August 2010 Letter from NZACDITT President

Achievement Standards level 1
Achievement Standards level 2
Professional Development
Digital Technologies Symposium and AGM 

Hello All

A quick update of current affairs in Digital Technologies.

Achievement Standards level 1

May I direct you to the NZQA circular S2010/021 – 17 Aug 2010 which explains Mutually Exclusive Level 1 standards and Transition for 2011. http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/about-us/publications/newsletters-and-circulars/secqual/ Another message from NZQA is that in the next fortnight there will be a document about the requirements for the externally assessed standards in Level 1.

Achievement Standards level 2

The draft Level 2 standards have been published and the consultation process is in progress.

http://www.tki.org.nz/e/community/ncea/alignment-standards.php

Please take some time as a school department or as an individual to send in feedback. To quote a Ministry source: ”The sort of feedback the Ministry finds useful is that which considers how the draft standards might work and any issues teachers foresee in the teaching, learning and assessment of programmes using the standards. While I appreciate teachers are busy, the more detail teachers provide that explains why they think a standard is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ the better as far as refining the standards are concerned.” We have more time to make changes for level 2 standards than we have had for Level 1, so here’s hoping we can get them as right as we can.

Professional Development

We had a very successful meeting in Auckland last Monday with eleven teachers from throughout New Zealand learning from workshops run by NZQA on writing and critiquing of assessment tasks. To give us something to work on, I rewrote two assessment tasks I had used before – one for year 12 and one for year 10, and adapted them for year 11. The two moderators from NZQA were extremely helpful in showing us how to approach the writing of an assessment, and how to critique and evaluate the tasks and the assessment schedules. The very useful powerpoint on “Anatomy of an Internal assessment” is available on the nzacditt.org website, as well as some other resources. My work did not get an achieved (:-)) but I learnt heaps in the process – and have definite guidelines and suggestions/comments I can implement in the training days in Canterbury in September. (Note – I used something I already had to create something for an Achievement standard. Took time, but it’s possible). These eleven teachers are now going to run workshops with four or more teachers in their regions to develop a unit of work on a topic and an assessment task for a Level 1 Achievement standard in Digital Technologies, over a Friday and Saturday ‘weekend’. That is 49 teachers writing resources in the next five weeks! A big thank you to these eleven leaders who have volunteered their time and energy to be the ‘pioneering leaders’! This initiative has been funded jointly by the Ministry and funds from NZACDITT to cover TRD and catering expenses. These resources will be available to members in Oct and Nov.

If you would like to be part of the training group on the Saturday in your region, to get some training in the Assessment task writing – please contact the leader in your region to determine how this might be arranged.

If there is no group in your region, consider starting one yourself. Contact me for any further information.

My personal vision is that these eleven groups will become the regional groups for NZACDITT and become self sustaining with an affiliation to the national association. But that may take a bit of time.

A big thank you to Tim Bell, Sumant Murugeshand Vanja Venrooy from Canterbury University for the resource on Computer Science. The pages can all be accessed via: http://nzacditt.org.nz/resource/level-1-computer-science-concepts-concept-of-an-algorithm (or http://tinyurl.com/25nf2wb ) http://nzacditt.org.nz/resource/level-1-computer-science-concepts-programming-languages (or http://tinyurl.com/242h7ag ) http://nzacditt.org.nz/resource/level-1-computer-science-concepts-user-interfaces (or http://tinyurl.com/2ehq9rr)

The proposed unit plan is at: http://nzacditt.org.nz/system/files/Computer%20Science%20Concepts%20AS%201.44%20Unit%20Outline%20-%2009.08.10_1.pdf (or http://tinyurl.com/23ylawl ) Thank you to the many tertiary lecturers who are offering their time and expertise to support teachers in Digital Technologies. Every University has a representative, and I know there are a number of folk from Polytechs also offering support. Refer to my ‘late-July letter’ for other initiatives Digital Technologies Symposium and AGM: 17 – 19 November 2010 Registrations are now open for what promises to be a great event in the Digital Technologies calendar. The symposium is being jointly funded by the Ministry of Education, Cognition Consultants and NZICT group members. For registration visit www.cognition.co.nz

The symposium will focus on building new qualification opportunities; harnessing expertise, resources and success from Digital Technologies education; promoting engagement of teachers with industry and tertiary stake holders; supporting teachers to develop meaningful pathways for students in Digital Technologies; developing Digital Technologies skills in meaningful contexts for teaching and learning programmes; building on the DTG work with schools across regions and acknowledge the successes of this project.

Very importantly, the AGM for NZACDITT will be held during the symposium on Thursday 18 November at 4.30pm

What workshops do you want at the symposium? Please let us know as soon as possible so planning and arrangements can start.

Best wishes to you all,

Vilna Gough-Jones
President: New Zealand Association for Computer, Digital and Information Technology Teachers