DFI: Computational Thinking

 Kia ora Readers, 

Our focus today was on the Digital Curriculum and computational thinking, the possible direction and future digital technology can go towards. It's both an exciting and scary thought. This connects to a course I did several years ago on Technological convergence and its impact on people/culture- the way we behave and interact with the world. I can only imagine how far technology has come since then.  I would say that being "digitally savvy" is a necessity this day and age. So much of our lives is digital now, we are encouraged to be consumers, but to thrive you also must be a creator/developer which is where the Digital Curriculum comes in. 

As teachers we should be preparing our learners to adapt and be fluent with digital technology, a more critical, yet open mindset to approach new technologies with.  

I've previously looked at the Digital curriculum, but never really got into the thick of it and understood it fully. I always saw it as an extra subject to set time for. After seeing examples of it today I realize that I have been teaching it to some degree more often than not. It was great to see these examples of just how to thread computational thinking into a lesson, and the different contexts- some I would definitely not thought of- such as the Maori Myth of Maui and the Sun. 

Our create task was to choose a workshop on a different platform. I chose Scratch and how to make a basic 'Pong' style game. Eerily coincidental as my class have been doing Scratch toolkits this week and my class asked if I could make something on it. I've used Scratch as a "Creative Time" task, but never really accessed it myself so this was a fun experience.