"Many Teachers Are Not 'Tech' People"

Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

This post very much follows on from my previous post, especially with regards to some of the difficulties I've encountered with some of the Descriptions of Learning from the Science & Technology AoLE. 

Last week a DCF coordinator from a primary school emailed me. Here's what it said:

"I was just wondering if you could point our year 5 and 6 team in the direction of resources to support the AoLe statements:

• I can identify positive and negative design elements that affect user interactions.
• I can explain the importance of securing the technology I use and protecting the integrity of my data.
• I can explain how my data is used by services, which can help me make more informed decisions when using technology.
• I can explain how data is stored and processed.

I thought I'd ask because you're probably already aware of lots of resources."

So here's a primary school that is beginning to address the Science & Technology AoLE but is struggling to find resources to be able to support the teaching of these statements. Something that I referred to in my last post. The following was my response:

Great question from your Yr5 and 6 teachers and to be honest these statements have been perplexing me too for some time. The issue as far as I can see it, is that some of these statements haven't really been taught in the primary school before. Therefore it's difficult to find resources that have been created to support them....and I'm constantly on the look out for relevant things. It's very frustrating that the WG hasn't, as far as I can tell, produced anything to support statements such as these. However, I'll try my best to help you interpret these as I see them.

"I can identify positive and negative design elements that affect user interactions."

I see this as closely linked to D&T. To me this is about looking at existing products / applications and identifying what makes it a good or poor user experience. From a coding perspective this could be done in the planning stages. Pupils would look at a similar application and could focus on the colours used, buttons, navigation or where outputs such as scoring or 'lives' are placed. If you were wanting the pupils to design and create a game using Scratch, on the Scratch platform pupils can look at similar examples that Scratch users have created. Identify what they like / dislike about the games. The nice thing about Scratch is that they can even copy the code from those games to help them get started with their own game and then develop them further with their own ideas.

"I can explain the importance of securing the technology I use and protecting the integrity of my data."
I see this as being very closely linked to the DCF Citizenship - Identity, Image and Reputation:
- "I can understand how to protect myself from online identity theft, e.g. identifying secure sites, phishing, scam websites."
- "I can identify the benefits and risks of mobile devices broadcasting the location of the user/device."
- "I can identify the benefits and risks of giving personal information and device access to different software."
Therefore any of the Citizenship lessons from The Digital Learning Den that address the above DCF statements I would argue addresses the Science & Tech AoLE statement.

"I can explain how my data is used by services, which can help me make more informed decisions when using technology."
Right, this is a bit more tricky and the one in particular I'm having difficulty with. Personally I understand what this means, but to what depth I would explain this to Yr5 or 6 pupils I'm still unsure of. Also, I've yet to find any appropriate primary aged lessons or resources to teach it. At the moment, if you wanted to address this aspect, I would probably have to do it as a class debate / discussion. Something around firstly finding out what type of online platforms pupils are signed up to, therefore have their own username and password to access. Ask what information they had to provide to be able to sign up? Name, email, age, postcode, etc. Could also be an opportunity to discuss whether they are old enough to use these platforms? Ask why these platforms need or want this information? What happens to the data you share? If some pupils are using Facebook for instance, everything you share, post or like is a piece of data that Facebook can use to build an accurate profile of you so that Facebook and advertisers can target specific posts or adverts to you. The same can be said of Youtube with your liking of particular videos or your viewing history. Virtually all applications work in this way. They know who you are, age, where you live, your likes / dislikes, location history (especially via your smartphone), your browsing history, contacts - the list goes on. I guess at age 10 or 11 we are just trying to get pupils (and adults!) to simply understand that data you share (posts, texts, photos, likes, browsing history) can be viewed by that platform and sometimes third parties and in many cases shared and used.

