Reflections and looking forward

Ok, ok - I can hear you already.  It's the school holidays, what on earth am I doing online, creating blog posts about work?  It seems I'm not that great at stopping and relaxing, and I have so many ideas bouncing around in my head right now.

I'm Ali.  I've just completed my Master of Education in eLearning and Digital Technology after 5 years of part time study while working full time.  Now do you see why I'm itching to do something - I don't do sitting still very well!

From 2020, the Digital Technology addition to the NZ Curriculum is expected to be taught in all schools across New Zealand.  We have spent the past 2 years preparing for this.  I've also investigated this through my studies.  With this blog, I hope to provide tips and tricks for embedding this content into your daily classroom practice.

So to begin with - what do we know about the curriculum addition? 

It's split into 2 strands - Computational Thinking and Designing and Developing Digital Outcomes.  These are an addition to the Technology curriculum.

Computational thinking, in it's simplest form, means learning to think how a computer thinks.  It's based on the idea that all computers are 'dumb' and need to be told what to do.  They follow a set of commands (a programme) to create a solution. 

Designing and Developing Digital Outcomes is about becoming a creator of technological outcomes, rather than just a user.

In my next post, I'll go into more detail about these strands and how they apply in our classrooms.


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