Digital Technologies Program for Primary Schools

The OpenSTEM Digital Technologies Program for Primary Schools (F-6) is now available with initial units for each year level, resource PDFs, free software, a board game and other useful resources.

OpenSTEM’s related Robotics Program was recently featured on Channel TEN @ Schools coverage in Brisbane.

“I’ve come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:

Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.

Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.

Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”

― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

Douglas Adams neatly summed up our challenge in implementing the Digital Technologies curriculum (Australian Curriculum, v8.1).

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.

Cross-Curricular Integration & Catch-Up

Educators using other OpenSTEM Programs are already familiar with the many advantages of integrated programs, which include classroom schedule time savings as well as planning time.

Appreciating the very full schedule that teachers have, we have gone beyond regular integration with the initial materials for Digital Technologies. 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.

“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)

Interesting & Hands-On

The integrated Digital Technologies program includes a range of hands-on activities to make the subject matter come to life for the students and to address the range of different learning styles, including kinaesthetic, visual/spatial, auditory, textual and tactile learners.

Availability and Pricing

This program is designed to be run entirely by the classroom teacher or tutor, and are offered as part of our subscription model, with Professional Development introduction and guidance (on-line interactive training, or on-site, plus a discussion list), and review/feedback sessions each term.

The teacher handbooks for the program provide teachers with:

teacher handbook with lesson plans;
student research homework sheets.

In addition, a wealth of resources and activity PDFs is available (free to subscribers, or purchased individually), as well as related free software and other links.

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

With schools and teachers already getting their feet wet with this program since 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. We are working on more resources and units.

Free Samples

You can download free samples of some of our PDF Resources, a Teacher Handbook and a Student Workbook from our Curriculum Samples page. This does not require a login or any other details.

In addition, every one of our PDFs has a preview of its 1st page (+ the 4th page, if it’s longer) which you can find on page for the product.

Units

The teacher material for each unit provides lesson plans using 9 weeks (giving you a bit of extra flexibility to deal with national holidays and other events). The currently available units are for a “catch-up” year, so that each year level essentially covers any of the new Digital Technologies topics from lower year levels.

Foundation Year (Prep/Kindy/Reception) Units

F.1: First Clicks

Year 1 Units

1.1: Digital Steps (suited for integration with 2.1)

Year 2 Units

2.1: Tech Everywhere (suited for integration with 1.1 or 3.1)

Year 3 Units

3.1: Going Digital (suited for integration with 2.1)

Year 4 Units

4.1: Exploring Digital (suited for integration with 5.1 and 6.1)

Year 5 Units

5.1: Algorithms to ASCII (suited for integration with 4.1 and/or 6.1)

Year 6 Units

6.1: Digital Algorithms (suited for integration with 4.1 and 5.1)

Additional Resources

A range of free extra resources (software and online services) is available, as well as physical resources such as the awesome Robot Turtles Board Game.

Optional Extras

The following options can be added to the basic program, facilitated by OpenSTEM subject matter experts:

The FREE Robotics Incursion is suitable for Senior Primary (primarily year 5 and 6 students, year 4 students in a composite class is fine).We come to your school for approx 1.5 to 2 hours, and explore with the students what robotics means for them, uses in the real world (past, present and science fiction), and try to “program” a human to walk around the room using basic commands (primitives) to move specific joints.

Our Robotics & Programming Program for Senior Primary is primarily focused on year 5 and 6 students, although in a composite class year 4 students also do very well.

3D Printers – a 1.5h exploration of a 3D printer and 3D printing concepts, how it works and what it can do.A 3D Printer is not just useful for creating and printing designs. It is in itself an awesome educational target, and in addition it can be used to produce otherwise costly educational materials within a school.

Credits

This program is developed under the leadership of Arjen Lentz, with contributions from Thomas Sprinkmeier, Dr Shaun Nykvist, and others.