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Learning in Digital Technologies focuses on further developing understanding and skills in computational thinking such as identifying similarities in different problems and describing smaller components of complex systems. It also focuses on the sustainability of information systems for current and future uses.
By the end of Year 6, students will have had opportunities to create a range of digital solutions, such as games or quizzes and interactive stories and animations.
In Year 5 and 6, students develop an understanding of the role individual components of digital systems play in the processing and representation of data. They acquire, validate, interpret, track and manage various types of data and are introduced to the concept of data states in digital systems and how data are transferred between systems.
They learn to further develop abstractions by identifying common elements across similar problems and systems and develop an understanding of the relationship between models and the real-world systems they represent.
When creating solutions, students define problems clearly by identifying appropriate data and requirements. When designing, they consider how users will interact with the solutions, and check and validate their designs to increase the likelihood of creating working solutions. Students increase the sophistication of their algorithms by identifying repetition and incorporate repeat instructions or structures when implementing their solutions through visual programming, such as reading user input until an answer is guessed correctly in a quiz. They evaluate their solutions and examine the sustainability of their own and existing information systems.
Students progress from managing the creation of their own ideas and information for sharing to working collaboratively. In doing so, they learn to negotiate and develop plans to complete tasks. When engaging with others, they take personal and physical safety into account, applying social and ethical protocols that acknowledge factors such as social differences and privacy of personal information. They also develop their skills in applying technical protocols such as devising file naming conventions that are meaningful and determining safe storage locations to protect data and information.
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Hiding details of an idea, problem or solution that are not relevant, to focus on a manageable number of aspects.
Abstraction does not appear explicitly in the content descriptions.
However, abstraction underpins the design and progression of content descriptions between band levels for each concept.
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Peripherals and components
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Components are the parts of digital systems. Peripherals connect to digital systems to extend their functionality.
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Students can explain how digital systems are made up of other parts e.g. tablets contain things like screens, batteries and processors that together make the device useful.
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Forming networks
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Different systems can be connected to one another, allowing them to send information between them.
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Students can describe how networks are formed by connecting separate devices together.
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Transmit data
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Send and receive data to and from digital systems.
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Students can describe how data is sent through a network, and how the data is transferred indirectly from the source to the destination, often through many other devices on its way to the end point. Different devices on the network contribute to this process in different ways.
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The content descriptions do not explicitly address Security in band 5-6.
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Whole number representation
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All data can be represented as whole numbers, regardless of its original form.
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Students can describe how all systems convert data into numeric values, such as whole numbers used to map to characters in Unicode.
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Data types in Digital Systems
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The same data can be represented in different ways, and the way it is represented has implications for how it can be used by digital systems.
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Students can explain different representations of data as they appear in digital systems, and understand that even things such as movies need to be converted into numbers to be processed.
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The content descriptions do not explicitly address Compression in band 5-6.
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Acquire data
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Generate or obtain data from existing or potential data sources.
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Students can generate data of various types through their own experiments and investigations.
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Store data
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Record data in a format that allows it to be easily accessed or obtained.
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Students can describe how the data they have acquired can be stored in different ways using different representations and/or software, and select the most suitable representation is important.
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Validate data
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Ensuring data is "clean" - i.e. correct and useful to the problem being solved.
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Students can determine, after collecting the data, whether it is correct (e.g. did people answer questions properly) and how well it addresses the problem they were attempting to solve.
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Interpret data
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Organise data to answer questions.
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Students can work with data that requires some simple processing using software. This could be in the form of things such as simple spreadsheet calculations or using data in code. They draw conclusions about the data as a result of this processing.
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Visualise data
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Display data in various ways that either assists with understanding its meaning or allows for new meaning to be inferred.
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Students can develop visualisations through software tools, such as heat maps, infographics or other forms of communication, as well as producing graphs or tables to present data.
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Describe problems
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Determining the nature and description of a problem to be solved.
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Students can define problems that are similar to those they are familiar with, allowing them to draw on their previous experiences. In this band, problems should have more than one outcome (i.e. they should include a decision that will lead to a result that differs from another)
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Requirements and constraints
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The parameters and limitations that help to define the boundaries or restrictions of the problem's scope.
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Students can articulate the details of the problem that is being solved (i.e its purpose) as well as the data they need to be able to solve it.
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Follow algorithms
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Follow an ordered sequence of steps to solve a simple problem or complete a task.
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Students can follow an algorithm and understand how the problem is being solved.
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Design and modify algorithms
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Changing a sequence of instructions to alter the resulting output from the same inputs the next time the sequence is followed.
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Students can take an existing algorithm and change it so that it solves a derivative problem from the original one. This may include expanding the scope of the problem (e.g. adding additional conditions to branching statements) or changing some of the steps to generate a variant of the output.
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Represent algorithms
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Represent a clear, ordered sequence of steps using words and images.
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Students can represent algorithmic solutions using greater sophistication and more detail for each step in the algorithm, and use additional features such as iteration.
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Sequence of steps
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An sequence of steps (instructions) where order might or might not matter.
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Student can describe the sequence of steps in an algorithm in more detail, breaking the task down into smaller, more specific steps.
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Branching (decisions)
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Branching involves following different steps based on a yes/no decision.
