Australian Curriculum: ICT general capability and digital technologies

Australian Curriculum:
ICT General Capability
and the new draft Digital
Technologies Subject
Dr. Trudy Sweeney
CEGSA Workshop
29 May, 2013

Me
ACCE Study Tour 2012
http://www.facebook.com/Acec2014

Introductions
1. Your name
2. Something that
makes you smile

Objectives
Participants will understand:
– That ICT is clearly identified as part of Focus Areas 2.6, 3.4 and
4.5 of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.
– The Organising Elements of the ICT General Capability and
identify valuable supporting resources.
– How to search for some of the ICT links in the Australian
Curriculum.
– The terminology and key concepts described in the new draft
Technologies learning area
Participants will identify areas of the Digital Technologies curriculum
which they would like support.

The Plan
1. Introduction and establish the needs of participants
2. Identify links to the Australian Professional Standards for
Teachers (APST)
3. Investigate the ICT Organising Elements
4. Connect the ICT General Capability to the Australian
Curriculum
5. Identify valuable resources about cyber safety, copyright
& Creative Commons
6. Investigate the Technologies curriculum especially in
relationship to the Digital Technologies subject.
#CEGSA

http://www.slideshare.net/courosa/digital-citizenship-symposium
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

http://www.slideshare.net/courosa/developing-digital-citizens
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrsdkrebs/6400358699/sizes/l/in/photostream/

ICT as a General Capability
The purpose of this task is to establish where to best focus the
workshop to meet the needs of participants.
TASK
1. Place a sticky dot along the continuum which aligns
to your level of understanding about ICT as a
General Capability.
2. View the results. Would anyone like to comment on
why they placed their dot where they did?

Identification of Questions
The purpose of this task is to establish where to best focus the
workshop to meet the needs of participants.
TASK
• Using the sticky notes, identify one question per note
that you would like addressed during this workshop.
• Your questions can related to the ICT as a General
Capability in the Australian Curriculum and or the
new draft Digital Technologies subject.
• Group „like‟ questions and identify most popular.

• Students develop ICT Capability as they learn to
use ICT effectively and appropriately:
– to access, create and communicate information
and ideas
– to solve problems and work collaboratively
– in their lives beyond school.
• Students make the most of the digital technologies
available to them and limit the risks to themselves
and others in a digital environments (p. 13)
Fornax

Digital Technologies Subject
• Students create solutions that consider social and
environmental factors when operating digital systems with
digital information.
• They develop and apply an understanding of the
characteristics of data, digital systems, audiences,
procedures and computational thinking.
• They apply this when they investigate, communicate and
create purpose-designed information solutions.
• Students learn to formulate problems, logically organise and
analyse data and represent it in abstract forms. They
automate solutions through algorithmic logic.
HacksHaven

ICT as a General Capability
and Digital Technologies
• There is a clear relationship between the
Digital Technologies curriculum and the ICT
general capability.
• The capability assists students to become
effective users of ICT. The Digital
Technologies curriculum assists students to
become confident developers of digital
solutions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wGpSaTzW58

Australian Professional
Standards for Teachers
http://www.teacherstandards.aitsl.edu.au/CareerStage/GraduateTeachers/Standards?viewName=rowLayou
Copyright © 2012, Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership

ICT Focus Areas & Illustrations of Practice

http://www.teacherstandards.aitsl.edu.au/Illustrations/Details/IOP00102

www.teacherstandards.aitsl.edu.au/Illustrations/Details/IOP00020

General Capabilities
The materials for each General Capability are in 3
parts:
1. An introduction: describes the nature and scope
of the capability, its place in the learning areas
and its evidence base.
2. Organising elements
3. A learning continuum: describes the
knowledge, skills, behaviours and dispositions
that students can reasonable expect to have
developed at particular stages of schooling.
http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/GeneralCapabilities/
Information-and-Communication-Technology-capability/

“To participate in a knowledge-based economy and
to be empowered within a technologically
sophisticated society now and into the future,
students need the knowledge, skills and
confidence to make ICT work for them at school, at
home, at work and in their communities” (p. 41).
The ICT General Capability

Information and communication technologies
“transform the ways that students think and learn
and give them greater control over how, where and
when they learn” (p. 41).

