I am amazed at how enthusiastic I
have become about this subject and how much I have a passion for it. When I
first began this course, I wasn’t aware of how much it will entail and how much
I will learn. I was confident that I knew everything about technology and I
struggled to see the point of Design and Digital Technologies having their own
curriculum. 8 weeks later and I can see how much there is to know and how
Technology is the way of the future so it is vital that we as teachers, learn
to keep up with the times so we can help our students.
In the last 3 weeks, we have
moved from Design Technologies to Digital Technologies. For both areas we have
had fantastic, educational weekly tasks that have helped me stay on track and that
have been appealing. Lately I have learnt about all the computational skills
that are used in Digital Technologies and how we can implement those skills. It
has been one of my favourite subjects at University so far because it is engaging
and it appeals to me as a visual learner.
I have been able to save all the resources because they will be valid
when I am a qualified teacher.
The rationale of the Australian
Curriculum: Digital Technologies (ACARA, 2015b) explains that, “A deep
knowledge and understanding of information systems enables students to be
creative and discerning decision-makers when they select, use and manage data,
information, processes and digital systems to meet needs and shape preferred
futures.” I began to go through this process myself when I was introduced to
Binary numbers in week 6. I was quite frustrated that I just didn’t understand
the content and I began to doubt myself. I felt embarrassed that I had done so
well in Design Technologies and then I felt like I was failing in Digital
Technologies. Through repetition of the activities provided, I began to
understand more clearly and I tried to focus on remembering that I was a
student myself and I didn’t need to set such high expectations of myself so
soon.
During week 7 we moved on to
specifically learn about computational skills that can be used in the classroom
which I thoroughly enjoyed learning about. The thinking processes that we
seemed to focus on in particular were Algorithms, Abstraction, Patterns and
Decomposition. The “Thinking Myself” website was an interactive experience that
walked us through each computational skill and showed us how easily it could be
used in the classroom. This website is a tool that I will definitely use when
teaching my students as an introductory engagement activity because it was fun,
interesting and engaging. Using and teaching computational thinking seems to be
the biggest content area of the Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies
because in the Aims it outlines that students will develop the knowledge and
skills to ensure that they “use computational thinking and the key concepts of
abstractions; data collection, representation and interpretation;
specification, algorithms and implementations to create digital solutions
(ACARA, 2015a). This is the week at CQU that I began to get a greater
understanding for the subject and why it should have its own curriculum. There
is so much to know and learn and the curriculum covers vital skills that we
need know to be able to progress in the 21st century.
During week 8 we had a great
amount of activities we had to implement around Algorithms as well as exploring
the Scratch website. For the majority of my activities, I continued to work
with Years 3 and 4 when looking at the curriculum because this is age I used
for Design Technologies. In the Band description for these year levels of the
Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies, it expresses that students will
have had opportunities to create a range of digital solutions, such as
interactive adventures that involve user choice, modelling simplified real
world systems and simple guessing games (ACARA, 2015c&d). The Scratch
website would allow for my students to explore this area of the curriculum because
they could use the site to create a game using Algorithms and Abstraction
(example in blog).
Over the past three weeks I have
found myself using skills such as problem solving, designing with algorithms as
well as learning to code and break down data and organise my knowledge. The
weekly tasks have helped me to become a computational thinker myself as well as
providing me with educational resources to help my students develop
computational skills on their journey. I am saddened to see the end of this
course quickly approaching but I am excited to see what else I can learn in the
final few weeks.
References:
Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority: Digital Technologies. (2015a). Aims Retrieved from: http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/technologies/digital-technologies/aims
Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority: Digital Technologies. (2015b). Rationale Retrieved from: http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/technologies/digital-technologies/rationale
Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority: Technology. (2015c&d). Rationale Retrieved from: http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/technologies/rationale
No comments:
Post a Comment