Digital Literacies for learning Week 4

Overview of the session Welcome Questions from last week Lecture overview – Introduction to the Australian Curriculum Exploring the curriculum ICT capability/Digital Technologies Computational Thinking Preparation for next week This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC

Lecture review Spend some time revisiting the elements of the Australian Curriculum – for most students this will be their very first time looking at it. Review the difference between the capability and curriculum – following game will support this

Activity: ICT Capability or digital technologies curriculum This matching game was created using the Educaplay website. https://www.educaplay.com/learning-resources/4279769- ict_or_curriculum.html Match the activity to either the capability or curriculum Clicking on the one of the activities will determine if you are matching items to the capability or the curriculum. You could do this as a class and discuss which belongs where and why If time, the students could create their own account and make their own games – it is very easy to do and there are video instructions to support the process. This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC

Activity – Exploring the Australian curriculum Spend some time familiarising yourself with the way the Australian Curriculum website works.  Go to the Australian Curriculum website and open the ICT Capability Learning Continuum , Identify one particular element. For example, you might choose to look at communicating with ICT. Make notes about what the element is about Explore the bands relevant to primary schools and make note of how the learning outcomes develop between the bands. How do they expand on learning in the previous bands? Now go to the Digital Technologies (DT) curriculum area Read through the section which explains how DT works , Explore a band for a primary year level Look at the two strands – what are the differences/similarities? You could encourage students to generate questions, interesting features etc which could be discussed in groups

Computational thinking This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC Computational thinking allows us to take a complex problem, understand what the problem is and develop possible solutions. We can then present these solutions in a way that a computer, a human, or both, can understand. There are four key techniques (cornerstones) to computational thinking: decomposition - breaking down a complex problem or system into smaller, more manageable parts pattern recognition – looking for similarities among and within problems abstraction – focusing on the important information only, ignoring irrelevant detail algorithms - developing a step-by-step solution to the problem, or the rules to follow to solve the problem

Note that we will explore more about the elements of Algorithms, Modelling and evaluation later in this course

Activity – computational thinking in action Think of an example of how you have used computational thinking in the past week or so. Describe how you used the elements of Decomposition - how did you break down the problem? Pattern recognition - looking for similarities with other problems Abstraction - ignoring irrelevant detail Algorithm - step by step solution to solve your problem. Share your own example of computational thinking  Example on following slide. Students could type this up or write notes Have students share their examples This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

Activity – computational thinking in action – an example – what to have for dinner tonight. Decomposition What food do I have at home? Do I have enough money to buy more food/eat out/get takeaway? Who will be home? I've eaten out already this week. My husband doesn't cook much. How much time do I have to cook something? Pattern recognition  How did I solve this problem last night? What meals do my friends cook? Abstraction It's raining today. Algorithm Go to supermarket on way home Buy mince Go home Cook Bolognese sauce and spaghetti Eat dinner This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND

Activity – reading task This week’s reading focusses on computational thinking Once you have read the article, document 3 things you learned or interesting pieces of information from your reading 2 implications for you as a primary school teacher 1 question you may have Feel free to come up with your own ways of sharing their notes – jigsaw strategy, having students share their questions and develop a potential response, etc, etc.

Assessment task 1 Questions?? Time to work on your assignment If time, students can continue to work on collecting materials, discuss assessment requirements such as referencing, etc This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

Before our next session………. Work through Topic 5 Read and note the lecture materials for Topic 5 Note there is no reading task for next week Bring along any questions you have regarding assessment task 1 – you may have time in class to work on this