Creating a whole-school plan
A whole-school plan to implement the Digital Technologies curriculum would typically provide a high-level summary of the coverage of the curriculum area, and reflect the school’s goals, vision and any school priorities.
Refer to the templates provided to document your curriculum planning for Digital Technologies. Adjust the document to suit your context. Alternatively use your existing planning documents used for other subject areas.
When creating your plan, your school will need to decide on the approach most appropriate for your context: whether the curriculum will be taught explicitly (as its own entity) or implicitly (integrated into other subject areas).
Other questions to ask include:
- What will be covered across year levels?
- What connections are there to existing programs?
- What are the opportunities for transforming approaches to learning?
Explicit/ Specialist mode
This mode may involve creating a subject to be delivered by a specialist teacher.
Secondary schools will often explore the explicit/specialist mode as they may have an experienced computer science teacher, for example.
This approach will lift the degree of importance that is attached to the implementation of Digital Technologies. However, it may lead to the majority of teachers in your school not being engaged in learning about the Digital Technologies curriculum and implementing it in the classroom.
CloseIntegrated mode
As part of an integrated mode, teachers explore connections between the underpinning concepts and outcomes of Digital Technologies and other subject areas.
There is an expectation for teachers F-6 that they understand and know all areas of the curriculum, this includes Digital Technologies. Relying on a specialist to implement Digital Technologies runs the risk of teachers not engaging with curriculum.
This mode may reduce time pressures in an already crowded curriculum and create learning in context. However, assessment may be more challenging.
Consider the use of hexagonal mapping to identify connections and alignments among the Digital Technologies curriculum and other areas of the curriculum.
As a means of exploring potential curriculum alignment related to design a user interface and implementation you could ask, for example: ‘What is the context for learning and design of a digital solution?’ This will encourage teachers to look for real opportunities in the context of their school programs.
Read Hexagonal Curriculum Mapping: It Works! This article shows how to conduct Hexagonal mapping.
Look at this blog Curriculum planning for STEAM to learn about a process to create a unit of learning that has a clear line of inquiry across several learning areas. It expands on the process of hexagonal mapping.
Search lesson ideas on the Digital Technologies Hub that integrate Digital Technologies with other subject areas.
Consider other school priorities and whether the use of computational thinking, systems thinking and design thinking can support them. These may include Critical and Creative Thinking, STEAM/STEM Inquiries, Numeracy, Authentic Literacy, Advanced Learners.
Look at this example, which is relevant to secondary schools: What would my preferred AI future look like?
Malyn Mawby, Head of Personalised Learning at Roseville College, explains how she implemented project-based learning (PBL) with her Year 10 class to explore Artificial Intelligence. Through the PBL task, students selected an area of interest and investigated what is possible, probable and preferred.
CloseAccess relevant templates
Australian Curriculum
Schools using the Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies can consider using and adapting the following templates for curriculum planning:
- Years F-2 Curriculum planning
- Years 3-4 Curriculum planning
- Years 5-6 Curriculum planning
- Years 7-8 Curriculum planning
- Years 9-10 Curriculum planning
Use this template to culminate the year level curriculum planning documents into a whole-school plan.
State-based Curriculum
For Victorian Schools curriculum planning refer to:
For NSW schools curriculum planning refer to sample units and sample scope and sequences:
- Early stage 1 to stage 3, Science and Technology K-6 Syllabus.
- Stage 4, Technology Mandatory Syllabus Years 7-8
For Western Australian Schools refer to:
- Western Australia SCSA: Digital Technologies