Technology

What is Technology About?

Kaua e rangiruatia te hāpai o te hoe; e kore tō tātou waka e ū ki uta.

Don’t paddle out of unison; or our canoe will never reach the shore.

Technology is intervention by design. It uses intellectual and practical resources to create technological outcomes, which expand human possibilities by addressing needs and realising opportunities.

Design is characterised by innovation and adaptation and is at the heart of technological practice. It is informed by critical and creative thinking and specific design processes. Effective and ethical design respects the unique relationship that New Zealanders have with their physical environment and embraces the significance of Māori culture and world views in its practice and innovation.

Technology makes enterprising use of knowledge, skills and practices for exploration and communication, some specific to areas within technology and some from other disciplines. These include digitally-aided design, programming, software development, various forms of technological modelling, and visual literacy – the ability to make sense of images and the ability to make images that make sense.

Why Study Technology?

With its focus on design thinking, technology education supports students to be innovative, reflective and critical in designing new models, products, software, systems and tools to benefit people while taking account of their impact on cultural, ethical, environmental and economic conditions.

The aim is for students to develop broad technological knowledge, practices and dispositions that will equip them to participate in society as informed citizens and provide a platform for technology-related careers. Students learn that technology is the result of human activity by exploring stories and experiences from their heritage, from Aotearoa New Zealand’s rich cultural environment, and from contemporary examples of technology. As they learn in technology, students draw on and further develop the key competencies.

Strands

Although the three strands are described separately below, in reality they are almost always integrated in teaching and learning programmes.

In Technological Practice, students examine the practice of others and undertake their own. They develop a range of outcomes, including concepts, plans, briefs, technological models, and fully realised products or systems. Students investigate issues and existing outcomes and use the understandings gained, together with design principles and approaches, to inform their own practice. They also learn to consider ethics, legal requirements, protocols, codes of practice, and the needs of and potential impacts on stakeholders and the environment.

Students develop Technological Knowledge particular to technological enterprises and environments and in relation to how and why things work. They learn how functional modelling is used to evaluate design ideas and how prototyping is used to evaluate the fitness for purpose of systems and products as they are developed. An understanding of material properties, uses and development is essential to understanding how and why products work the way they do. Similarly, an understanding of the constituent parts of systems and how these work together is essential to understanding how and why systems operate in the way they do.

For the Nature of Technology, students develop an understanding of technology as a discipline and of how it differs from other disciplines. They learn to critique the impact of technology on societies and the environment and to explore how developments and outcomes are valued by different peoples in different times. As they do so, they come to appreciate the socially embedded nature of technology and become increasingly able to engage with current and historical issues and to explore future scenarios.

What’s changed in the technology learning area?

New content with a focus on progression

Two digital technological areas – Computational thinking and Designing and developing digital outcomes – have been added to the technology learning area. These are supported by progress outcomes, exemplars (for curriculum levels 1–5), and snapshots (for levels 6 and above). You can find the progress outcomes, exemplars, and snapshots on Technology Online.

The inclusion of progress outcomes for digital technologies is the first time learning progressions have been formally introduced into The New Zealand Curriculum. The progress outcomes alert teachers to significant learning for their students as they develop their expertise in digital technologies, learning that mustn’t be left to chance.

Along with the achievement objectives, the progress outcomes provide a comprehensive picture of what learning looks like across the breadth of technology, while supporting teachers to notice and respond to their students’ progress.