Featured

How to write your first blog post

This is how to get started and create a blog post on edublogs

  1. You will receive an email with an invitation to the blog use this to go to the blog site Http://dtm4260.edublogs.org
  2. Follow the prompts and set up your user name and password. You will be taken to the home page of the blog.
  3. Select the house icon on the top left of the page
  4. Scroll down to dashboard
  5. In the dashboard menu you will see all the functions on the left hand side of the page
  6. Select Posts then select add a new post
  7. Type in a name for your post- make it interesting
  8. If you have prepared your post as a word document- you can cut and paste it to the blog page or type it directly into the blog
  9. Use the formatting tools at the top of the page to make your post easy to read
  10. Add media-all posts need a picture  or icon. You can even add a short video- see the add media box on the top right
  11. NB: Use the categories menu on the right to tick the boxes of the categories that apply to your post. Then select some tags. This is called metadata and makes your post searchable and easy to find
  12. Preview your post and make changes
  13. You can save as a draft to do more work later or
  14. Publish your post–  remember to press publish the blue icon on the bottom right of the page. Your post now comes to me to review and edit before it gets posted on the blog for everyone to read. If you do not have any categories and tags I will not publish your post because all posts need metadata so they can be found on the web. Happy blogging

  15. Have a  cupcake and a coffee to sustain you as you work on this task.

    Time for a coffee

Featured

A new technologies curriculum for Australian Schools

Australian teachers now have a new technologies curriculum for foundation to year ten F-10. This curriculum draws together the subject areas of design and technology and digital technologies. It addresses is a need for all students to become more confident, creative users of technology. Technology is such a vital part of our daily lives and the business world. This new curriculum has two strands

1.) knowledge and understanding

2.)processes and production skills.

There is a focus on systems thinking considers  the interconnected layers or aspects of a whole system before looking at isolated elements. The key factor in systems thinking is that  an action or disruption in one part or element of a system will influence and impact on the other layers. This connects to the cross- curriculum theme of sustainability.

Design thinking and design processes have been introduced  to explore the processes and thinking strategies used by designers as they engage in creative practices. There is a focus on students being actively engaged in authentic design projects which link across all areas of the curriculum. I am looking forward to seeing your responses and how you tackle this complex area of technology in your teaching.

Featured

Welcome to the Technologies Curriculum Resources Blog

Dear Teachers and Pre-service Teachers
I am Dr Jenny Lane  @EduJen

Thank you for visiting our community resource blog. We have set this up as a useful resource for teachers and preservice teachers. Technology is an important part of everything we do. We have a new Technologies Curriculum in Australia and it makes sense for us to work together to find and share the best most useful resources to use in our teaching.

I am an enthusiastic blogger. Community blogging is a great way to work together to benefit all of us and most importantly the students we teach. Please use this blog to build  a set of resources and teaching ideas that we can all use as we plan our teaching in the technologies area. I look forward to seeing your postings and comments. All the work in this blog will be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Happy blogging
Dr Jenny Lane and the DTM4260 team

by

ABCya.com

This program is free and is functional for students across all years of primary school as it has varying levels of complexity. This program can be used for teaching Maths and English whilst allowing students to develop their basic computer skills. Students are able to access this program from anywhere where there is a computer and can work on any level or topic when work has not been assigned. ABCya provides a fun interactive experience to assist in learning fundamental skills in the areas of literacy and numeracy.

Year Levels: K-6

Subject: Technologies

Strands: Digital Technologies

General Capabilities:

Literacy: Students complete interactive games focused around their development of phonics and word structure.

Numeracy: Students use this program to develop their basic facts in an interactive way.

Information and Communication Technologies: Students complete their work on a computer or iPad, this allows them to develop their basic understanding of computer skills.

Integrated Learning Opportunities:

Mathematics and English

Content Descriptors:

Use data to solve similar tasks/problems (ACTDIP003)

Link to site:

http://www.abcya.com/

Further Information:

  • The program is free to use for educators and students.
  • ABCya uses interactive games to teach through play.
  • The site has a family option to allow students to learn at home with their families.
by

Enter Book Creator

Book Creator  

Year Level – 1-6

Source – iPad Application

About

This intuitive and easy to learn app lets children (and adults) get into creating content to match the real world style that they are aiming for.  Its title may say ‘Books’ but really any type of written production could be output from it.  Text can be manipulated into headlines for newspaper articles; diagrams can be stacked, overlaid and adjusted to create diagram rich how-to guides.
The app is not a fully featured desk top publishing solution and nor should it be.  The developers of Book Creator have carefully distilled down the most essential parts of layout software to make an app that can be mastered in just a short amount of time, allowing content creation to come to the fore, rather than the learning of the software.   Should there be any difficulties, this is an app with a very well realised supporting website that answered every question that I had.
I was able to use Book Creator during my ATP for a year 1 class during procedure writing. After 15 minutes of direct instructions, all students were able to navigate their way through all features within the application.

