The Technological Practice Strand Explanatory Papers Updated May 2010
Brief Development
Junior Secondary (Years 9-10)
Learning experiences
The following learning experiences have been provided to support teachers as they develop their understandings of the Brief Development component of the Technological Practice strand. There is no expectation that these would form the basis of any specific unit of work in technology. The learning experiences have been summarised from classrooms across New Zealand, and provide examples of student achievement across a range of levels. This stance reflects the majority of classrooms within which it is expected that students will demonstrate a range of levels of achievement.
A year 10 class was given the context of issues affecting the wider ICT community, from which they had to select an issue of particular concern. From this issue, the students undertook brief development to support the creation of an informative kiosk presentation for an identified target audience focussed on the issue. In creating their presentation, students applied the concepts learnt in a previous unit and how to manipulate digital images using Fireworks to enhance their presentation. For details of this unit please see the Junior ICT Programme case study.
Students achieving at level 3 could:
- describe the opportunity focussed on;
- describe what the nature of the information kiosk in terms of what they wanted it to be like and what they wanted it to do and explain how this reflected the concern identified;
- describe the key attributes required for a presentation to a target audience, in ways that allowed them and their teacher to evaluate their progress and final outcome; and
- refine their conceptual statement and key attributes as they developed greater knowledge of the issue, skills in manipulation digital images and their target audience.
Students achieving at level 4 could:
- identify an opportunity and establish a conceptual statement outlining their presentation based on this;
- justify the focus and nature of their presentation, based on understandings of the issue, its impact on the ICT community and the target audience;
- establish key attributes for their presentation as a starting point for development work;
- refine their conceptual statement and key attributes as they undertook further research into the issue, experimented with design, typography and image manipulation and trialled material in different forms to gain feedback from members of their target audience, about the impact of animations and other effects on the development of understandings of the focus issue; and
- describe the key attributes required for their presentation, in terms of aesthetics and performance, in ways that allowed them, their teacher and members of their target audience to provide feedback on their progress and the fitness for purpose of their final outcome.
Students achieving at level 5 could:
- identify an opportunity and establish a conceptual statement based on this and an understanding of the intended audience;
- justify the focus and nature of their presentation, based on understandings of the issue, its impact on the ICT community and feedback gained from key stakeholders representative of their target audience;
- develop specifications for their presentation from identified attributes ensuring that each specification allows for a standardised evaluation to be undertaken;
- refine their conceptual statement and specifications as they undertook further research into the issue and its impact on the wider ICT community, developed further skills and understandings of presentation design, typography and image manipulation and gained evidence from key stakeholders of how both the information and its presentation impacted (positively and/or negatively) on the development of understandings of the issue; and
- describe final specifications for their presentation in terms of aesthetics and performance that allowed them, their teacher and key members of their target audience to provide feedback on their progress and the fitness for purpose of their final outcome.
