Since Last WeekLast week I spent a lot of time developing a more efficient way to share data and documents for our Years 7 - 9 “Business & Enterprise” kete. In the past this has meant around 70-odd Google Docs all stored in one folder with the same name and multiple “shares” of these documents across a number of staff. This year it has been done in a combination of Google Sites, Slides, Hapara, Docs and hyperlinks.
I set this up for all three Kāhui and put a tracking system for all "business groups" across Year 7 - 9. I gave what I considered to be really clear instructions to my fellow Deans and I also included step by step instructions in writing for the students.
The students in my Kāhui have done really well by following the instructions and their business planning paperwork is progressing really well. However, I wish I could say the same for the other Kāhui, and unfortunately I don't have the time to "quality-check" the work of all students.
This Week: Computational Thinking
A copy of this week's agenda can be found here.
This weeks focus was on the new Digital Technologies Curriculum. The specific sessions held this week covered:
- The Manaiakalani Pedagogy: Empowered
- The Future of Tech / Moral Machines
- The Digital Technology Curriculum
- Registering for the Google Certification Exams
- Exploring Coding
Empowered
The first session this week was about the final piece of the Manaiakalani pedagogy: Empowered. I have never liked this word, as for me it has always had connotations of extremism - of protest marches and other radical action taken to achieve liberation, be it from racism, sexism or some other form of oppression. As a teacher I have always favoured the term agency as to me this is more about enabling student to take charge of their own learning - guiding them upward rather than thrusting forward. I know it's just words, but words are important.
And then Dorothy Burt pointed out the simple reason why Manaiakalani chose "Empowered" over "Agency" ... the negative connotations that many of our families have with "Agencies" (OT, Police, IRD etc.), and it all made sense. It is just words.
But behind the word choice is the intent, and the quote opposite from Pat Snedden sums it up nicely.
We had a lot of discussion about the future of technology - from flying cars to artificial intelligence (AI). We also discussed the need for intelligent machines to deal with decisions of morality. This discussion was important to me because one of the issues I struggled with as an accountant was the issue of business ethics.
I remember being taught that companies were separate legal entities whose sole purpose was to increase the wealth of its shareholders. The struggle I had was this led me to conclude that in a capitalist society it was ok to create an artificial entity that didn't need to be bound by ethics or morality. What does this then say about new technology such as AI?
As for the need to include technology in our classrooms, we looked at a brilliant blog post from Matt Goodwin (a teacher at Pt England School in Auckland). Matt was reflecting on the issue of engaging his students remotely during Auckland's first lockdown, and he noted that rather than having a "captive audience" in the classroom he was now "competing for their attention with Fortnite and TikTok". Try doing that remotely, during lockdown, in the middle of a pandemic ... WITHOUT technology!
The Digital Technology Curriculum
From the beginning of 2020 the Ministry of Education expects that schools will be using the revised learning area of Digital Technology to provide students with even broader opportunities to learn in and about technology, informed by the new content around computational thinking and designing and developing digital outcomes.
In this session we looked in some detail at the two new areas to the technologies curriculum:
- Computational Thinking for Digital Technologies; and
- Designing and Developing Digital Outcomes.
During this session we registered for next week's three-hour exam. Suddenly it became real, so perhaps I need to spend a bit of time over the next week reviewing what we have covered over the past 8 weeks!
When I look at the applications for these "new" coding tools I'm reminded of the justification we used to buy home computers in 1990. In 1990 we said that computers were great ways to store our recipes or our Christmas Card mailing lists, and in 2020 we are saying that coding is a great way to teach students how to complete Maths problems. I'm then reminded of the saying "Just because we can doesn't mean we should". I get that, as Matt Goodwin stressed, we need to compete with Fortnite and Tik Tok, and I understand the need to embrace new technology through the Digital Technology Curriculum. However, in 1990 we actually didn't need personal computers to store our recipes, and 30 years later I'm not convinced we necessarily need Scratch to teach Maths in an engaging way.
Conclusion
I'm normally a relatively early adopter of new ideas, but in this case I'm going to take a watching brief - I'm going to watch the technology developments with interest, but I don't think I'm going to jump onto the coding bandwagon just yet.
However never say never, because it is worth noting that I bought my first PC in 1990, although to date I have never stored any recipes on any of my computers. Apart from my own really good recipe for Whisky Sour on my iPad ... and another one for Brandied Cherries.
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