Strands: Digital Technologies

Sub strand:

General Capabilities: Develop, communicate and discuss design ideas through describing, drawing, modeling and/or a sequence of steps

Literacy – the students need to be able to effectively put titles, labels etc on the graph

Information and Communication Technology(ICT) – students will be using ICT to complete their interactive book.

Integrated Learning Opportunities:

English, Mathematics, Geography, PE, Science

Cost: free with limited features

Link: https://bookcreator.com/

Regards,
John Greenham
by

Integrating Technology – Tinybop Plants

Tinybop has created a number of apps. They include apps about the human body etc. One app in particular that I liked was called Tinybop Plants. This app is an educational application about different types of plants and plant life cycles. The app includes videos, interactive dioramas and sounds. The app is available in over 50 languages so it can be used if you are teaching a non-English speaking class. Students can look at the plants that are featured in the app and determine which plants can be eaten/which plants they eat at home. Overall, it is a great change from the classic chalk-and-talk method of teaching students!

Year Level: 1-2

Subject: Technologies

Strands: Design and Technologies

General Capabilities:

Literacy – the students need to be able to effectively read what they are seeing on the screen in order to interact

Numeracy – the app goes into detail about different life cycles which could incorporate numeracy

Information and Communication Technology(ICT) – students will be using iPads to use this app, which is a form of ICT

Critical and Creative Thinking – the teacher could get students to think about different plant adaptations and how this may effect the animals eating the plants etc.

Integrated Learning Opportunities:

Mathematics, Science, English, HASS

Content Descriptors:

Explore how plants and animals are grown for food, clothing and shelter and how food is selected and prepared for healthy eating (ACTDEK003)

Link:

https://tinybop.com/apps/plants

Additional Information:

  • Easy to use
  • Interactive and fun
  • Cost: $2.99
  • Over 50 languages featured
by

Go Noodle

https://www.gonoodle.com/

Gonoodle is a fun interactive website and app that students and teachers can use in many different ways.

Subject: Digital Technologies

Year Level: Kindy to year 6- This app is probably most rewarding for lower primary aged children, but all students can have fun with is and the meditation activities can be beneficial to all ages.

Strand: Knowledge and Understanding.

Sub Strand: Digital systems (hardware and software) are used in everyday life and have specific features(ACTDIK001)

 

by

Integrating Technology – Meta Chart

Students can use Meta-Chart to create different types of graphs online. Students can choose how they would like to represent their data – the site allows them to create bar graphs, pie charts, histograms etc. This is a great way for students to experiment with technology while still learning about data representation. Students follow three easy steps and are then able to create their graph and see it represented on their screen.

Year Level: 3-4

Subject: Technologies

Strands: Digital Technologies

General Capabilities:

Literacy – the students need to be able to effectively put titles, labels etc on the graph

Numeracy – the graphing will have to do with numbers

Information and Communication Technology(ICT) – students will be using ICT to complete their graph as it is based online

Integrated Learning Opportunities:

Mathematics, Science

Content Descriptors:

Descriptor: Recognise different types of data and explore how the same data can be represented in different ways (ACTDIK008)

Elaboration: using a table to reorganise information that includes sentences, and/or words, and/or numbers and/or images

Link:

https://www.meta-chart.com/

Additional Information:

  • Free
  • Easy to use

 

by

Cool Food Planet

Cool Food Planet is a interactive website for learning about Nutrition, Food safety and health. Teachers can use this resource as a support for students to interactively engage in and help develop understanding.  The website is split into “missions” which each have their own theme supporting the learning of Nutrition, Food Safety, Understanding where food comes from, how to prepare food safety in the kitchen as well as the benefits of exercise.  The website has interactive games and challenges that the students can complete at their own pace making it a suitable resource for different ability and understanding levels.

Australian Curriculum: Design and Technologies, Design and Technologies Knowledge and Understandings: Foundation to Year 2.

by

CodeSpark- Academy with the Foos

Code Spark Have created an App called Academy with the Foos.

