Week 2: Technology Design Cycle

Technology Design Cycle

Tagxedo - Understanding Technology

Pedagogy

Sunday 15th March

Week 1

Pedagogy Associated with Curriculum

Verbs: What Students do	Associated Pedagogy
Assess	Students should be supported in developing criteria with which to assess ideas/elements/design that meet their brief. This requires scaffolding and support in thinking. It also requires collaboration as students negotiate a range of perspectives on issues and success criteria.
Manage	The implication here is that students are managing... and therefore the teacher's role must change to that of facilitator and support. Students should be managing their own projects, and will be required to develop timelines and plans to manage the process.
Investigate	Students need to be supported by teachers when investigating the need and opportunities for designing which will further help with their design solutions.
Designing	When students go out to play they don’t take into consideration the design of the playground. So the teacher’s role is to encourage them to evaluate and consider different design ideas.

Design and Computational Thinking

Design thinking provides students with the opportunity to consider the environmental impact of decisions, re-design and re-engineer products, services and environments to support more sustainable patterns of living. For example, sustainable food supply.

Computational thinking includes problem solving techniques and strategies, such as organizing data logically, breaking down problems into components, and the design and use of algorithms, patterns and models.

Overview of technology presented by Jose Anazagasty

Reflection on the message that is delivered and presented by Jose Anazagasty states that it  “ is no longer considered as a collection of devices, or more generally, as the sum of rational means. Technology is inherently social; it is social all the way down. The social and the cultural are deeply enmeshed in scientific and technological practices and as a result on technologies themselves. Put differently, technology is determined in its meaning and normative content, not by technical rationality alone, but by the socio-cultural world in which it is embedded and which is entrenched in the technology itself.

Reflection from Textbook
The following dot points are important in visual literacy: 

• Keeps the brain active
• Interesting and fun
• Collaborative engagement
• Thinking outside of the box
• Engages visual learners
• Increases comprehension and vocabulary 

Aims and Rationale of the Technologies Curriculum

The following are aims that develop the knowledge, understanding and skills that ensure students:

• Investigate, design, plan, manage, create and evaluate solutions
• That students are creative, innovative and enterprising when using traditional, contemporary and emerging technologies, and understand how technologies have developed over time
• Make informed and ethical decisions about the role, impact and use of technologies in the economy, environment and society for a sustainable future
• Engage confidently with and responsibly select and manipulate appropriate technologies − materials, data, systems, components, tools and equipment − when designing and creating solutions
• Critique, analyse and evaluate problems, needs or opportunities to identify and create solutions.

Aims - Design and Technologies

Design and Technologies more specifically aims to develop the knowledge, understanding and skills to ensure that, students:

• Develop confidence as critical users of technologies and designers and producers of designed solutions

• Investigate, generate and critique innovative and ethical designed solutions for sustainable futures

• Use design and systems thinking to generate design ideas and communicate these to a range of audiences

• Produce designed solutions suitable for a range of technologies contexts by selecting and manipulating a range of materials, systems, components, tools and equipment creatively, competently and safely; and managing processes

• Evaluate processes and designed solutions and transfer knowledge and skills to new situations

• Understand the roles and responsibilities of people in design and technologies occupations and how they contribute to society.

Aims - Digital Technologies

Digital Technologies more specifically aims to develop the knowledge, understanding and skills to ensure that students:

• Design, create, manage and evaluate sustainable and innovative digital solutions to meet and redefine current and future needs

• Use computational thinking and the key concepts of abstraction; data collection, representation and interpretation; specification, algorithms and implementation to create digital solutions

• Confidently use digital systems to efficiently and effectively automate the transformation of data into information and to creatively communicate ideas in a range of settings

• Apply protocols and legal practices that support safe, ethical and respectful communications and collaboration with known and unknown audiences

• Apply systems thinking to monitor, analyse, predict and shape the interactions within and between information systems and the impact of these systems on individuals, societies, economies and environments.

WEEK 1 - My Thoughts of Technology - Use of Tagxedo

I have found ways that a Tagxedo can be re-purposed for students in the classroom:

• Students could input their readings into tagxedo as a comprehension tool to see which are the most important words or phrases from an assigned reading.
• Students could input their own writing into tagxedo in order to see if they are using filler words too often. They can also crosscheck that the words that show up larger within their word cloud actually portray the point that they are trying to convey.
• At the beginning of the year, students could create a word cloud to describe themselves to their teacher and their classmates.
• Students could create word clouds that represent their theme for a piece of writing or a project and then use these word clouds as title pages.