ACS Recommendations to Improve Digital Technologies Education in Australia

The Australian Computer Society (ACS)  has released a whitepaper on "Computer education in Australian schools 2022: Enabling the next generation of IT" (June, 2022). This is timely, with a new federal government. There are 55 recommendations, but the most important is for support for those teaching Digital Technologies to be trained and qualified in what they are teaching (Recommendation 3, Page 72). This training, I suggest, should ideally be done using digital technologies, without necessarily taking in service teachers away from their classroom for extended periods (there are several good Australian university programs for this). Also it would be useful to have a nationally standardized senior secondary computer education curriculum (Recommendation 25, Page 77). It would also be useful to have research on how well schools do, what resources they have and how are disadvantaged students helped (Recommendation 55, Page 78). I commend the report to those advising Government ministers, state and federal: I know you read my blog. ;-)

Declaration of Interest: I am a member of the ACS, and its Professional Standards Board. But I wasn't involved with the computer education whitepaper, which is from the ICT Educators Committee.

Review of the Australian School Curriculum Misses Importance of e-Learning

The Australian Government has released the Final Report of a  "Review of the Australian Curriculum" by Professor Ken Wiltshire AO and Dr Kevin Donnelly.  Available are:

1. Final Report of the Review of the Australian Curriculum: (PDF 3.27 MB or DOCX 11.82 MB)
2. Initial Australian Government Response Review of the Australian Curriculum
3. Supplementary Material for the Review of the Australian Curriculum
4. Fact Sheet on the Review of the Australian Curriculum
5. Frequently Asked Questions on the Review of the Australian Curriculum

One concern I have is that sufficient weight is not being given to the way the Internet is changing how education is provided. The report mentions "Internet" only twice in 294 pages (on  Page 147).

In the first reference the authors comment that just having information via the Internet is not sufficient for understanding. However this fails to mention decades of research and practical experience showing it is possible to provide quality education on-line:

"The argument that the disciplines are changing so rapidly that it is impossible to identify them with any certainty or precision and, as a result, that all students need to do is to access the internet when wanting information, is misleading. Information is not knowledge and understanding is not wisdom. Education, while dealing with information and understanding, is primarily concerned with knowledge and wisdom that while evolving and open to debate has stood the test of time."

The second mention of the Internet claims that  "many" complained about a lack of hard copy of the curriculum materials. It is not clear how these many complaints were received, given that the review used an an online submission process (those who sent a submission must have had Internet access). Also, as the authors state, not all households have Internet access, but the ABS says 83% do. There are more than one million householders without Internet access, if many of had complained (in this context "many" would be tens of thousands of people).

"The bulk of parents seem to have been unhappy about the token involvement of parents in development of the curriculum, and report frustration in being able to gain independent access to curriculum documents. Many complain about the lack of hard copy, pointing out that not all households have internet access (265); nor are all parents computer literate. As in so many other aspects of government service delivery in Australia, purely web-based delivery is not adequate."

The technologies curriculum, that is teaching ICT is better covered in the report, than the use of ICT for teaching:

"There is also strong support for its inclusion in
the Australian Curriculum – particularly from professional bodies associated with computers and technologies – and a belief that it appropriately captured the critical elements of the learning area and provided a sound curriculum foundation which could accommodate future instances of digital technology. The Australian Computer Society (ACS) says:

The ACS strongly endorses the creation of the digital technologies subject and notes the
important distinction of this subject from the role of ICT as a general capability. Both aspects
are critically important in the education of students, but the distinction between them is vital
for individual students and for Australia as a nation.414" Page 208

Recommendation 15 of the report is likely to be most contriversial and with which I have most difficulty with:

"ACARA revise the Australian Curriculum to place more emphasis on morals, values and spirituality as outlined in the Melbourne Declaration, and to better recognise the contribution of Western civilisation, our Judeo-Christian heritage, the role of economic development and industry and the
democratic underpinning of the British system of government to Australia’s development." Page 246

It is not clear to me why the many Australian citizens who do not have a British Judeo-Christian heritage should have their taxes spent indoctoranating their children in someone else's values. Discussion of "Western civilisation" belongs in history courses, but alongside the other civilisations which have contributed to today's Australia.

