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Exploring digital systems with Makey Makey

In this activity, students learn about digital systems and how a circuit works using the Makey Makey toolkit. They sort conductive and nonconductive items into groups using an experimental approach. This lesson idea was created by Rebecca Vivian.

Online

COVID 19 Demystified course

At the end of this course, learners should be able to better understand the science and numbers behindCOVID-19 and the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes it. They should be able to discuss the pandemic with confidence, giving substantiated viewpoints on matters such as public policy with a willingness to accept other viewpoints. ...

Online

Game design

This sequence of lessons integrates game design using scratch and a Makey Makey programming board.

Online

Filter bubbles, bias, rabbit holes and nudging

This lesson focuses on the AI systems that recommend content in various applications that students use on a day-to-day basis. It draws on students’ ethical understandings during analysis of these systems. This lesson was developed by the Digital Technologies Institute in collaboration with the Digital Technologies Hub.

Online

AI image recognition - exploring limitations and bias

A hands-on activity to practise training and testing an artificial intelligence (AI) model, using cartoon faces, including a discussion about sources of potential algorithmic bias and how to respond to these sources.

Online

Programming people

Play a variation of the game ‘Simon Says’ to develop understanding of sequencing and instructions in programming.

Online

Take a LEGO building challenge

In pairs, explore giving and following a sequence of steps and decisions to build a LEGO® toy.

Online

Everything you always wanted to know…

In this lesson sequence students design, build and evaluate their own database and perform queries and build reports based on that database. Students should have prior experience creating a flat file database.

Online

Sphero: Catch me if you can

By years 5 and 6 many students may have had some experience with a visual programming language such as Scratch or Blockly that is the basis of the Hour of Code. Sphero will take the screen based control of an image to the next level by introducing a robotic device controlled by a visual programming language. This lesson ...

Online

Visual to text coding: Lesson 9

This is the ninth in a series of lessons to transition from visual coding to text-based coding with a General Purpose Programming language. This lesson may take two to three 45-minute periods. It explores creating powerful programs for managing and analysing data, by combining the previous skills of using loops and working ...

Online

Basic ball control with Sphero

Students are introduced to Sphero and its main features – direction, speed and colour. This lesson allows students to experiment through playing with Sphero and controlling it with the Sphero app. This lesson idea was created by Steven Payne.

Online

Describing an everyday object

In this lesson, students act like the inventor of an everyday object that does not yet exist. Students abstract the essential details, and describe what need would be fulfilled by the new object and how, specifically, it functions. They will then translate the description into a format appropriate for modeling the object ...

Online

Learning environments

This sequence of lessons explores how conditions in the environment can impact on learning. Through investigating the environmental influences on our classroom, and learning environments such as light, noise and temperature, students collect data and identify the optimal learning environment.

Online

Growing your own pizza

In this hypothetical exercise, young learners will explore what they would need to establish if they were to grow their very own pizza. The OUTCOMES of this learning activity are for children to: investigate where and how food is produced; appreciate the complexities of food manufacturing; expand their knowledge of food ...

Online

Creating a worm farm

Food and gardening scraps thrown into household bins becomes landfill. When food waste breaks down in landfill, it emits greenhouse gases including methane gas which traps heat in our atmosphere. Diverting this organic waste from landfill and into a worm farm or composting system is great for your garden and for our planet. ...

Online

Visual to text coding: Lesson 10

This is the tenth in a series of lessons to transition from visual coding to text-based coding with a General Purpose Programming language. This lesson may take two to three 45-minute periods. It introduces the coding concept of functions. Functions can help organise code, reduce repetition and more to be explored later.

Online

Visual to text coding: Lesson 1

This is the first in a series of lessons to transition from visual coding to text-based coding with a general-purpose programming language. This lesson may take two to three 45-minute periods. It introduces how to create variables, get user input and perform maths operations.

Online

Home automation programming (yrs 5-6)

Investigate home automation systems, including those powered by artificial intelligence (AI) with speech recognition capability. These suggested activities provide a level of differentiation to cater for students’ range of programming skills. They were developed in collaboration with the Digital Technologies Institute.

Online

Future proofing data

This lesson sequence aims to identify strengths and weaknesses of past, present and future methods of data storage and recognise the risks and benefits for users. Students explore specific “data dilemmas”.

Online

Weather forecast from the stratosphere

This lesson sequence is designed to introduce students to data analysis using a spreadsheet such as MS Excel. The project is based on a real world problem and a real data set from a weather balloon launched in Australia earlier this year. The project consists of 5 lessons of variable length, each with a different focus. ...