The Australian Curriculum: Technologies Foundation to Year 10 comprises 2 subjects:
- Design and Technologies, in which students use design thinking and technologies to generate and produce designed solutions for authentic needs and opportunities
- Digital Technologies, in which students use computational thinking and information systems to define, design and implement digital solutions for authentic problems.
Technologies ensures that all students benefit from learning about and working with the traditional, contemporary and emerging technologies that shape our world. Students have opportunities to consider the impact of technological solutions on equity including unconscious bias, ethics, and personal and social values.
By applying their knowledge and practical skills and processes when using technologies and other resources, students create innovative solutions. In creating solutions, as well as responding to the designed world, students consider desirable sustainable patterns of living, and contribute to preferred futures for themselves and others. They work independently and collaboratively to develop knowledge, understanding and skills to respond creatively to current and future needs and opportunities.
Learning in Technologies is also important for a diverse and capable science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce. STEM learning involves explicit teaching of knowledge and skills in each learning area: Science, Technologies and Mathematics.
Aims
Technologies aims to develop the knowledge, understanding and skills to ensure that, individually and collaboratively, students:
- investigate, design, plan, manage, create and evaluate solutions
- are creative, innovative and enterprising when using traditional, contemporary and emerging technologies, and understand how technologies have developed over time
- make informed and ethical decisions about the role, impact and use of technologies in their own lives, the economy, environment and society for a sustainable future
- engage confidently with and responsibly select and manipulate appropriate technologies – tools, equipment, processes, materials, data, systems and components − when designing and creating solutions
- analyse and evaluate needs, opportunities or problems to identify and create solutions.
Structure
Technologies is presented in 2-year band levels from Year 1 to Year 10, with Prep being presented as a single year.
Content in Design and Technologies and Digital Technologies is organised under 2 related strands:
- Knowledge and understanding
- Processes and production skills.
Under each strand, curriculum content is further organised into sub-strands.
Students apply skills from the Processes and production skills strand to the content from the Knowledge and understanding strand. The similar strand structure of each subject supports an integrated approach to teaching Technologies.
Learning in Technologies is about: creating solutions for preferred futures using systems and data; design thinking, systems thinking and computational thinking; and technologies processes and production skills, project management skills, and enterprise skills and innovation; taking into account interactions and impact.
The learning area of Technologies is provided by two Specialist teachers (Prep - Year 2, Years 3 – 6) to all students from Prep to Year 6.
Our Technologies specialist teachers are responsible for planning, teaching, assessing and reporting on AC V9 Technologies.
The Minimum Requirements for Providing the Australian Curriculum provides clarity around the time that teachers are required to spend implementing the Technologies Learning Area.