The Aussie Educator Design and Technology Page & An individual (student) site

With the introduction of the new curriculum, many new resources have been produced to aid teachers in the delivery of their lessons. Many of these new resources can be found online but the question we are all faced with is: how can we as teachers tell which of these resources are valuable and which are impractical?

Subject: Technologies

Strand: Digital Technologies

Year level: 6

Links to other areas: 

  • Language
  • Literacy
  • Health
  • Science

Cross curricula and General Capabilities:

  • Critical and creative thinking
  • Personal and social capability
  • Literacy
  • Information and communication technology (ICT) Capability
    (Australiancurriculum.edu.au, 2014)

Overview:
This activity looks at students’ ability to attain the skills and knowledge to perform ten Sign words for the class. This activity looks at a students ability to use the technology to find the relevant information and how they can attain the reliability of the information.

I have reviewed two resource sites for teachers to use. Both of which I have found helpful in my planning for teaching technologies.

The Aussie Educator Design and Technology Page
The first valuable resource is The Aussie Educator Design and Technology page (Aussieeducator.org.au, 2014). This webpage breaks down the curriculum into a handful of subheadings that can assist teachers in the use and navigation of the website. The website is a portal to many others. Many of the adjoining webpages are interactive, informational pages that may be useful.

This website also looks at the ethical practices as well as the responsibilities associated with the use of technologies. This practice is often forgotten by teachers or not explicitly taught. The following content descriptors explicitly state that students need to gain an understanding of ethical practices.

“Work with others to plan the creation and communication of ideas and information safely, applying agreed ethical and social protocols (Australiancurriculum.edu.au, 2014).”

“Manage the creation and communication of ideas and information including online collaborative projects, applying agreed ethical, social and technical protocols (Australiancurriculum.edu.au, 2014).”

These content descriptors can be found in years 3 to 6.  Both content descriptors are concerned with ethical protocols. This webpage also looks at the impact of technology and the history of design.

An individual (student) site
The second site available for teachers is An Individual (student) Site; this site looks at consolidating a number of important sites for teachers into one spot. This site has direct links to the Australian Curriculum (Australiancurriculum.edu.au, 2014) and ACCARA (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority) (acara.edu.au, 2014).

This site can be useful for teachers as it provides access to most of the major webpages needed by teachers in an easily accessible place.

References

Acara.edu.au,. (2014). Home | ACARA. Retrieved from http://www.acara.edu.au/default.asp

Aussieeducator.org.au,. (2014). Design & Technology – Aussie Educator. Retrieved from http://www.aussieeducator.org.au/curriculum/technology/designtech.html#tbt

Australiancurriculum.edu.au,. (2014). The Australian Curriculum v7.0. Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/

Australiancurriculum.edu.au,. (2014). The Australian Curriculum v7.0 Digital Technologies Foundation to Year 10 Curriculum by rows. Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/technologies/digital-technologies/Curriculum/F-10?y=F-2&y=3-4&y=5-6&y=7-8&y=9-10&s=DIKU&s=DIPPS&c=7&layout=1

Australiancurriculum.edu.au,. (2014). The Australian Curriculum v7.0 General capabilities – General capabilities in the Australian Curriculum. Retrieved 11 August 2014, from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/GeneralCapabilities/Overview/general-capabilities-in-the-australian-curriculum

Digital Technologies,. (2012). Australian Curriculum. Retrieved from http://studenteportfolio.wordpress.com/140-2/

Big Scitech and BBC Bitesize

BBC Bitesize.
Url: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize

Strand: Digital Technologies: 

  • knowledge and understanding
  • processes and production skills

Band Level: F- 7

Cross Curricular priorities: Sustainability

Links to other learning areas:
Literacy
Mathematics
Science
History
ICT
Geography

BBC Bitesize explanation: A website run and monitored by the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation). To get started, click on the home page, and pick a year level (warning, the year levels correlate with the British school system, so you may have to double check the information is relevant to the year you are teaching). Once you find the year level you are looking for, choose a link to one of the learning areas. From this point, there are several games, and learning tools based on the subject, and topic you want your students to learn about. Students can also use this website independent of their teachers, as each topic area (I.e. using connectives in a sentence [English]) can be read about, and then summarised with a game. I’ve used this site multiple times during my practicum, as it also holds many teacher resources to use within the classroom. The downside, as stated earlier is the fact that it doesn’t sync up perfectly with the Australian curriculum, so you’ll often have to double check the resources.

Questacon: The national science and technology centre.
Url: http://www.questacon.edu.au/discover/for-school-students

Strand; Design and Technologies : 

  • knowledge and understanding
  • processes and production skills

Band Level: F- 7

Cross Curricular priorities: Sustainability

Links to other learning areas:
Literacy
Mathematics
Science
ICT

Questacon explanation: Questacon is the Australian national science and education centre (think big Scitech). Their site is dedicated to teaching young students science and technological discovery. Their site is filled with games that students can play to help them understand key science terms, as well as assessment materials for teachers to use. By clicking on the ‘discover’ tab on the home page, you can redirect yourself to a myriad of information, and fun activities. They have lists of all the simple equipment a teacher with need to conduct said activities, allowing for tactile learning within the science and technology areas. Their staff have even put up videos that can be shown within classrooms, in preparation of the student’s follow up science activity.

Designability

Subject: Design and Technologies

Year: Range of year levels

Strand: Design and Technologies Processes and Production Skills

Link to Resource: http://www.designability.com.au/

Cross curriculum priorities and general capabilities:
Literacy (LIT), Information and Communication Technology (ICT) capability, Critical and Creative thinking (CCT), Sustainability 

Background Information:
Designability was created by a group of teachers with a wealth of experience in Design and Technology subjects. Designability is an online website that provides teachers with classroom ready resources for teaching design and technology subjects, as well as teaching materials, project materials, equipment and professional development resources. Units of work, that are easily adapted for individual needs, are available for purchase on their website.

Navigation of website:
The design of the Designability website makes navigating to each section easily accessible.

1

2.

 

 

 

 

 

Mindmap: Design a model Greenhouse Year 2 Lesson 3

download (1)I have attached a link to my interactive learning experience on the Mindmeister website.
https://www.mindmeister.com/503129948

In this lesson, students will begin creating their design for a greenhouse that can be used by their school to grow more vegetables to use in their diets.