Review of Assignement 1B

Throughout the last few weeks I have discovered new digital platforms to incorporate into my teaching. These digital platforms created challenges for me yet opened my mind to new possibilities using digital platforms in the classroom.

Most of these assignments made me interpret data and activities. Many of the concepts regarding assignment 1B challenged my interpretation aspect, due to the fact I am a visual learner. As I struggled, I found that many of these activates represent the knowledge and understanding teachers need today, due to technological learning students are having to participate in.

I became shocked to find out that digital technology is still not recongised in the Australia Curriculum and it is still been written. I thought at the beginning of this course that all the government would be up to date, due to the vast technological world we live in today. However, there has been a consolidation of humanities, yet there is no official realise of the future of Technologies Curriculum. ACARA addresses Technology to be imbedding “… on concepts, skills and processes developed in the Early Years Learning Framework. It focuses on developing foundational skills in computational thinking and an awareness of personal experiences using digital systems.”

Conceptual thinking was a major aspect surrounding the last three weeks of work. Understanding were I stand in the conceptual thinking opened my eyes, due to the fact, I realised I did not have little nor would not extend my thinking. The activity “Thinking myself”, really made me struggle, however, I enjoyed the extending of my thinking and the idea of the site setting and material for the students.  I later found out the method or structure to conceptual thinking, this structure was:

·      Decomposition: Creating a step-by-step process of a task or problem.

·      Pattern Recognition: Making predictions.

·      Pattern Generalization and Abstraction: Determine the laws, or philosophy that cause these patterns.

·      Algorithm Design: Expand the directions to solve related tribulations and duplicate the method.

All the activities in the weeks challenged me and made me extend my thinking. I think without activities that did not contain conceptual thinking, I would have been oblivious to the idea of incorporating these programs in my classroom.  I would have never realised activities such as Scratch and Online games, which help the students with their thinking.

Due to the vast majority of the world using technology in their classroom, it was interesting to experience different software and activities, which help the students, demonstrate their conceptual learning. My learning journey has honestly been a struggle, yet also an eye opener. I am able to take these activities into the classroom and extend my knowledge by using the software at home. I understand that being a teacher is about also being a student, which means that I am always learning. I hope to see these activities used in a classroom while on my prac, however, I feel due to time constraints and the data in the curriculum, teachers struggle to introduce students to such platforms. I have enjoyed every moment in revising the digital technology curriculum, as well as the introduction to conceptual thinking platforms.