportunity, regardless of background. After reviewing the past couple of weeks learning about the Digital technology challenges and pedagogies related to the Digital Technologies section of the Australian Curriculum, I have learnt various activities and skills that will effectively assist me in the area of learning and teaching the digital technology components to students in the 21st century.  

For many of the challenges I completed in the digital framework addressed the concept that technology is the tool rather than being associated with the pedagogy. It is clear that many of the resources, activities and sites support computational thinking skills and creation of digital solutions such as project planning, evaluating alternative designs, collaborating and managing, and making decisions. By defining, designing, implementing and evaluating a game solution, students will need an understanding of how data is represented in digital systems, how data will be input by the user and how they will be transmitted within the digital system. They draw on this knowledge when stating what is required for the solution of designing the game’s interface and instructions, implementing the solution using specific software functions and items of hardware, where appropriate, and then evaluating it against the stated needs (Refer to week 8). It is essential for students to acquire, interpret, manipulate and communicate information to meet a range of purposes that involves an understanding of the representation of data, the basis for creating solutions (knowledge and understanding). An example of this evident in my studies is using code to understand how drawings are represented and manipulated in digital systems (Refer to Week 7).

It is important for teachers to acknowledge the holistic aims of the curriculum, including confidently when using digital systems to efficiently automate the transformation of data into information and to creatively communicate ideas in a range of settings. When I become a teacher I will definitely engage students in learning project management skills as teachers cannot just hand the students a set of instructions before learning the knowledge behind what they are constructing. As a teacher I would engage the students in digital technologies by allowing them to explore the game prior to creating it and then draw from the key ideas to investigate and create their own game. I will encourage students to collaborate in a group exploration or problem solving, where students work together to discover and understand the topic and manage the design process of the game. I would use a range of communication forms (oral, graphic, written) and digital technologies.

In addition to the overarching aims for the Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies, the activities I have completed throughout the past couple of weeks focusing on the Digital Technologies unit have exceptionally developed my computational thinking. As a pre-service teacher, after learning this component of the course I will take into consideration the importance of the computational thinking processes which are Abstraction, Patterns, Decomposition and Algorithms. I now understand how this curriculum area overlaps with others such as Maths, when learning about algorithms for example.

Overall, Digital Technologies provides students with authentic learning challenges that foster curiosity, confidence, persistence, innovation, creativity, respect and cooperation. These are all necessary when using and developing information systems to make sense of complex ideas and relationships in all areas of learning. Digital Technologies helps students to be regional and global citizens capable of actively and ethically communicating and collaborating.

 References:

ACARA. (2015). Technologies: Rationale - The Australian Curriculum v7.4. Retrieved 5 May 2015, from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/technologies/rationale

Roblyer, M. D. (2006). Integrating educational technology into teaching (Vol. 2): Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall.