December 2009

Day Out

NZACDITT committee

General

Unit Standards

Achievement Standards

Hello there

Last update for the year…. And what a year it has been!

Establishment of NZACDITT in March, our first one day conference simultaneously in two venues in October, Digital Technologies with its five strands being firmly embraced by the Ministry, third phase of DTG well on the way with its focus of Professional Development, and Achievement standards being written for DT. See my past letters of the year for specific updates on progress in all these areas.

Day Out

A very successful day of workshops and keynote speakers was held on 6 October. Thank you to Maurice Alford and his team for organising and running this day. Feedback was very positive and more of the same is envisaged for next year. The current proposal is a two day conference in November 2010. Maurice will be conducting a survey of members to determine the preference of two days over one venue or two days simultaneously in two venues. Note that the third phase of DTG includes professional development of a day in each of terms one and two in 2010. Your Professional Lead Teachers (PLT) will be contacting you about this.

NZACDITT committee

The committee held a successful day of meeting face-to-face in Christchurch in November, to plan for next year and beyond. 

Long term goals (in no particular order) included:

1. Making our website vibrant with a community of people sharing resources and information. Making the website become the first point of call for any new topic or teacher.
2. Building up to a membership of at least 1000.
3. Making Digital Technologies a subject that is recognised, respected and first choice career paths for our students and teachers.
4. Having Digital Technologies huis with student centred competitions and student days.
5. Working for scholarships for teachers that enable teachers to upskill in the different strands, and not have to do a research project to acquire funding.
6. Acquiring or hiring a bus for a Digital Technologies Roadshow and  having teachers supporting teachers in the classroom as well as allowing students to be made aware of career opportunities.
7. Ensuring that Digital Technologies is in the New Curriculum for years 1-10 and supporting DT in the junior secondary as well as in senior secondary.

There were others, and these will be revisited on an annual basis.

With eight months of growth and experience behind us, it was decided to adopt a model suggested by CSTA of having a committee member as leader of a project/focus group, with two committee members and co-opted association members forming the group. The groups and leaders are:

Professional Development Linda McCavana mv@birkenhead.school.nz

Teaching resources Karen Fahy fy@cashmere.school.nz

Unit Standards Max Ross aoteatech@gmail.com

Symposium/conference Maurice Alford m.alford@gmail.com

Membership and Finance John Creighton cz@burnside.school.nz

Achievement Standards Vilna Gough-Jones gj@burnside.school.nz

Public relations/ Careers Tricia Winter triciaw@xtra.co.nz

Website David Benseman david.benseman@ashcoll.school.nz

Electronics in DT Denise Bruns denise.bruns@gmail.com

Please direct any queries, suggestions to the relevant group leader. Each group will report back as needed to the whole committee at the monthly meetings usually held via phone conference. Expect to be tapped on the shoulder to contribute help when needed – or better still – volunteer your services to the group leader. All of the committee are hard-working teachers who do this work voluntarily, and take on this extra workload as they have a passion for our subject and want the best for our students and teachers. So, if emails are not answered immediately, be patient!  

General

A reminder that membership fees for 2010 are due in January. Please put that on your ‘to do ‘ list.

There are exciting developments from NZICT – the body of industry organizations that is represented by Brett O’Riley – our guest speaker at the NZACDITT One day conference. Brett has indicated that an NZICT charitable trust is being set up to support education initiatives – with particular reference to teacher professional development and training.

Please get your students to complete the survey for NZICT found in the latest Actv8 magazine as a competition for an IPOD 3. They can also do this online at www.actv8.co.nz. This will help the ICT industry focus their support in the right direction. 

Please look at the DTG website to see exemplars of course plans/outlines. www.dtg.tki.org.nz Note that these are a ‘work in progress’, but will help you to start thinking about your future courses in DT. Most of the work you currently do may just need a bit a tweaking to fit into the TCKS body of knowledge. 

Unit Standards

Thank you to Max Ross for organising an assessment a day for the month of January. Further details can be found here: 

http://www.nzacditt.org.nz/content/month-unit-standards

Achievement Standards

There has been huge progress in this area. Please refer to my previous letters (on the nzacditt website) to follow the development so far. Thanks must go to the Digital Technologies Expert Panel (DTEP) for their contribution and support. It is comforting to know that we have some high level committed people giving up their time to ensure that DT courses and achievement standards can be developed. Thank you also to those of you who took the time to make replies and suggestions to the TECHNOLOGICAL CONTEXT KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS document released in July. Your input will be valuable in the next phase of writing.

