DFI 8 - Computational Thinking

Our first part of today's programme went into 'The Empowered Kaupapa' with Dorothy.  This was interesting as it made me rethink the misguided interpretation of technology from a teachers perspective, that 'technology is just a tool'.   I now know that this isn't the case as technology has transformed the way in which we and our learners learn.

From here, we looked at 'Future Tech' with Gerhard.  The main idea that I got from this kaupapa, was how technology has/is/will change vastly.  The 'Moral Machine' activity was hard to do as it wanted your perspective on a range of driving scenarios by self-driving cars. It was difficult to decide what course/s of action that these cars should make as the scenarios involved injuries to either the car and/or pedestrians.

We had a bit of time after Kerry delivered her talk on computational thinking and Hangarau Matihiko to browse through some computational thinking resources.  I liked some of the resources, particularly Kia Taukatū ā `Matihiko Digital Readiness. This programme was developed to ensure that teachers were well supported in implementing the new digital technology content (2020).  The toolkit section is a space where teachers can go to get  support through partaking in the sequence of courses.  Each course gives a brief introduction, video (if available), information and which progress outcome/s it links too. As a teacher, I would definitely use this resource, especially, as it provides teaching material to support my students and I.  However, more time is needed to get a grip on the orientation of this resource & its programme content.

Before we got to do the fun part of 'coding', we got to try out some basic coding from a list that was provided for us.  Lightbot was easy to do and so I moved onto Scratchjr.  I wasn't very good at this activity because it had pictures instead of words for coding.  This frustrated me.  The real fun was when we split into groups based on what coding activity we wanted to do.  I chose to do the 'Mihi maker' activity.  This was a game where the coding was pre-done, with a section of the code left blank to write parts of your pepeha.  I had some trouble, but I eventually figured it out by myself or from having read the help.  However my completed pepeha has given me grief as I am having a mental block and cannot for the life of me remember how to embed it onto my blog.  If I do get it on, it would have been my..... 23rd attempt.  

So, the end result is this.  I ended up doing a screencastify and embedding the code from here.

However, since first having posted this blog, I have been informed that no one could view my screencastify of my Pepeha using Mihi Maker. I have now rectified the problem and it is good to go.
 
Whakatauki: He rā whatiwhati kō (A day of hard work)