“Students develop capability in using ICT for tasks
associated with information access and
management, information creation and
presentation, problem solving, decision making,
communication, creative expression, and empirical
reasoning” (p. 41).

Students “learn to use ICT with confidence, care
and consideration, understanding its possibilities,
limitations and impact on individuals, groups and
communities” (p. 41).

“Students develop and apply ICT knowledge, skills
and appropriate social and ethical protocols and
practices to investigate, create and communicate,
as well as developing their ability to manage and
operate ICT to meet their learning needs.
Learning areas provide the content and contexts
within which students develop and apply the
knowledge, skills, behaviours and dispositions that
comprise ICT capability” (p. 42).

http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/GeneralCapabilities/Information-and-Communication-Technology-capability/

TASK
• Go to www.australiancurriculum.edu.au
• Locate the ICT General Capability

(5 minutes)
• Go to www.australiancurriculum.edu.au
• In groups of 5, each person chooses a
different ICT Organising Element
described in the pdf .
• Identify the key ideas for this element
• Briefly share your findings with your group
and/or via Twitter #CEGSA
TASK

Investigating with ICT
Students use ICT to:
• define and plan information searches
• locate and access data and information through:
- search engines and directories
- navigation tools between and within documents
- opening files of different formats
- organising data and information using ICT tools
• select and evaluate data and information by applying
criteria to verify the integrity of data and information
and their sources.

Creating with ICT
Students use ICT to generate ideas, plans and
processes to:
• clarify a task, or the steps and processes required to
develop responses to questions or solutions to problems
• generate products or solutions for challenges and
learning area tasks to:
- develop, refine and present new understandings in a
digital form
- create a digital input or a process to support a digital
output to transform digital data and information.

Communicating with ICT
This element involves students in using ICT to communicate ideas and
information with others and collaboratively construct knowledge, in
adherence with social protocols appropriate to the communicative
context (purpose, audience and technology).
Students use ICT to:
• share, exchange and collaborate:
- sharing information in digital forms
- exchanging information through digital communication
- collaborating and collectively contributing to a digital product
• understand and apply social protocols to receive, send and publish
digital data and information
• apply techniques or strategies to ensure security of digital information,
to control access, protect files and report abuse.

Managing and operating ICT
This element involves applying technical knowledge and
skills to work with information. Students:
• use digital technologies efficiently including:
- troubleshooting
- adjusting parameters
- monitoring occupational health and safety issues
• select appropriate combinations of digital hardware and
software to match the needs of the user and the task
• understand the transferability of knowledge and skills
between digital systems and applications
• use software to manage and maintain information in digital
files.

Applying social and ethical protocols
and practices when using ICT
This element involves students in developing an understanding of:
• intellectual property pertaining to digital information
• digital information security, including the responsibility to:
- protect the rights, identity, privacy and emotional safety of online audiences
- avoid and prevent cyberbullying
- ensure security of self and/or others
- respect audiences, being aware of the portrayal of self and others
• the benefits and consequences of ICT for individuals, groups and
communities in society, such as:
- becoming drivers of ICT, seeing themselves as creators as well as
consumers of ICT
- recognising its capacity to enhance participation and inclusion
- analysing how changes in technology impact on and relate to changes in
society.

Locate the Learning continuum
www.australiancurriculum.edu.au

ICT Learning Continuum
• The continuum is presented in two formats:
• The first shows expected learning for each stage
of schooling.
• The second shows expected learning across the
three stages of schooling.
• Use the View buttons to switch between these.

