Tai Wānanga’s Digital Technology Curriculum
According to one report, 46% of the New Zealand workforce faces a high risk of computerisation. That’s 885,000 kiwi workers who will find their jobs automated over the next 20 years. This statistic is particularly concerning for us, given that in a 2014 report, only 2.5% of the Māori workforce is employed in the ICT sector, with less than 1% of Māori people studying for ICT qualifications.
At Tai Wānanga we recognise the impact technology is having on society and work, and the importance for our students to acquire knowledge in these areas, so they can confidently pursue careers in these sectors. We want to adequately equip our students to be leaders in an increasingly digital world, where they can utilise the tools of digital technology to solve the challenges of the future.
To achieve this we have designed a curriculum that we believe encompasses the main areas of digital technology:
- Digital Media Creation
- Programming Languages
- Electronic Hardware & Digital Fabrication
This is a school wide curriculum that sees all Tai Wānanga students work on projects in each of these identified strands. The goal here is to expose students to the many and varied areas of digital technology, with the aim to pique student interest in specific areas that align with their strengths and interests.
Once this specific area or areas are identified by the student and teacher, we then customise their learning to develop technical skills in this area, nurturing their interest into a passion, which generates experience and confidence, that ultimately results into a potential digital technology career pathway.
Some of the student projects lined up for 2018 are…
- Tai Wānanga TV (Digital Media Creation)
For this project we will ask students; “If you had a YouTube channel, what would it be about?” This could include anything from Te Reo Māori lessons, to tips for fitness & healthy living, to school sporting news and weekly round-ups. The exciting thing is that the student’s channel is a vehicle for them to share what they are passionate about with a global audience.
Skills our students will learn from this project include: Idea generation, Planning, Set production including lighting and sound, Video production including camera angles and video-editing, Project Management.
- Individual profile website & Sports Stats Tracker (Programming Languages)
After learning HTML5 and CSS, all our students will code their own personal profile website. This will detail their career aspirations, achievements, sporting statistics, reflective blog and project links.
Senior students will expand on this by also learning JavaScript and jQuery. Senior students will apply this knowledge to code a web-based interface that can help record player performance statistics. When at a sports game, their web-based app can be opened, on a mobile or iPad and can assign a stat point for a player, displaying that statistic to the corresponding student’s profile website in real-time.
Skills students will learn from this project include: Complete front-end web development. Design thinking, Agile software engineering methodology.
- Internet of Things (IoT) (Electronic Hardware and Digital Fabrication)
Students will gain hands-on experience programming microcontrollers, sensors, and actuators, to create autonomous data logging systems. This experience will enable them to create custom-built IoT devices, to be deployed on the Manawatū river to monitor water temperature, speed, clarity, and levels.
Senior students can develop this further by approaching surrounding rural neighbours interested in implementing IoT solutions on their properties/farms. This creates the possibility of generating a revenue stream to the school for those students able to utilise this skill.
Skills taiohi will learn from this project: Electronic circuitry, IoT development, data analytics, business and marketing application.
By creating engaging and relevant contexts for learning, Tai Wānanga students will discover how digital technology can be applied in a very practical sense. We hope this curriculum is the catalyst needed to inspire our Māori students to pursue careers in digital technology sectors.
You can follow our progress on our Facebook pages:
