As promised, we delivered the OpenSTEM Digital Technologies Program for Primary Schools (F-6) to schools and individual teachers who already signed up: initial units for each year level, resource PDFs and activities, free software, a board game, optional incursions and workshops and other useful resources.
“Our goal is to make sure our students are at the cutting edge of innovation through the development of skills to become the technology architects of the digital age,” Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said, “This will include an assessment of coding and computer science, as well as early stage robotics, something I firmly believe should be a part of our education system.”
— ‘Advance Queensland’ package announcement (July 2015)
Appreciating the very full schedule that teachers have, we have gone beyond regular integration with the initial materials for Digital Technologies (Australian Curriculum v8.1). Instead, the base fits directly within existing curricula, particularly Maths and English. So, doing the basics doesn’t cost any extra time!
That said, we also have some catching up to do. It’s no good tossing older students (or their teachers!) at more complicated problems when they don’t yet have the base level understanding or skills covered in the earlier years. So we have a catch up plan integral to our initial units.
Today’s students have been immersed in the stream of new technologies since they were born. They have much to learn, but they regard the technology itself as an entirely normal part of life and society.
To be able to guide the students, all educators now also need to go beyond using specific technologies to understanding how things work on a broader scale, and how it all fits together. So uniquely, the journey is very much a joint one and in some parts the teachers are learning along with (slightly ahead of) the students.
The more I see our teachers and students work with the programs, the more convinced I am that we have a great partnership and are doing the right thing by the kids.
— Cheryl Rowe, Principal
OpenSTEM’s related Robotics Program was recently featured on Channel TEN @ Schools coverage in Brisbane.
With schools already signed up and implementing this program in 2016, you can start any time and in a form that suits you (school wide, or individual teachers or year levels). Contact us for more details, and any questions you might have.
Feel free to ask us for a reference (teacher or principal of a school we’ve worked with).
This T-shirt sums up soldering basics quite well. Funny too. But I hear you say, surely you don’t need to really explain that?
This stock photo model (they appear in many other photos) is holding a hot air gun of a soldering rework station, by the metal part! If the station were turned on, there’d be third degree burns and a distinct nasty smell…
On a practical level, it’s very unlikely you’d be dealing with a modern computer main board using a regular soldering iron, on the component side.
The material is much more interesting. When I discussed a topic later in the term, I found that the students…
Laura Davidson, Teacher