Day 7. Computational Thinking

Connecting with Manaiakalani

Pedagogy and Kaupapa - Empowered

              

NZ Treasure recognised the value of the Manaiakalani programme and its results.

Agencies are not social workers but the real meaning of "agencies" is the empowerment of the families. 

Technology is just the tool, but the Manaiakalani tries to make it not just a tool providing the new experiences through technology and the pedagogy that is changing the lives of our students and whanau. Technology helps our community to take control of their own lives and enhance the quality of their lives. Ongoing learning to improve their lives because most of our families have a median income of $19000.

An average 5-year old child from our community (Manaiakalani) comes to school being experienced to 32 million less spoken words than a child from the middle-class family. Blogging is a great basis to start oral or/and written conversations helping these kids to catch up.

unpacking the Digital Technologies Curriculum and delve into all things Coding, Computational thinking and tech.

OMGTech! Trailblazers Presentation

10 BREAKTHROUGH TECHNOLOGIES … according to Bill Gates

MIT Technology Review has been publishing Breakthrough Technology lists for eighteen years, and in 2019, for the first time ever, they asked Bill Gates (of Microsoft fame) to be a guest curator. As the Editor-in-Chief Gideon Lichfield says: "Bill's list reflects his belief that we're approaching a tipping point in humanity's technological development - from technologies that mostly make life longer to those that mostly make it better. His choices highlight some of what he considers the most important challenges and opportunities of our time."

Read the entire article here https://www.technologyreview.com/lists/technologies/2019/

Computational thinking

Computational thinking is a two-step process:

1. Identify the steps needed to solve a problem.
2. Use your technical skills to get the computer "working" on the problem.

The algorithm is a set of rules/ steps

If you have a larger number, go right

if you have else - left (or if you have a smaller number - go left)

debugging (the process of identifying and removing errors from computer hardware or software)
- you need to think like a machine and set up the rules to solve possible problems.

Ethics and Morals

The Moral Machine. It is a platform for gathering a human perspective on moral decisions made by machine intelligence, such as self-driving cars. They show you moral dilemmas, where a driverless car must choose the lesser of two evils... does it kill two passengers or five pedestrians?

Curriculum Deep Dive

Digital technologies is MORE than coding. It is about thinking. It is about problem-solving. It is about making choices. There are two parts: -Computational Thinking for Digital Technologies (students will develop an understanding of computer science principles that underlie all digital technologies. They’ll learn core programming concepts so that they can become creators of digital technology, not just users). -Designing and Developing Digital Outcomes (learning how to design quality, fit-for-purpose digital solutions).

Designing and developing digital outcomes: Progress outcomes, exemplars, and snapshots 

Hour of Code Activities

It was great to explore a range of educational coding activities that can be used with my young learners.

https://www.kodable.com/register

https://hourofcode.com/nz/learn - a great place to get ideas and resources!!!

Scratch https://scratch.mit.edu/ - Apply for a teacher account to set up a class. Inside the class, you can set up multiple studios and projects.

Block challenge activity: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/311936379/

*** !!! Scratch Junior Projects can be saved in Photos.

You need to add the screen recording button to your Control Center, which you can do using the Settings app. To record the screen, pull down the Control Center and tap the record button. Completed videos are saved in the Photos app

Basic Electronics/ Electricity

Using Zombie Lights to teach/ introduce basic electronics. Can be easily extended to the zombie cross-curricular lessons.

Makey Makey

https://makeymakey.com/

We haven't explored Makey Makey during the class time, however, I had a chance to talk to our educator during the lunch break. To take it further, I googled for some projects and here are projects that inspired me:

• Interactive exhibits with Makey Makey
• An interactive poster (poster, split pins, Makey Makey, Scratch)
• Use Makey Makey to create an interactive poster board
• Makey Makey Hacked Poetry

Today's learning will definitely help me and my team implement the new Digital Technology curriculum.