Week 3

Design Challenge 
This week was the ideation phase of my design. This phase includes generating, communicating, planning and designing and has seen me adapting my design three times to find the most suitable for the needs of my brief. 

The designs I have adapted can be seen in this document and I have also completed a decision making matrix to determine which design suits the brief for my design challenge the best. The final decision for my design challenge is design 4.

Pedagogical Approaches to the Ideation phase of a design challenge

in this phase of the design cycle support and encouragement are fundamental. The concept of recreating my design was hard to grasp as I was already set on my original idea. Once I began to think about adapting my idea and considered feedback from my group this process became an easy one. In the classroom, peer feedback as well as teacher support will encourage the students to better their ideas and in turn create a product specified to the design brief. 

Need to discuss pedagogy 

Week 2

This weeks readings have begun to provide and insight on technology education and pedagogical approaches to learning and teaching in this field. Four articles have been explored and a reflection is provided presenting pedagogical notions for teaching technology education.

Technology Education

Jones, Buntting and de Vries (2011) provide an explanation of how they believe equal importance in technology education can be achieved alongside the basics of education such as literacy and numeracy. They present ideas to coincide with this notion such as recognizing the history and the philosophy of technology education. They state (p. 192-194, 2011) that through the four interrelated categories of interest (technology as artefacts, as knowledge, as activities and as an aspect of humanity) the philosophy of technology provides a inspiration which can guide the development of technology education. 

The article also outlines the importance of pedagogical content knowledge (or PDK) and maintain that educators should not only understand the content and purpose but have the ability to teach it in a way that is pedagogically engaging. This notion of PDK is believed to be a key factor in the development of technology education (p. 202, 207). In addition to this, authentic assessment is fundamental in the process of technology education as it is believed that the interactive process of thinking and decision making in of more importance than the final product they produce (p. 201). 

Finally, it has been pointed out that there is an increase in research on technology education that is aiming to enhance our understanding of technology in the classroom and the quality of pre-service education for educators and effective curriculum development (p. 204). This research primarily focuses on how the students learn in technology, what facilitates effective learning and what knowledge is required by the educator to enchanted student learning (p. 207). 

Creativity and technology education

• Creativity is an important goal for technology education
• Pedagogy can include:
  - metaphorical thinking activities
  - Analogical thinking
  - Combinatorial activities
  - Divergent thinking in the form of brainstorming
  - Productive thinking through restating or reconstructing problems 
• Create an environment facilitating risk taking, problem posing, individual learning and thinking styles and intrinsic and extrinsic motivation 
• Provide problem finding opportunities 
• Use humour as a marker for creativity 
• Be tolerant of failure 

The Technology Design Cycle

The Technology Design Cycle has been recreated using Bubbl Us which is an online mind mapping tool. This tool poses many benefits, including the ability to use this as a class discussion tool, students can use this tool in small groups and it is a creative tool which encourages design thinking. 

Design Challenge 
This week's focus was the Investigation phase. This phase involves examining, analysing, gathering and researching where the design begins to take place and information is gathered to begin the cycle. 

The topic I was considering for my design challenge is "Build a sustainable garden for the school" and this sustainable garden will become a source of food for the Tuckshop. Throughout the investigation phase a range of analysis tools have been used including; design specification,a needs analysis and a risk analysis. Members of my group have provided feedback on my information for my design challenge and in the coming week I will adapt my design based on this feedback.

Curriculum Links

Below is the link to the curriculum links for my design challenge.

ACARA Curriculum Links to Design and Technology

References

Jones, A., Buntting, C., & Vries, M. (2013). The developing field of technology education: a review to look forward. International Journal Of Technology & Design Education, 23(2), 191-212. doi:10.1007/s10798-011-9174-4

Lewis, T. (2005). Creativity- a framework for the design/problem solving discourse in technology education. Journal of technology education, 17(1). 

Lewis. T. (2009). Creativity in technology education: providing children with glimpses of their inventive potential. International Journal of Technology Design Education, 19, 255-268. DOI 10.1007/s10798-008-9051-y. 

Week 1

Design and Digital Technologies 
Week 1 To Do List

The two components of the Technology curriculum are distinct yet closely related. ACARA (2015) describes the difference between the two as;

Design and Technologies: The use of design thinking to generate and produce design solutions for authentic use.

Digital Technologies: Computational thinking and information systems to define, design and implement digital solutions.

An example of design and technologies in my Professional Practice was a PowerPoint presentation where the students grew, maintained, sewed and cooked a fruit or vegetable. Their PowerPoints included graphs, headings, photographs and text and were accompanied with an oral presentation

In the same class, the students used digital technologies to collect information on a topic which informed a poster about water. The students used internet explorer and were guided by the educator with steps to follow and websites to visit. 

Verb	Associated Pedagogy
Identify	Students should be able to identify purposeful software to suit a task. For example, a suitable program for creating a word document
Collect	Students will collect relevant information using websites
Sort/Present	Students will sort the information from the websites and present their findings in a PowerPoint presentation
Design	Students are expected to design a task. This task is supported by the educator through task sheets, class time and emails to parents to assist students in completing task at home
Communicate/plan	Students will communicate as a group and devise a plan. This will be supported by the teacher by providing a guide to the students
Select	Students will select relevant information
Plan/sequence	Students will plan a sequence of steps to access a Microsoft Word document and save a blank page
Investigate/explain	Investigate and explain how digital systems are used around the world. Teacher support will be provided through exploration of this topic in class, at the library and in computer time. The students are encouraged to think about how they use technology in their everyday lives.

The below Tagxedo/word cloud was created using www.tagxedo.com. This tool was a very creative tool and I believe it would be very useful in the classroom. As the mouse runs over the words they enlarge and the program allows the cloud to morph into multiple shapes and colours. This would be a great tool to help students learn their sight words. Creating the word cloud could be performed as a class and the final product be printed and attached to each students desk. In addition, this could be used as a tool to assist in learning weekly spelling words. 

Setting Up Blogger and Wikispaces 
This week asked us to form groups and begin to set up our wiki and blog. I have used Blogger in the past and I find it a tool that is easy to get your head around and can be used in many different ways. Wikispaces are a concept I am yet to grasp but have been set up by another group member and I have successfully logged in and located my personal page to begin my design challenge. 


References
ACARA. (2015). Design and technologies. Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/technologies/design-and-technologies/curriculum/f-10?layout=1 
ACARA. (2015). Digital technologies. Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/technologies/digital-technologies/curriculum/f-10?layout=1 
ACARA. (2015). Technologies Overview. Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/technologies/rationale