Current developments and process for writing AS:

Following on from the meeting in late September (see my letter of 25 September), a team of teachers has been invited to Wellington in the week 14 – 18 December to be trained in and write the first draft of Achievement Standards as well as Teaching and Learning guides in all areas in Technology. This includes all five strands of DT and will be based on the TCKS as well as the feedback received. This training and writing is being co-ordinated by the heads of department in MOE responsible for curriculum development, as well as representatives from NZQA. The writers for DT are all practising teachers, known to the committee and the DTEP and supported by them. In each of the strands, there is a further group of at least three teachers with expertise in that strand, who have made themselves available for consultation and discussion, by electronic means or phone over December and January. There are also representatives from DTEP keeping an eye on things and assisting with the writing during the week in December. Please be assured that I and the committee are doing everything possible to get the best outcome for DT for our students and teachers. At the end of the week, the ministry hope we will have titles for the AS and some explanatory notes for A, M and E. I understand that there is a fairly standardised process for writing AS that is NZQA driven. 

This first draft of AS and T&L guides will be ready by the middle of January. 

These first draft AS will then go to a select group for consultation. This group will be drawn from the volunteers from the subject association who sent me emails in September. Feedback from this group will be received by end of February 2010. It is MOE policy that there must be at least four weeks of school for feedback. This select group also needs to look at what assessments could be written for these AS, so that the AS are robust and clear. 

The AS writers will then meet at end of Feb to take this feedback into account, and come up with draft 2 of the AS.

 The second draft of AS will then go out to the wider community, ie yourselves, in mid March (need some admin time) for further feedback. At this time, further trial assessments need to be written to determine if the AS are clear and robust enough. This is where the support of the association is vital, as we will need some of you to do this writing as well as trialling with your students.

The group of AS writers will then meet again in early May (4 weeks of school plus holiday time) to take this feedback into account and come up with draft 3 of the AS.

The third draft of AS will then be posted up with all the other level 1 AS for all subjects in June/July 2010. Minor adjustments may still be made, but the AS will be processed for registration in November 2010, for implementation in 2011. So although the actual group of writers may appear to be small – there needs to be a lot of input from yourselves in a timely fashion so we can get it as right as possible. There is an extremely tight timeline for everything to be done. Be prepared to not get too much warning if you are someone who put up your hand to help, and you are invited to do something. 

So it is all go….Achievement Standards being written and refined, Teaching and Learning guides being written, trial assessments being written, these assessments being trialled in the classroom for comment and suggestions, and teachers are trying to keep up with job of teaching…. and then it all starts up again with level 2 AS to be written.

In summary:

• Achievement standards are being written.
• They are being written by practising DT teachers.
• Everyone will have a chance to have their say about the level 1 AS before they are registered.
• There are still issues around the number of credits for each strand at each level, but these issues are being worked through. Achievement Standards for all the levels is still a ‘work in progress’.
• Level 1 will be published in 2010, available for planning for 2011, and ready for use in 2011. Level 2 will be published in 2011, ready for use in 2012. Level 3 will be published in 2012, ready for use in 2013.
• Your current year 9’s will be the first group with the new assessments. Focus on planning courses for year 10 in 2010 looking ahead to year 11 in 2011. 
• Ensure you develop courses that also reflect the new NZ curriculum. 
• Use the current unit standards (and/or tech AS) for assessment up to 2012
• UE will only change for 2013
• UE still has to be sorted out by universities
• Computer Science depts. in all seven universities are contributing to and supporting the DTG initiative.
• Look at what PD you want to do in the next few years to enable you to deliver quality courses for DT.

The committee will consult with you, the members of NZACDITT as much as is possible, without holding up the process, so that we can get it as right as we can in the present time. There will be a time for review later on, but lets get the AS written now.

May I wish you all a blessing at this time of Christmas; May you be blessed by His peace, His love, His gentleness, and have the courage to live in His way. May you enjoy friendship, family time, have safe journeys as you travel, and lots of rest and relaxation! 

Regards, 

Vilna Gough-Jones