DFI 8

I enjoyed todays session. I can totally see how people get 'hooked' on coding, this was really fun. I will need to go back and look at how I enter commands as I did have my sprite going around in circles and banging his head quite often! I can see how this is something the students will really enjoy. The learning about the Digital Technology Curriculum was great. This is something I have noted to go over with staff when we are back at school. There are parts we are already doing well, but using some of the tools to see where we really are and what our next steps are will be very valuable.
Other things I took from this session are:

Empowered Learners and Teachers

Taking back control of their own lives.
Its not just a tool.- transforms the way we learn, new uncharteredexperiences and oportunities.
Assist the making of connections by enabling students to enter and explore new learning environments, overcoming barriers of distance and time.
Nigel Latta - What next.
Agency 'v' empowered. Agency can be a difficult word for some whanau to understand. For some agency is not always positive. Empower people.
32 million less spoken words decile one children compared to decile 10.
1/3 children in decile 1 communities change schools every year.
Teach children to carry on a conversation like table tennis, backwards and forwards.
Opportunity to become discursive through blogging, helps to improve reading and writing.
Kaupapa words - cannot have one without the other. They are empowered because they are connected, ubiquitous and it is visible.

Thefuture of Tech

10 breakthrough technologies of 2020 - Robot dexterity, New wave nuclear power, predicting premature babies, gut probe in a pill, custom cancer vaccines, cow free burger, carbon dioxide catcher, an ECG on your wrist, sanitation without sewers, smooth talking AI assistants.
The activity looking at how driverless cars are programmed was very confronting, challenging your ethics.

The digital technologies curriculum - Computational thinking.

A digitally fluent person can decide when and why to use specific digital technologies to achieve a specific task or solve problems.
A digitally capable person can create their own digital technologies solution.
It is important that students have opportunities to be innovative designers and creators of digitla solutions - moving beyond solely being users and consummers of digital technologies.

Technology strands - Technological practice, Technological knowledge, Nature of technology.

Two new areas - Computational thinking for digital technologies. Designing and developing digitalmutcomes.
Computational thinking - Programming - input, output, sequence, iteration, selection, variables.
Unplugged activities, Algorithms. Understanding human behaviour, Understanding binary, Robotics, Sphero, Arduino, Lego, Makey makey.
Design and developing digital outcomes - DLO digital learning objects, google slides, google drawings, Animation, Stopframe, App development, code org, 3D modelling, environments, Google sketch up, Tinkercard, Movie making, i movie, Movie maker, Game design, scratch, Code, Designing systems.

Progress outcomes/ Elements of programming - Analysis, Design, Coding, Testing, Debugging

Coding
Had a go at Minecraft - How adictive is this! Great fun. I have to admit that my little man did bang his head against the rocks several times while I was practising!