Digital Fluency Intensive - Computational Thinking

Ubiquitous

We started our last session with a quick look at why ubiquitous learning is so important for our leaners. For the community that I work in, this is an important step towards providing equality for all in education. 




Providing our students access to learning, anytime, anywhere and any place helps to 'level the playing field' so that all students, no matter of their social-economic background have an equal footing regarding education. 

We talked about the students who take part in the Summer Learning Journey don't experience the same summer drop off as their peers. This journey is offered to my students and I was reminded to make sure it is part of my term 4 planning. Setting it up during the last weeks of school and trying out some of the tasks from previous years will hopefully encourage more students to have a go during the holidays. We also looked at the latest writing data from Manaiakalani which continues to improve, year on year. Both of these positive results can be linked to providing students with ubiquitous, rewindable learning opportunities.

Following this, we spent the rest of the day in a TRAILBLAZERS workshop called OMGTECH! Pedagogical Framework for Digital technologies in the Aotearoa NZ Curriculum.

10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2019

We started with a discussion about the question "what will be the future of tech and what it means for our tamariki?" In 2019 the range of new breakthrough technologies is mind-blowing! This is the world our tamariki are growing up in. How do we best equip them to live and contribute successfully to this world?

Thinking about this and listening to our inspirational facilitators Zoe and Vivian share their thoughts, effective pedagogy is once again the most important factors. Effective pedagogy, alongside as the Tools, techniques, and applications of technology is needed to support true integrated, inquiry-based learning.  Only then can we  “engage all children in exploring, thinking, reading, writing, researching, inventing, problem-solving, and experiencing the world” to become confident 21st-century learners.  

Key ideas from the workshop:  We looked at some practical ways to introduce students to learn how a computer thinks by using a sorting network parallel algorithm.

Offline sorting networks

• Identify which number comes before or after in a given range of numbers. (Mathematics - Numeracy)
• Organise objects from smallest in size to largest in size. (Mathematics - Numeracy)

The next question that was asked is "what are the things about ourselves we value?" These values are reflected in the machines we use. in other words, the ethics and morals of machines depend on who has programmed them. “In authentic contexts and taking into account of end-users" - a person who uses it last.

An example of this is Sophia the robot. How she behaves and learns is a result of how she was first programmed by white middle age men. We see this in her actions and mannerisms. 

We then talked about the "Science" of technology. Learning how to create involves having an appreciation and understanding of how the applications we use work. The difference between "using Technology" and "creating technology" is the difference between using a game and being able to create a game. Or the difference between using an Instagram filter and being able to create your own photo filters.

NZ Technolgy Curriculum - Building mastery for your students

UNDERSTANDING COMPUTATIONAL THINKING - how does a computer think.

Computational thinking enables students to express problems and formulate solutions in ways that means a computer (an information processing agent) can be used to solve them.

• students develop algorithmic thinking skills
• an understanding of the computer science principles
•  become aware of what is and isn’t possible with computing

UNDERSTANDING DEVELOPING DIGITAL - Digital applications and systems are created for humans by humans.

• skills for designing and producing quality, fit-for-purpose, digital outcomes
• manipulating and combining data, using information management tools to create an outcome

My key takeaways:

• think about teaching students to break down the task into steps that a computer can understand
• teach the language of digital technologies
• teach the binary system
• use programs to teach skills like code hour or scratch

To finish off the day I spent time walking in my student shoes by working through activities in an hour of code then scratch. Fun, easy ways to develop coding skills but it illustrated how important to teach our students the correct way to code using the shortest steps possible.

What a fun way to end the 9 weeks of our intensive digital learning. I want to thank Dorothy, Gerhard and my fellow DFI'ers who have openly shared their knowledge with me. I can't wait to pass all my learning on.