Applying Social & Ethical
Protocols & Practices
What does this element
break down into?
DECD Social Media Policy

Applying Social & Ethical
Protocols & Practices
Copyright Issues
Copyright for schools
Creative Commons
(video, search engine, licenses)
Cyber Safety
Cyber Smart, Get Safe Online

TASK
(5 minutes)
• Individually or in pairs, search for
the ICT general capability icon in
one year level.

TASK
(5 minutes)
• In pairs, briefly discuss how you
could design a learning task for a
specific year level that aligns with
the Investigate, Create or
Communicate elements.
• Remember: This is NOT an ICT or Cyber safety lesson - rather
think about TPACK ie using technology to investigate, create,
communicate specific content in safe and ethical ways.

Australian Curriculum: Technologies
• “Australia needs enterprising individuals who can
make discerning decisions about the development and
use of technologies. It needs people who can
independently and collaboratively develop innovative
solutions to complex problems and contribute to
sustainable patterns of living” (p. 1).
• “All young Australians should develop capacity for
action and a critical appreciation of the processes
through which technologies are developed and how
technologies can contribute to societies. … They will
do this by evaluating how their own solutions and
those of others affect users, equity, sustainability,
ethics, and personal and social values.” (p. 1).
Missy Schmidt
Chris Rowell
http://www.acara.edu.au/technologies.html

Two Key Ideas
1. Systems Thinking and the overarching
idea: Creating preferred futures
“A holistic approach where parts of a system
are analysed individually to see the whole,
the interactions and interrelationships
between the parts and how these parts or
components influence the system as a
whole” (p. 4).

Two Key Ideas
2. Project Management
• “… students are explicitly taught how to manage projects.
This includes planning; evaluating processes; considering
constraints; risk assessment and management; decision-
making strategies; quality control; developing resource,
finance, work and time plans; and collaborating and
communicating with others at different stages of the
process. Every technologies project involves the use of
resources and it is critical that there is planning for
sustainable use of resources when managing projects” (p.
5).

• Two subjects:
1. Design and Technologies
2. Digital Technologies
• Band levels:
– F-8 compulsory
– 9-10 optional
• Two Strands in both subjects
– Knowledge and Understanding
– Processes and production skills
http://consultation.australiancurriculum.edu.au/Static/docs/Technologies/Draft
%20Australian%20Curriculum%20Technologies%20-
%20February%202013.pdf

• Content Descriptors
“These describe the knowledge, understanding and
skills that teachers are expected to teach and
students are expected to learn. Content descriptions
do not prescribe approaches to teaching in the
Technologies subjects. The content descriptions
have been written to ensure that learning is ordered
appropriately and that unnecessary repetition is
avoided” (p. 5).

• Content Elaborations
Provided as “support material to illustrate and
exemplify what is to be taught to assist teachers in
developing a shared understanding of the content
description” (p. 6)

• Achievement Standards
“ indicate the quality of learning that students should
typically demonstrate by a particular point in their
schooling” (p. 7).
“describes the quality of learning (the depth of
conceptual understanding and sophistication of
skills) that would indicate the student is well-placed
to commence the learning required at the next level
of achievement” (p. 7).

Digital Technologies
Subject
HacksHaven

Rationale
• “it is critical to the wellbeing and sustainability of society
and the economy and environments that the benefits of
information systems are exploited ethically” (p. 59).
• “Ubiquitous digital systems such as mobile and desktop
devices and networks … are an essential problem-
solving toolset in our knowledge-based society” (p. 59).
• “Digital Technologies provides students with authentic
learning challenges that foster curiosity, confidence,
persistence, innovation, creativity, respect and
cooperation” (p. 59).

Two Related Strands
1. Knowledge and understanding –
information systems: data, processes,
digital systems, people, and their
interactions
1. Processes and production skills – defining
and solving problems through using
digital systems, critical and creative thinking
and applying computational thinking.