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Students can develop decisions in algorithms that deal with more generalised cases and account for edge-cases and multiple requirements (for example, making any type of sandwich, factoring in dietary requirements)
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Iteration
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Specifying that a sequence of instructions are to be repeated as long as the result of testing a specific condition is true.
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Students can describe algorithms in greater detail by using iteration (doing things multiple times) to ensure that a task is complete before moving onto the next task. For example, keep spreading the butter until the whole piece of bread is covered.
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Implement Digital Solutions
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Turn an algorithm into a program (code) for a computer to run. Coding is a synonym for computer programming.
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Students can write the code to solve a simple problem.
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Branching
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Implementing a decision in a programming language, usually using an if or if-else statement.
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Students can implement decisions in their programs that include multiple outcomes (else-if statements) and nested logic.
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Iteration
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Implementing a block of instructions in a programming language that is repeated based on some kind of test condition. These include looping constructs such as while, for and repeat until.
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Students can implement loops in their program that repeat a given number of times, continue until a certain condition is met, and may include variables and values that change inside the loop and trigger its exit condition.
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Visual programming
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Writing a program using a visual programming language, usually some kind of block-based interface.
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Students can create programs using visual programming languages that contain complex logic and behave correctly with greater variations in input and user interaction.
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Student solutions
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The answers and products students develop themselves as solutions to problems.
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Students can evaluate the effectiveness of their own solutions to address the identified problem, or how the solution improves an aspect of their lives.
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Information systems
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A combination of digital systems, data, processes, and people that interact to create, control, and communicate information.
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Students can investigate a wider range of systems that help society operate through undertaking their own research.
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Current users
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People and groups that are using the system now to meet a present need.
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Students can explain how the design of a solution takes into account the characteristics of the people who will be most likely to use it.
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Future users
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People and groups that are likely to want to use the system in the future, possibly to address an as yet undetermined need, or a change in current needs.
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Students can predict the expected long-term requirements of a solution by extrapolating who the potential users will be in the future, and how this informs the flexibility and adaptability of the design to account for any likely changes.
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Needs
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The impact digital systems have had on our ability to solve a range of problems that enrich and enhance our lives.
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Students can explain how existing systems meet the immediate needs of users, and how this influences their design and implementation. This is best achieved through study of existing systems, and explicit teaching when developing their own solutions. Introducing the idea that systems need to be designed for any foreseeable change helps students identify who potential future users are, but also how they might need to introduce flexibility or breadth of scope into their designs.
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Sustainability
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A broad interpretation of sustainability looks at many aspects of digital systems that make them viable over the long term, including their environmental impacts, economics and profitability, technical developments and changes, and social perceptions.
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Students can understand how a broad interpretation of sustainability must be considered when evaluating the effectiveness of a solution. Scaffolding and prompting them to help understand a range of issues is likely to be necessary in this band. Asking very specific questions is a good strategy to help them understand that long term viability of systems hinges on a range of factors.
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Create and communicate ideas and information
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Using digital technologies to manipulate data and present a product.
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Students can reflect on their progress against their plan and explain how what they learn and discover changes from their initial thinking is a part of the creation process. Students should be challenged to check the correctness of their conclusions at each stage of the process, ensuring their understanding of ideas and information is deeper and more thorough than may otherwise be the case.
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Safety
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Publishing information in a safe online environment to people you interact with regularly.
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Technical protocols
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Agreed upon rules and guidelines that determine the technologies and technical approaches the group will use to collaborate on a project, such as programming languages, development platforms and style guides.
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Students can think deeply about the technical decisions they make when developing their solutions and collaborating. These include things such as decisions about how files are named and where they are stored (e.g. cloud vs local), platforms and programming languages they may be using to create their solutions, and the implications of their choices for their peers and users.
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Planning
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Developing an approach, strategy or identifying sources useful to investigate a problem and/or develop a solution.
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Students can describe their plans by specifying the steps they intend to take to solve their problem and how long it might take to find the answers to questions they are investigating. This introduces the idea of projects being things that don't start and end immediately.
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Collaborate
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Using online tools that facilitate text, audio and video communication to interact with other people working on a common project.
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Students can use online tools to collaborate both in real-time and asynchronously, and learn the benefits and challenges associated with each. They should be complementing online collaboration with face-to-face opportunities where possible, and those meetings could include discussion of the challenges they are learning about and how they may be addressed.
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Social and ethical protocols
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Agreed upon rules and guidelines that encourage behaving with integrity and respect when interacting and communicating with others. Agreed upon rules and guidelines that allow all members to feel comfortable and safe when working together.
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Students can act honestly and with integrity in their interactions with others, and consider the appropriateness of how data is used and the implications of poor data privacy for the users of solutions. Students can explain how their actions have consequences for their relationships with others, and are empathetic to any social experiences and beliefs that may differ between members in the group. They consider how these need to be factored into both their solutions and their collaborative relationships.
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User Interfaces
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Characteristics and elements of the digital system that determine how the user interacts with it. Includes things like buttons and prompts for text entry.
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Students can demonstrate their thinking and understanding of how interactions could take place without the complexity of programming or application use that may be beyond their experience at this stage. The focus should be on how the interfaces they design facilitate interaction, and their ability to communicate the reasons behind their design decisions.
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