Junior Course Overview

Year 9 Overview

This year 9 course is designed for a half year, approximately 50 contact hours, compulsory unit for all year 9 students that covers CTDT:PO4 and DDDO:PO 2. The course is broken into 4 topics.

Topics Covered

Whilst there are lots of areas that can be covered these are the key areas chosen to focus on as they covered what is needed to meet the progress outcomes. The approach of less is more has been taken.

Topic 1

Image Manipulation

Introduction to DDDO

This can be done as either a 8 or 12 contact hours unit depending on if students do the shorter Name Plate unit or longer Digital Mihimihi.

The ideas is to have a bit of fun, learn some new skills whilst getting used to the DT environment, the basics of logging into the computers, and file management as well as helping you learn about the students.

Topic 2

Computer Science

Introduction to Computational Thinking

Approximately 12 contact hours covering:

Binary
Image and Text compression
Decomposition of complicated problems
Algorithms

Each topic (other than algorithms) has a short end of topic test at the end which is used to mark the topic. Algorithms is tested under the next unit.

The idea is that the tasks students complete are assessed as completed/not completed rather than increasing teacher workload of marking as the many self marking End of Topic task is the assessment

Topic 3

Programming

Covers more Computational Thinking

Introduction to Programming

Approximately 10 Contact hours

Programming using Scratch so regardless of programming experience everyone can achieve. Additionally, the focus is on teaching sequence selection and iteration though not formally as such.

For those that have come in with previous programming experience they are to complete tasks to check they have the fundamentals and then they are able to move to the Year 10 course on Python.

Topic 4

Small Passion Project

Major DDDO Project

This is an opportunity for students to created something they are interested in within the parameters of characters.

They work through a mini design process and are able to see how they can use one design and adapt it to create a range of different outcomes depending on the resources available to your school. We have found that starting off with making stickers is highly engaging especially to female students and students are then free to choose what they create afterwards.

This gives them a taste of project based learning which they will further develop in Year 10 and follow in Level 1, 2 and 3.

Year 10 Overview

This year 10 course is designed for a full year, approximately 100 contact hours, for year 10 students that covers CTDT:PO5 and DDDO:PO 3.

The course is broken into 8 minor topics each of which is approximately 10 contact hours. This is then followed by a major project at the end of the year of the students own choosing using any of the skills they have learned. This major project last approximately 20 contact hours but many students work on their projects at home as well. This final project is an introduction to NCEA DDDO projects.

Key ideas behind this year 10 course

Whilst there are lots of areas that can be covered these are the areas chosen to continue to build on the Year 9 course and introduce a range of new skills that lead in to Year 11, 12 & 13.

By the end of Year 10 students are better equipped to make a decision about the area of Digital Technologies they enjoy and know whether their strengths are more in the CT or DDDO side.

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The idea is 4 weeks spent on each (10 hrs) meaning they learn the basics, get a taste and have some success regardless of their skill level. For those who its not their thing its about the right time without disengagement and for those who love it they can revisit for their Student lead project or further their skills in their own time.

The main idea is the topic are set up so you aren't teaching from the front (apart from a bit more in CS / Programming) and the students lead their learning. You are then able to focus on helping those that need it. It also allows students to become experts in an area and they can help other students.

We start with Image Creation as it is fun whilst school is starting and students are chopping and changing. It also builds on Year 9 so they should already have some previous experience.

Website is next as this becomes a portfolio for all their work up until the Student Project at the end. It makes it easy to mark as they summarise their work themselves in each of the topics.

Computer Science & Programming are next to split up DDDO & CT. There are some really nice links that come into play within CS and hex that the students make as they have used it in Image Creation and Website with colours getting some nice 'aha' moments.

After these four topics you can chop and change. With the disruptions over the last few years you can miss a topic or let students pick between two or adapt it to your own school program.

This course has been successfully run whilst in lockdowns, online and hybrid learning environments with high engagement levels.

In terms of assessment the focus is on the topics of Computer Science, Programming and the Student Lead Project with the other topics further building essential skills to be successful throughout NCEA and not assessed as such.

The final personal project has been successfully done over the last 3 years as a 40 hour project and many of the outcomes were phenomenal. Many students also work on their projects in their own time This course also sets up students with the planning skills, technology terminology, and project management tools they require for their studies in NCEA. We have then wound up this unit with a school wide presentation of their work using a poster board that they create over the project. This gives a finality to the project and strict deadline as well as celebrating their success with family.

Course Structure:

Planning google doc

Image Creation

Introduction to 3D Animation

Making Games with GDevelop

Introduction to Website Design

Introduction to 3D Modelling

Junior Student Lead Project

Intermediate Computer Science

Introduction to Video & Audio Editing

Introduction to Python

Introduction to Design for Manufacturing

Website Portfolio and Programming

The Year 10 course makes use of Visual Studio Code which is a free programming environment offered by Microsoft.

We also use github to store our code and host our website. The Full Course, tutorials and instructions are available here

The Website is used as a public portfolio of all your work throughout the year. Once you have it set up, you will able to go back to it and update the website with images, videos and text of all the things you have made and learned over the year.

Minor Projects

There are a number of minor topics covered in this course all of approximately 10 contact hours each. They are set up so that all students should be able to explore the topic a little bit and decide if they want to incorporate that thing into their final project. By keeping to topics short it ensures that students don't get bored by a topic that does not interest them. They can be modified to what you are doing at your school.

All software used in this course is chosen because it is open source or has a free educational licence:

Image Creation - GIMP and Inkscape
3D animation - Blender
Video Editing - OpenShot
Audio Editing - Audacity
3D Manufacturing - Fusion 360
Game Design - GDevelop

Each of these topics are self directed units that students engage to the level of their interest. They then submit what they have achieved by adding it to their website portfolio. There are instructions on the HTML they have to add at the end of each topic, otherwise they need to include screenshots or images of what they have created.

Computer Science

The computer science unit covers some of the material involved in the level 1 computer science standards as well as reviewing the material on the year 9 course.

The topics covered are:

Binary and Hexadecimal
ASCII
Error Detection
Searching and Sorting Algorithms

Intermediate Computer Science

Programming

Programming is a short 20 hour introduction to python with a few introductory lessons and then a programming competition type assessment. This is designed to be very easy to mark with the first 2 questions getting the students started to build to the third question that is for Acheived, the fourth being Merit and the final tough question being Excellence. I have also found it useful for those high flyers to ask them to then take their code for the final question and optimise it for speed or lines of code. One student has been able to compress the whole program to one very complicated line of code.

Instructions HERE

Once you have created your own "Team" for your class and copied the projects to it, you'll have access to the two tasks with accompanying videos AND the five question programming Assessment. The video shown on the page explains how to use repl.it, run the tests and submit the code.

You can optionally change the links on the page to your actual repl.it team link (they currently link to repl.it teams and kids should easily find their way to the team you create for them.

Introduction to Python

Final Personal Project

Students can pick the topic that they enjoyed most over the year and go a bit further. This is about the PROCESS of research, design, plan, develop, test, iterate.

Students can work alone or in small teams of 2 or 3 but be careful when vetting groups of students that they have an idea of how they are going to collaborate, they will likely have not thought of this properly which will result in lots of students sitting on their hands.

Junior Student Lead Project

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