An emphasis on morals and values would be appropriate for schools, along the lines of the  Primary Ethics, program developed by St James Ethics Centre for NSW primary schools. However, this should discuss Judeo-Christian concepts alongside other religions and moral systems of Australians.

Aligning the new Australian School Technologies Curriculum with Higher Education

At the "Byte Sized Digital Technologies", work-shop I am discussing aspects of the "Australian Curriculum: Technologies" with primary teachers from the public and private school sectors. We are looking at project based activities which could be used in schools for teaching the new curriculum. It occurred to me that it would be useful to align the school curriculum with the teaching of technology in higher education. At present universities are looking to develop new educational materials to deliver in new ways, not only online but using techniques such as project based work. It may be possible to provide versions of the university materials for schools to use. Universities are likely to see providing materials to schools as a useful activity for encouraging enrolments at their institution. Universities would normally concentrate on upper secondary school (Year 11 & 12), being just before university. However, research by Macpherson (2013) indicates that student's interest in IT declines after the age of 12-13 years, so it might be better to start with Year 7.

Curriculum Documents

• Schools: ACARA provide the Technologies F-10 Curriculum on an easy to read beta website (the old site has so many errors as not to be usable).
• Higher Education:  The most widely referenced curriculum is the ACM/IEEE-CS Computer Science Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Programs in Computer Science the latest version of which is December 2013. Unfortunately the ACM/IEEE-CS guidelines are in the form of a not as usable 518 page PDF document.

In addition to these there is the US "CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards" from the ACM. CSTA have also released mappings of the Computer science curriculum to US school education standards, but I could not find a mapping to the university curriculum.

The Australian School Technologies Curriculum Year 7 and 8 Content Descriptions are:

Digital Technologies knowledge and understanding

Investigate how data are transmitted and secured in wired, wireless and mobile networks, and how the specifications of hardware components impact on network activities (ACTDIK023)

Investigate how digital systems represent text, image and audio data in binary (ACTDIK024)

Digital Technologies processes and production skills

Acquire data from a range of sources and evaluate authenticity, accuracy and timeliness (ACTDIP025)

Analyse and visualise data using a range of software to create information, and use structured data to model objects or events (ACTDIP026)

Define and decompose real-world problems taking into account functional requirements and economic, environmental, social, technical and usability constraints (ACTDIP027)

Design the user experience of a digital system, generating, evaluating and communicating alternative designs (ACTDIP028)

Design algorithms represented diagrammatically and in English, and trace algorithms to predict output for a given input and to identify errors (ACTDIP029)

Implement and modify programs with user interfaces involving branching, iteration and functions in a general-purpose programming language (ACTDIP030)

Evaluate how well developed solutions and existing information systems meet needs, are innovative and take account of future risks and sustainability (ACTDIP031)

Create and communicate interactive ideas and information collaboratively online, taking into account social contexts (ACTDIP032)

Plan and manage projects, including tasks, time and other resources required, considering safety and sustainability (ACTDIP033)

References

Macpherson, K. (2013). Digital technology and Australian teenagers: consumption, study and careers. The Education Institute. Retrieved, 19. From http://www.canberra.edu.au/researchrepository/file/fde6c9c8-0f73-47a6-afb2-e476699be44b/1/full_text_final.pdf

Technology Projects for the Australian School Curriculum

At the "Byte Sized Digital Technologies", work-shop I am discussing aspects of the "Australian Curriculum: Technologies" with primary teachers from the public and private school sectors. We are in the TEAL room of the Inspire Centre of the University of Canberra.  Steve Blackburn from ANU is describing the Angry Birds Bootcamp run at ANU, teaching programming to school students.

I will be demonstrating "How Green is My Computer?", a version of which has been run live at ANU for school students. After introducing students to concepts of energy use and e-waste, I got them to use a power meter to measure the energy use of different computers and calculate carbon emissions. This exercise would fit with the sustainability topic in the technology curriculum. Also as this is designed to be aligned with the skills framework used for designing university IT curriculum, this should fit in with universities.

