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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 included in a digital system. Peripherals connect to a digital system to extend its functionality.
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Students explain how digital systems are made up of parts (e.g. a tablet includes a screen, battery, processor etc.) that perform specific functions (e.g. the processor controls the tablet, performs calculations, and manipulates data).
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Connecting digital systems
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Different systems can be connected to one another to exchange information.
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Students explain how separate systems can be connected in different ways (e.g. cables or wireless) to exchange data (e.g. connecting a computer to an online gaming server).
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Transmit data
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Send and receive data to and from digital systems.
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Students describe the way data is structured (e.g. broken up into small pieces) and transmitted through a network (e.g. passes from the source, through multiple devices, to the destination).
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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 in digital systems.
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Students represent data using whole numbers (e.g. converting letters in a message to numbers using their position in the alphabet) and recognise this is how digital systems represent data.
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Data types
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Data types define how data is represented and the operations that can change it.
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Students explain how the data type used to represent data (e.g. number, string) changes the operations you can perform on it (e.g. adding numbers performs addition, adding strings joins them).
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Acquire data
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Gather new data and obtain existing data.
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Students collect a range of data (e.g. surveying friends and family, recording temperature and rainfall data) and access data from online databases (e.g. Bureau of Meteorology).
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Store data
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Record data in ways that allows it to be easily accessed and manipulated.
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Students store data using specialised and general software (e.g. survey tools and spreadsheets) appropriate for how it will be accessed and manipulated (e.g. survey tools summarise results, while spreadsheets allow further analysis).
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Validate data
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Ensure data is correct and meaningful for the question being answered.
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Students create rules to determine whether the data is correct (e.g. the height of an adult can be between 50cm and 270cm) and ready for analysis (e.g. all measured in centimetres).
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Interpret data
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Organise data to answer questions.
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Students reveal patterns by classifying, grouping, and sorting data (e.g. a team rarely wins when playing away) and make predictions (e.g. when playing at home with a big crowd the team is more likely to win).
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Visualise data
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Present data to reveal patterns, trends, outliers, or other information.
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Students visualise data using graphs (e.g. a scatter plot of student race times with age) and diagrams (e.g. a cricket wagon wheel showing where a player scores runs) to reveal trends.
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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 use provided stimulus (e.g. newspaper articles, information brochures) to identify a problem and write a problem statement (e.g. people get hurt in bushfires when they are unprepared. How can we help them be better prepared?)
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Requirements and constraints
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What a solution is required to do to solve the problem, and the constraints on that solution.
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Students describe what a solution needs to do to solve a problem (e.g. inform people about the steps they need to take to prepare for a bushfire) and the data available to solve it (e.g. the fire danger rating).
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The content descriptions do not explicitly address Decomposition in band 5-6.
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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 follow the steps, decisions, and loops in algorithms (e.g. repeating the steps to add two digits for each column in multi-digit addition), and know what step they are up to (e.g. know which column they are adding and when to stop).
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Represent algorithms
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Represent a clear, ordered sequence of steps and decisions using words and images.
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Students describe algorithms using procedural language (e.g. repeat until all items are scanned, or if it is hot then wear a hat, otherwise wear a jumper) and flowcharts (e.g. rectangles for steps and diamonds for decisions).
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Design and modify algorithms
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Design an algorithm, or modify an existing one, to fix an error or change functionality.
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Students design an algorithm (e.g. to decide when to water a garden) or understand and modify an existing algorithm to fix an error (e.g. watering when the soil is too wet) or change functionality (e.g. taking into account humidity as well as soil moisture level).
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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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Students describe more than one sequence of steps that solve the same problem (e.g. specifying the exact route through a maze vs. using the right-hand rule) , and can explain why one is better than the other (e.g. the right-hand rule is a general algorithm that works for all mazes).
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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 describe a decision that has more than two options (e.g. selecting transport i.e. if distance < 2km then walk, else if distance < 5km then ride, else catch the bus) to select the next step.
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Iteration
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Iteration involves repeating a sequence of steps until a condition is met.
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Students describe algorithms that repeat one or more steps a fixed number of times (e.g. recite number facts from 1 to 12) or until a condition is met (e.g. keep mixing until the ingredients are combined).
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Implement Digital Solutions
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Translate 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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Test Digital Solutions
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Define the expected (correct) behaviour for given input and check a program against it.
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Students state the expected behaviour of a program (e.g. when I press the left arrow key, the cat should move left), run the program to check it is correct, and fix any errors (e.g. they change 10 to -10 to alter the direction).
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Branching
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Branching involves making a decision in a program to choose which block of code is run.
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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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Iteration involves repeatedly running a block of code until a condition is met.
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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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A computer program represented graphically in a block-based environment.
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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 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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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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Cyber safety
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Choosing what personal information about yourself and others should be shared online and with whom.
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Students protect their online identity and manage access to personal and collaborative online work (e.g. adding collaborators to a shared document rather than giving others your username and password).
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Social and ethical protocols
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Agreed behaviours enabling all participants to feel included, respected, and valued when interacting with each other.
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Students collectively define and act on community standards (e.g. moderating language and behaviour in an online class forum) and value the work of others (e.g. not deleting the work of collaborators and respecting the intellectual property of others).
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Technical protocols
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The technical practices and conventions used to create, organise and manage information.
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Students follow technical practices and conventions to organise and manage their personal and collaborative work efficiently (e.g. naming files sensibly, organising them in folders, and choosing where they are stored).
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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 do not start and end immediately.
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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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The content descriptions do not explicitly address Evaluate designs in band 5-6.
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