Day 8: Computational Thinking

1. Connecting with Manaiakalani - by Dorothy
Pedagogy and Kaupapa
EMPOWERED

Dorothy continued the korero about the joists of Empowering Learners and teachers and acknowledging the factors that limit our whānau. We must acknowledge the significance of this word in the Maniakalani programme. Everyone on the learning journey benefits if they are empowered. Empowerment often equals choice and choice is not often present in our communities (especially here in our lower decile communities of Kawakawa/Moerewa).

A lot of our communities are lacking in choice (income, schools, housing, medical care). Dorothy talked about changing from the jargon associated with 'agency' where whānau have been involved prior and often it comes with negative connotations and instead Manaiakalani have moved to the discourse of being 'Empowered'.
She discussed the struggles about what our communities are facing about the traffic light and vaccination and being disempowered.

The lack of money disempowers you and it takes away choice. It only takes one little thing to go wrong to challenge you to make the circumstances harder again. If families are on a low income, choice doesn't exist if the state is your landlord.

The statistics are alarming: The 5 year-old NE students are arriving at school with a mean academic performance and physiological traits of a 3 year-old and 32 million less spoken words than a decile 10 child. "The manaiakalani kaupapa of empowerment is about the advancing of Rangatiratanga; taking back control of their lives" - we are committed to supporting our learning communities to embrace rangatiratanga and access to information: knowledge is power. Digital tech is a powerful tool to empower people. It's not just a tool. Through 5 + a day oral language we can transform this into other areas of their lives.

2. The Future of Tech and what it means for our tamariki - by Vicki

Vicki discussed what future schools and societies could look like. Could this take place in our schools? The clip she showed was of an employer being guided constantly by a 'Siri' type voice navigation offering her choices at home and at work. When we talk about prepraring our young tamariki for the future, it's a challenge when we don't really know what its going to look like. Where is tech going to go to next? What are we developing in them for them to cope with what challenges are next?

10 Breakthrough Technologies in 2021

The one that fascinates me the most is hyper-accurate positioning which is higher-tech GPS and location services. I would like a more high-tech app of Google Maps for my long holiday journeys this summer (and city visits!). In NZ we have our own set of break-through technologies in different sectors (think Number 8 wire technology) from software, construction technologies, Rocketlab, Happy Cow Milk: a company that uses smart tanks and 43% of the purchase price goes back to the farmer. Rex Bionics: supporting people who are wheelchair users that enables people to 'walk'. Vicki talked about preparing students for a constantly changing future and the need to upskill and become lifelong learners. What the next 10 years going to bring? How are we preparing the students for this constantly changing future? What are we going to be doing in the digital technologies space (new curriculum)? 

Moral Machine Activity
To be completely honest, I struggled to do this! Both choices had catastrophic results. I think this would be a good writing prompt for my english classes, haha! I have bookmarked this site. 

3. Digital Technologies Curriculum / Hangarau Matihiko

Kerry discussed how young people really need to feel home in a digital world. It's important they feel apart of their conversation. They can represent their communities and their culture. The IT profession needs more and more employees over years to come. The Digital Tech curriculum came out in 2020 to address skills shortages. To encourage students to be creative directors and so they aren't just passive consumers of technology. The curriculum is with 2 new parts: design/developing digital technologies and 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's important we feel confident as educators - not using the computer as just a tool. Enabling the students to feel empowered becuase they will feel the pressure to be cybersmart and collaborate with peers/colleagues online. The Manaiakalani program supports teachers to develop digital fluency and any job interview or application nowadays will ask you how competent you are with digital programmes.

If we get the students to think of themselves as 'programmers' and they can recognise the elements in any programe (input, output, sequence, iteration, selection, variables).

For the explore time in our digital bubbles, I looked at Raranga Matihiko (Weaving Digital Futures) which is designed to empower ākonga and kaiako to think, challenge and create using authentic, integrated experiences. I watched a clip on the basics of 'Scratch'. Now, I've only seen Scratch used with upper primary and secondary students and they were happy to show me what they were doing. 

Coding | Tuhi Waehere

My Flappy Bird I checked out Flappy bird and made my own video. I also had a look at code.org and there are plenty of great resources there and I also bookmarked OMG tech! to have a look at later too.

4. Making meaning of content
Creating with Coding & Computational thinking

In the afternoon session with Vicki, we looked at Tinkercad and made a whare. It was great fun! This program would be great in Science based activities or Physics or Metal Tech. The students would really enjoy this. I am already thinking of how I would include this in English - perhaps the students could recreate a scene/setting from the story.