"I can explain how data is stored and processed."
I'm interpreting this as the fundamentals of how computers work. Have a look at these from BBC Bitesize:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/z4gwhyc/articles/z82v34j (simple introduction)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zj8xvcw/articles/zx3q7ty
This could be an opportunity to look at different types of file (jpg, doc, mp3, etc) and file sizes. There are also binary lesson plans out there for KS2. It's not something I've focused on as yet, but I will be looking at this in the future and will probably introduce it to The Digital Learning Den.

I hope this helps? Personally I just wish the WG would provide resources for the new things they introduce and also make the statements a lot easier to understand for everyone. How does a school write a curriculum if they can't understand what some of it means? Madness.

Finally here's the response I received back from the school:

Thank you so much for your quick and lengthy response. This is very helpful as a starting point for us and helpful in trying to understand what these statements mean. I think you are right that the statements should have been written in more appropriate language as many teachers are not 'tech' people, and yes, provide us with the resources and ideas to be able to teach these objectives.

Thank you so much for your on going help.

Science & Technology Long Term Planning

For what seems like 'forever', I along with two of my colleagues have been working our way through the new Science and Technology area of learning and experience. Only focusing on the primary school related Progression Steps (PS) 1 to 3. Actually to be more accurate, I've only focused on the last 'What matters' statement related to Computer Science and my colleagues have been looking at their respective areas of expertise in Science and in Design and Technology. For several months we have been pulling together a long term progression document that we hope will help schools in the design of their new curriculum. Basically, we have been looking at the Descriptions of Learning (DoL) for each of the first three PS and then trying to work out what we think would be a suitable progression to address that end of PS statement. As it says in the Science and Technology guidance, the expectations are "framed broadly so that they can sustain learning over a series of years" and that "they are not designed as stand-alone tasks, activities or assessment criteria." So for example, in PS3 there is a DoL that says:

"I can identify repeating patterns and use loops to make my algorithm more concise."

From a curriculum design perspective a school will need to think about what prior knowledge the pupils have and then what steps do they need to carry out before the learner could honestly say they were confident at this? Building on algorithm work from PS2, my progression looks something like this:

• Identify a repeating pattern and use the repeat command to shorten the algorithm.
• Create procedures using familiar instructions to make a program more concise.
• Reuse repeats / procedures in a program in a different context.

In my opinion, the above introduces a simple progression. For example, look at an algorithm to create a square - forward 10 right turn 90, forward 10 right turn 90, forward 10 right turn 90, forward 10 right turn 90. What do the pupils notice about this algorithm? It repeats forward 10 right turn 90, 4 times. We can then introduce the repeat command in Scratch or LOGO for instance. From this we can then move onto procedures which will make the algorithm even more concise. Finally, I would want to see the pupils creating repeats / procedures in programs of their own making.  

From a curriculum design perspective, schools will also have to think about what year group this is introduced and if it's being reinforced in other years too. In our document I've introduced this in Yr4. Repeating patterns / loops, are regularly used in coding activities and it may just mean that later year groups can just make sure that the pupils are being regularly reminded of repeat features in the programs they use or create themselves.   

As I mentioned flippantly at the beginning of this post, it does feel like I've been working on this document for an awful long time....and I've only been looking at the Computer Science section for PS1, 2 and 3. After being closely involved in educational technology for over 20 years, I like to think that I know something about this subject. However, some of the DoL for computer science have go me very confused. Points of confusion / frustration:

