The day began with a valuable talk from Dorothy about EMPOWERED learners, teachers and whanau. Especially relevant in this lockdown time of distance learning and how we have managed to empower our whole school whanau through technology. It has given a lot of people control of their own learning back, at a time when control seemed to have been taken away from us all. I agree that EMPOWERMENT is a much better word than AGENCY.
Gerhard then talked about the future of technology and showed us some programming and robots that have already been designed, built and are in use. We were challenged by the decision making part of programming when given different scenarios, which showed and confirmed the need for human emotion and feeling.
Kerry took us through the COMPUTATIONAL THINKING part of the DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES CURRICULUM. She broke it down perfectly and made it clear that computational thinking is giving and following clear instructions.
I liked the phrase that 'Learners need to be creators and innovative designers, not just consumers'.
We then looked at RARANGA MATIHIKO
I took a deeper look into Kia Takatu which is a digitial readiness programme based on Maui and Mahuika, the Goddess of Fire. I liked the analogy of the scale of proficiency going from ignite up to blaze! After taking a self-readiness survey I was pleased to see I achieved 'some burns and some blazes' This could be adapted in class as we're always telling the kids "You're on fire!" when they achieve well.
Was also interested in CSUnplugged Computer Science without a computer. I can see that I could use this in my class to help with giving and following explicit instructions.
We discussed registering for next week's exam. Eeeeek!!! I have a few things to practice in the coming week...
We had time in the afternoon to sign up to Scratch Junior and complete the 10 block challenge. With Venessa's help, I discovered I was de-bugging which is going through the code and checking that each action works. Some hiccups trying to save and share the result, but will keep working on that.
A big day of learning!
Donna,
ReplyDeleteI love reading your reflections sharing your sense making and thoughts about the day. It sure was a challenging day, especially when we had to be placed in the shoes of an automated car programmer. I agree, that there will always be the need to real humans, for real emotion and feelings!
You did a fabulous job during our coding session! I look forward to seeing what you and your class are able to create using Scratch Junior. We did work out how to share your scratch project of your blog, so I'm happy to help with that if you would like.