That can be used in classrooms to support students learning of coding through interactive activities. These activities include puzzles, games, step by step projects and printouts.

In the classroom, the teacher can use this app to help support the teaching and develop the students understanding of coding in interactive activities. The activities are suitable for different levels this gives students who a struggling an opportunity to develop their understanding.

Australian Curriculum-  Digital Technologies: Processes and Production skills.

by

Food and Fibre Investigations

There are so many resources available that can aid both educators and students on Food Fibre Production! How can you condense down to just one or two resources for students? Why not just use the Cool Food Planet resource.  It is a one-stop-shop for all your food and fibre needs. Not only does it provide students with interactive learning based games, but it provides a means of extension for those students that are developing their knowledge and want to move on to the next level!

Subject

Design and Technology

Year Level

Foundation to Year 6

Strand

Knowledge and Understanding

Sub Strand

Foundation to year 2 –

Explore how plants and animals are grown for food, clothing and shelter and how food is selected and prepared for healthy eating

Year 3 and 4 –

Investigate food and fibre production and food technologies used in modern and traditional societies

Resource Link

Home

Price

Free resource for students and teachers

 

General Capabilities

Cool Food Planet encompasses the general capabilities of:

  1. Numeracy
  2. Intercultural understanding
  3. Critical and creative thinking

 

Snapshot of Cool Food Planet

As discussed in the video below, children are exposed to food that is just present to them at meal times or presented to them in forms of packaging.  Cool Food Planet is a resource that enables teachers to teach to students the benefits of good nutrition and poses as an introduction to food production.

Link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs9H-wL0P3E

 

 

by

Popplet

Popplet

Subject:

Design technologies

Year level:

Upper primary

Strand:

Design and Technologies Processes and Production Skills

Sub-strand

Designing

Content descriptor:

Generate, develop, and communicate design ideas and decisions using appropriate technical terms and graphical representation techniques(ACTDEP015 – Scootle )

What is it?

Popplet is a fun and engaging graphic organiser tool for students to organise and represent their ideas. Students create digital mind maps based on what they are learning in class and create relationships between these ideas. Students personalise their own graphic organiser by allowing them to insert images, texts and videos as well as selecting different colours, shape and positions of ideas. The mind-map can be saved, exported and shared on other types of digital platforms.

How do I access it?

Popplet can be accessed on a computer using the Internet – whether this be laptops or desktops. It can also be accessed using iPads through the use of the Popplet application. There are two applications you can choose from that include the free version, Popplet Lite, and the paid version of $7.99. The Popplet Lite is limited to one Popplet while the paid version lets you create an unlimited number of Popplets.

Cross-curriculum priorities and general capabilities

Literacy, Numeracy, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Capability, Critical and Creative Thinking.

Links to other learning areas

Popplet can used for any subject. It can focus on one or multiple.

 

Kahoot!
by

Kahoot!

Kahoot!

Subject:

Technologies

Year level:

Year one – year six

Strand:

Digital Technologies

Sub-strand

Digital Technologies Processes and Production Skills

Content descriptor:

Plan, create and communicate ideas and information independently and with others, applying agreed ethical and social protocols (ACTDIP013).

What is it?

Kahoot! Is a fantastic way to introduce technology into the class room. It is an online game-based system that allows individuals to answer questions in the form of multiple choice.The creator of the quiz (this can be either the teacher or student) choices the questions or the quiz type to further develop what they are learning in the classroom. These answer choices are represented using symbols and colours. The questions can include videos, pictures and words.

Kahoot! is typically displayed on a large screen using the teacher account and students answer the questions using their own technological device such as iPads, smartphones or computers.

Students can play individually or in groups and are able to select their individual or group name. Students are rewarded with points on their accuracy and how quick they can answer the questions.

After every question the teacher and students are given the current score board represented in numbers and graphs.

How do I access it?

It is easily accessible through an URL address. Once you as a teacher have accessed this page you can create a free account and create your quiz, survey or discussion. Once this is created, the teacher is given a secret pin once they make the game live. Students access the live game by typing in the pin after accessing the student link. They do not need an account or an application to access the Kahoot! game on their device.

Link:

Teacher Link: https://getkahoot.com/
Student Link: https://kahoot.it/#/ 

Cross-curriculum priorities and general capabilities:

Literacy, Numeracy, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) capability and Critical and Creative Thinking

Links to other learning areas:

Kahoot! can used for any subject. It can focus on one or multiple learning areas.