• PS2 - I can use computational thinking techniques, through unplugged or offline activities.  Why is computational thinking (CT) explicitly mentioned here and not in PS1 or PS3? Where's the progression? It could be argued, why is it in here at all, as computational thinking has a whole section to itself at PS1, 2 & 3 in the Digital Competence Framework (DCF). For what it's worth, I actually believe CT should never have been placed into the DCF and that the WG should have waited until the Science & Technology AoLE came out and then slotted it into this. In my opinion, CT would have made far more sense to teachers if it was linked in with coding.  
• PS2 - I can follow instructions to build and control a physical device. This statement has been driving me crazy as I'm unable to find suitable devices to do this. I recently asked a group of technology coordinators for help on this but no one could really provide a good answer. The nearest I got was one who said he'd bought some drones. I went off to look at this in more detail and got a little concerned when some of the websites I was going to were saying that they were recommended for ages +14. PS2 covers Yrs1, 2 and 3 therefore we are talking about pupils from about 5 to 8 years old. The nearest I got to addressing this is Lego products but as one teacher told me, the "price is ridiculous for the amount of kits needed and number of really small parts is a problem". I've looked on TTS which is always a fab website for technology products, and even on here I can find nothing suitable. Is it just me? If you can help me with this I would be so grateful.
• PS3 - I can explain how my data is used by services, which can help me make more informed decisions when using technology. This is just one of several data related statements at PS3 which I'm struggling with. Firstly, is this something that a school in its long term planning needs to touch upon in Yrs4, 5 & 6, or is something for just one year group to look at. Is there a progression of lessons to build up to this DoL or would we be happy with just a 'one-off' lesson to say, "We've covered it!" which would be very much against what the guidance says. Also, to what depth would we need to go into to address this? Is it enough to explain that companies take varying amounts of our data and may or may not use it or share it with other people (3rd parties) and that the pupils should be taking this into account when using services? I'm very unsure as to how far we go with this and it's pretty difficult to find any age appropriate lessons to cover this. Which brings me neatly onto my last point.
• Lesson examples. Forgive me if I'm wrong here or that they are published and I've missed them, but weren't the 'pioneer schools' in Wales supposedly helping to develop the Curriculum for Wales before the publication? If so, it would be really helpful to all schools if they published the lessons or supporting materials associated with the Science and Technology AoLE. In fact, greater elaboration on every DoL would be of great help as it feels like I'm just guessing at what some of it means...and surely I can't be the only one? 

The Digital Learning Den

Gareth Morgan Consultancy has now been going for nearly 7 years, providing advice, support and training to primary schools across Wales. Where did that time go? Throughout those years, I've always had an ICT skills ladder that I've offered to schools. It's been updated continually throughout those years with quite a change in focus when the Digital Competence Framework (DCF) was introduced and with the ubiquitous use of Hwb and its related cloud based applications and digital resources. Initially this skills ladder was paper based and at one stage I had four versions of it as the example activities were focused around specific applications e.g., Google for Education / Purple Mash or Microsoft 365 / Just2easy. The problem I found was keeping these documents up to date. Applications would change or I would have new ideas or web-links would die or change. 

So a couple years ago I moved everything online and created The Digital Den. Schools could buy into the platform for a year. I was able to update the site quickly and easily with any changes. I also created over 160 support videos demonstrating how to carry out particular activity using the highlighted application. I had wonderful feedback from the schools who were using it. However, for me, it was quite a difficult website to update, I was having to create the pages in html which was ok if it was just simple text, but anything more and my html skills were clearly lacking. The help videos were also being hosted on Youtube which wasn't a prefect solution for my site.

Therefore, last summer I invested in a new platform created by a company called Thinkific. I moved all my content from the previous site and created The Digital Learning Den. Extremely simple to build pages (no more html!), add my content and videos are now hosted within the platform. It also allows me to create and sell online courses, definitely something that my previous platform couldn't do. 

The Digital Competence School Bundle contains all the year group course solutions from nursery through to Year 6. Each of these solution are split up into six sections:

• Data, Data Everywhere! - (data handling)
• It's Good to Talk - (digital communication)
• Let's Create! - (digital creativity)
• Put On Your Thinking Caps - (computational thinking)
• Show Me The Code - (coding)
• Working Together - (online collaboration / word processing / DTP)

Online safety is also reinforced throughout each of the sections and in each year group. The suggested activities are cross referenced to the DCF, and increasingly to the new Science & Technology AoLE, particularly the coding and computational thinking element. These are being regularly reviewed and updated. There are also packages of video support for specific applications, such as Google applications, 2Simple's Purple Mash and Just2easy. 

Cost for a years access to The Digital Learning Den is £250. If you would like temporary access please contact.