Category: Digital Literacy

Curriculum, Digital Literacy, Education Futures7 Comments

A shake-up for education?

wenmothd

This week I had the privilege of attending an event in Auckland where Minister of Education, Nikki Kaye, officially released the final draft of the Digital Technologies-Hangarau Matihiko Curriculum for consultation. The event was opened with a group of students from the Lynfield College Robotics club who gave an outstanding presentation about their work as a team to design and develop robots which they have been entering into various competitions since 2008 – winning multiple national and international titles in that time! One by one the group of year 11 – year 13 students gave their perspective on what contributed to the … Continue reading A shake-up for education?

Digital Literacy, educational gamingLeave a comment

Whakahaerehia tētahi Hour of Code Mahimaina mō tō akomanga

wenmothd

December 5-11 is Computer Science Education Week, and everywhere I go there seems to be all sorts of activity going on with children in schools learning to code and use computers in interesting ways. One of the initiatives that seems to have taken off this year is Hour of Code™, and as part of this initiative the organisation I work for, CORE Education, has worked with with Microsoft, OMG Tech! and High Tech Youth support this by assisting with the development of a new Minecraft tutorial, which was developed in close partnership with Code.org. The tutorial includes Minecraft characters and … Continue reading Whakahaerehia tētahi Hour of Code Mahimaina mō tō akomanga

Digital Literacy4 Comments

Information Fluency

wenmothd

I’ve been reading a little lately about the notion of information fluency and digital literacy in relation to some work I’ve been doing, and came across this interesting infographic below from Denis O’Connor. It’s an interactive infographic which allows you to click on a topic and you’re taken to resources on the 21st Century Information Fluency website. I like the way the five key questions in this diagram supports an agentic approach to thinking about information fluency, with the embedded links taking you off to more information to help resolve your personal response to these questions. Could be a useful poster in … Continue reading Information Fluency

Curriculum, Digital Literacy, research and papers, Uncategorized1 Comment

Computing our future…

wenmothd

 To code or not to code – that is the question that has been debated hotly for more than two decades now in many countries around the world – including New Zealand.  Like many other countries, New Zealand put all of its eggs into the 'ICT and digital literacy for all" basket from 1990, when the first MoE-funded professional devleopment programmes began. That philosophy has underpinned all of the ICT-PD strategies and spending to the current day – the argument being that ICTs (or digital technologies as they're now being referred to) are a part of everyone's experience, not simply … Continue reading Computing our future…

Digital LiteracyLeave a comment

Data, data everywhere

wenmothd

I came across this quote from David Rowan, editor of Wired UK on a website I visited today: Each day, according to IBM, we collectively generate 2.5 quintillion bytes — a tsunami of structured and unstructured data that’s growing, in IDC’s reckoning, at 60 per cent a year. Walmart drags a million hourly retail transactions into a database that long ago passed 2.5 petabytes; Facebook processes 2.5 billion pieces of content and 500 terabytes of data each day; and Google, whose YouTube division alone gains 72 hours of new video every minute, accumulates 24 petabytes of data in a single … Continue reading Data, data everywhere

cybersafety, Digital LiteracyLeave a comment

Character education for the digital age

wenmothd

As we prepare for the return of students to our classrooms, many teachers and schools will be considering the implications of their BYOD programmes and increased wireless access meaning more kids using digital devices in school. With such privilege comes responsibility, and a key focus for teachers, leaders and school policy makers must be on thinking through the implications of such decisions, and how this all contributes to the overall academic and personal development of our students.  Jason Ohler has written extensively on using technology effectively, creatively and wisely, and is known to many NZ teachers through his keynotes and workshops … Continue reading Character education for the digital age

Digital Literacy, Multi literacies5 Comments

Our digital aspiration?

wenmothd

Computers (aka digital technologies) have been in our classrooms and schools for four decades now – almost as long as I’ve been an educator – yet still we’re trying to find a way of describing or explaining what the contribution is of these devices to the education of our young. As the use of digital technologies has become more pervasive, the focus of attention has shifted to questions about the measurement of this impact – both in terms of the contribution of digital technologies to learning, and in terms of the qualities and we deem to be desirable in the … Continue reading Our digital aspiration?