First Year Student Expectations of University

An Office for Learning & Teaching funded project has reported some results on "First Year Student Expectations and Experiences". The results are much as I would expect: students have to do more work and get less help from lecturers than they were expecting. However, the researchers have phrased these results in terms of unrealistic expectations by students. But in other industries if you are not meeting your customer's expectations, then you are doing something wrong: you don't blame the customers. Perhaps universities should improve the service they provide so they meet the students expectations. As an example the research shows only 51.5% of students received their work back within three weeks of submitting it. That seems to me unacceptable performance by the university.

Religions Wars: Chrome-books versus iPads for Schools

At the "Byte Sized Digital Technologies", work-shop I am discussing aspects of the "Australian Curriculum: Technologies" with primary teachers from the public and private school sectors. One surprise for me was that students don't have ready access to computers. The computers handed out by the federal government are now obsolete and there is not the money to replace them. Some schools are implementing "Bring Your Own Device" with Apple iPads and others providing Google Chrome-books.

It seems to me that if teachers and students do not have reliable and available computers then a lot of money must be wasted in the school system on manual work. Implementing the technology curriculum would be a good way to start "flipping" Australian schools.

It is a waste and time and effort if each teacher in each school is teaching their class of students alone. As part of my studies in distance education I looked at the blended approach used in some remote Queensland and NT indigenous schools. The teachers at these schools teach students with the support of remote specialist teachers, using online materials. This blended approach would, I suggest, be a suitable model for all schools.

Making the Technologies Curriculum Attractive to Australian Students

At the "Byte Sized Digital Technologies", workshop James Curran from University of Sydney, suggested the new "Australian Curriculum: Technologies" was an opportunity to make computing in schools attractive to more students, particularly girls. As well not being popular with the students, universities do not have it as a prerequisite (unlike maths). One issue was how immature a discipline computing is, with the essentials not having been distilled into something to teach.

However, I suggest that there have been some attempts to distil what computing is, both as a discipline and as a essential set of skills. Examples are the bodies of knowledge of the ACS, ACM/IEEE and the European Computer Driving Licence.

James pointed out that there is less involvement by practitioners in professional associations and the members are getting older. Also he pointed out the minimal budget provided education departments for teachers. He criticised education department for leaving most teacher professional development to teacher's associations, but this seemed to me a positive. If teachers claim to be professionals, then they must take responsibility for their own professional development. Even if their employer does not provide resources, the professional has to ensure they keep their stills up (at their own expense).

James proposes a two day workshop for teachers followed by online PD. In my view this is the wrong approach, instead this should be "flipped" with the online PD first, followed by optional face-to-face workshop, if the resources allow. James aims for a $22M budget, which seems unrealistic. A lower cost online course would be much more achievable.

The ACS provides PD events for its members. Also the obvious way to do PD for technology is online with technology.

Implementing the National Technologies Curriculum in Australian Schools

Greetings from the University of Canberra, where I am taking part in a two day workshop to help implement the new "Australian Curriculum: Technologies" in Canberra's schools. This event, "Byte Sized Digital Technologies", is run by Information Technology Educators ACT (InTEACT). It is
sponsored by Google and appropriately enough, the agenda is on Google Docs.The consultation on the curriculum was run by  "Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority" (ACRA).

The Technologies Australian Curriculum covers both Design and Technologies (using the technology) and Digital Technologies (creating the technology, including computer programming). Interesting the student are educated in a number of areas which up to know have only been covered in advanced university courses: Project Management, Design thinking, Computational Thinking and Systems Thinking.

Implementing this curriculum is an extremely challenging task. Before teachers can teach the material, they need to learn it themselves. One approach I suggest would be useful would be to provide online learning, for the teachers and the students. It makes little sense to me to teach digital technology using analogue teaching techniques. At the same time the teachers can be connected together online to support each other and they can teach the students how to also support each other online. The University of Adelaide are running a free online course "Digital Technologies: Implementing the Australian Curriculum Learning Area".