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Our new baby - "Matihiko"

Next year, 2021, we will start teaching a new class we have called "Matihiko". Matihiko, a Te Reo -Maori word, means Digital. It has been a long process to get here, even to come up with a name. But I am very excited to be this close to teaching our first classes.

The background

Changes to the NZ Technology curriculum saw the addition of two new areas added "Computational Thinking" (CT) and "Designing and developing digital outcomes" (DDDO). Anyone who is across this will be very familiar with these two areas now. This came from years of research and work by a number of groups including Min of Education, industry, tertiary education and teachers associations. The need is there for our future contributors to society to have vital skills and understanding in Digital Technologies and they think ALL students should at least have a chance to learn these skills. 

Why a new course?

We have a strong and well established Digital Technologies department. We are lucky! There is a place at our school for students who intend to be software developers, computer scientists, digital graphic artists, animators, mechatronics engineers or more.

But some students are leaving our school without knowing what coding is and how it might be used in their jobs or how to select the best tool to create a digital outcome for a particular purpose. Which was the intention of the two new areas.

This course needed to be different from our current program, it needs to meet the needs of all students and it also needed to fit the timetable! We were offered a 1 period a week class - we'll take it! Thank you. Now, how to make the most of that 1 hour?

What is this course about?

Number 1 is meeting the curriculum.
Number 2 is transferable skills.
Number 3 is avoiding barriers such as specific device/software requirements. 

As a department we worked on a scheme - think hours backwards and forwards, lots of scribbling and crossing out, lots of scratching heads and lollies. We came up with an awesome matrix I am really happy with as Version 1.0.

1 - The 3 units. Put simply these are (1)Set up, (2)DDDO, (3)CT. But we've made them way more exciting than that! (sorry - that will be another post)

2 - HHS e-skills, a list of skills we want a HHS student to have by year 11. This came from input from all departments in our school, some feedback from parents and research of essential digital skills. We want as many of these covered in every lesson as possible.

3 - Logistics. We have limited computers, but we are a BYOD Google school. All units have been designed around browser based tools including the Google suite. We can teach this course anywhere - even online if we need to!

Why "Matihiko"?

Naming this course was so tough! Right from the start we knew this course would not replace our more in-depth year 9 and 10 Digital Technologies courses. Lots of different ideas... but the only one which was short, is different enough from DT, but still keeps the essence of what the course is - Matihiko. Add to that, I really love that we use more Te Reo at our kura.

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Implementing Matihiko

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