Two Related Strands
“Programs should balance and integrate both strands to “systematically
transform data into digital solutions that respond to the needs of individuals,
society, the economy and the environment” (pp. 61, 68).

Five Key Concepts
1. Abstraction, underpins all content, particularly relating to
the concepts of data representation and specification,
algorithms and implementation.
2. Data collection (properties, sources & collection of data),
data representation (symbolism and separation) and
data interpretation (patterns and contexts).
3. Specification (descriptions and techniques), algorithms
(following and describing) and implementation (translating
and programming).
4. Digital Systems (hardware, software & networks and the
internet)
5. Interactions (people & digital systems, data & processes)
and impact (impacts and empowerment) (p. 63).

1. Abstraction: involves hiding details that aren‟t relevant, to focus
on a manageable number of aspects of an idea, problem or
solution at one time.
2. Data collection, representation and interpretation: focuses on
the nature and properties of data, how they are collected and
represented and how they are interpreted in context to produce
information.
3. Specification, algorithms and implementation: focuses on the
precise and elegant definition and communication of problems and
their solutions, beginning with describing tasks in daily life and
culminating in accurate definitions of computational problems and
their algorithm solutions.
4. Digital Systems: focuses on the components of digital systems:
hardware, software, and networks and the internet.
5. Interactions and impact: focuses on all aspects of human
interaction with and through information systems, and the
enormous potential for positive and negative economic,
environmental and social impacts enabled by these systems (p. 64)

Computational Thinking
• The 5 key concepts “span the key
discoveries of computer science and
information systems, with ideas about
the organisation, representation and
automation of information and
communication that also correspond to
the key elements of computational
thinking” (p. 63).

http://vimeo.com/49000273

The term computational thinking was first used by Seymour
Papert in 1996 and made popular by Jeannette Wing in 2006.
Computational thinking is integrating the power of human
thinking with the capabilities of computers.
The essence of computational thinking is thinking about data and
ideas, and using and combining these resources to solve
problems.
Teachers can encourage students to “think computationally” by
moving technology projects beyond “using” tools and
information toward “creating” tools and information.
http://education.sdsc.edu/resources/CompThinking.pdf

TASK (10 minutes)
In pairs, select a Band level (F-2, 3-
4, 5-6, 7-8 or 9-10)
• Discuss which Content Descriptors
(numbered) you would like support
to translate into learning activities.
• Highlight these areas on the
Scope and Sequence page
provided.
http://consultation.australiancurriculum.edu.au/Static/docs/Technologies/
Draft%20Australian%20Curriculum%20Technologies%20-
%20February%202013.pdf

F-2 Example
• Rube Goldberg Machine
https://sites.google.com/a/zagami.info/www/praxis/2013edn/dt3-f-
2#TOC-Rube-Goldburg-Machine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dFWHbR
ApS3c#!

3-4 Example
• Scratch
https://sites.google.com/a/zagami.info/www/praxis/
2013edn/dt3-3-4#TOC-Design-Challenge-
Example1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ywG6lv9
mFLI

Review of Questions
Alexander Drachmann

Conclusion
• There are 5 elements of the ICT General
Capability that are to be embedded
across all learning areas (not taught in
isolation.
• Teachers need to design learning
activities which require students to
investigate, create and communicate
their learning using ICT in ways that are
socially and ethically responsible.

Conclusion
• The two subjects of the Technologies learning
area can be integrated with other areas.
• The two strands of the Digital Technologies
subject should be integrated.
• There are many ways to address the five key
concepts in the Technologies curriculum.
• Teachers can encourage students to “think
computationally” by moving technology projects
beyond “using” tools and information toward
“creating” tools and information.

Thank-you
Access this presentation at:
tsweeney.edublogs.org
Contact:
Trudy.sweeney@flinders.edu.au
8201 3941
@tsweeney8

Australian Curriculum: ICT general capability and digital technologies

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Australian Curriculum: ICT general capability and digital technologies