Digital Passport - Change is coming....

During these school holidays I've been working my way through a digital passport (offered by MindLab). This year, there have been changes to the New Zealand Curriculum. Digital Technologies will be fully integrated into the curriculum from 2018 with teachers having to cover two key areas; computational thinking and designing and developing digital outcomes. 

So what does this mean for me and my practice?

While I am somewhat familiar with digital technologies, and have enjoyed the workshops offered by MindLab I am still considering how I can implement what I have learned in these modules into my new entrant class. 

The idea of computational thinking and designing and developing digital outcomes intrigues me. However, the implementation of this into my practice and with the young children I work with seems problematic, especially with my interest in the work of Gill Connell and Moving Smart work. The workshop suggests that I use Scratch with my young children. I have tried this with 5 year olds before and it doesn't seem to be as straight forward as suggested. So it may be more effective if I look at 'coding' offline. I found some examples here, here and here. I will most likely introduce coding through physical movement to ensure that children get the "bottom of the bucket" as outlined in Get Ready for School and computational thinking as outlined in the Digital Technologies Curriculum.