Digital technologies / Year 5 and 6 / Digital Technologies Processes and Production Skills

Curriculum content descriptions

Design, modify and follow simple algorithms involving sequences of steps, branching, and iteration (repetition) (ACTDIP019)

Elaborations
  • following a diagram of a simple method of sorting numbers or words
  • following, modifying and describing the design of a game involving simple algorithms represented diagrammatically or in English, for example creating a flowchart with software that uses symbols to show decisions, processes and inputs and outputs
  • experimenting with different ways of representing an instruction to make a choice, for example branches in a tree diagram or using an ‘IF’ statement (a common statement used to branch) to indicate making a choice between two different circumstances using a spreadsheet or a visual program
  • experimenting with different ways of representing an instruction to make a repetition, for example loops in a flowchart diagram or using a ‘REPEAT’ statement
  • designing the instructions for a robot, for example a robot vacuum cleaner to clean a room
  • using different design tools to record ways in which digital solutions will be developed, for example creating storyboards or flowcharts to record relationships or instructions about content or processes
General capabilities
  • Literacy Literacy
  • Numeracy Numeracy
  • Critical and creative thinking Critical and creative thinking
  • ICT capability Information and Communication Technology (ICT) capability
ScOT terms

Decision making,  Design,  Algorithms

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Flow Chart

This resource is a web page containing a sample flow chart. The flow chart shows multiple pathways depending on the answer to questions identified as a decision (diamond shape). A printable resource is also available to support the task. This resource is an activity from the NRICH website.

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Scratch 3.0 tutorial

This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions to support the learning of Scratch, a visual programming language. The tutorial is designed for educators who would like to learn how to use Scratch.

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Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies: years 5-6

This PDF provides a line of sight from content descriptions to achievement standards.

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Visual programming with Scratch: years 3-6

This comprises a collection of sample activities that incorporate visual programming (Scratch) into teaching and learning programs. They show the possibilities Scratch offers for integration. The projects are incomplete and are designed to be used as samples for inspiration or modification by teachers.

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Micro:bit missions: Take a chance on me (Integrating Mathematics): years 6-8

This resource comprises two activities that allow students to explore the concept of chance in Mathematics. Students use computational thinking while using a micro:bit as a digital system to generate and collect data. Students implement programs involving branching and iteration in visual and general-purpose programming languages.

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Computational thinking poster

This infographic provides an overview overview of the concepts related to computational thinking.

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Visual to text coding: Lesson 4

This is the fourth 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 combining of logical operators and and or for more complex decisions.

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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 ...

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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.

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Visual to text coding: Lesson 6

This is the sixth 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 builds on the previous introduction to arrays (also called lists) and brings in the length property.

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Visual to text coding: Lesson 7

This is the seventh 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 iteration (also called loops).

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Visual to text coding: Lesson 2

This is the second 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 make decisions (branching) and identify data types.

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Water Water everywhere!

In this lesson, students are presented with the challenging problem of measuring a volume of water using containers that are not the exact measurement size. Students will decompose a complex problem into discrete steps, design an algorithm for solving the problem, and evaluate solution efficiencies and optimization in a ...

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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 ...

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Computational thinking cut out cards

This set of printable cards provides definitions of six aspects of computational thinking.

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Scratch 2.0 tutorial

This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions to support the learning of Scratch, a visual programming language. The tutorial is designed for educators who would like to learn how to use Scratch.

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Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies key concepts mapping: years 5-6

This PDF uses colour coding to provide a line of sight between key concepts, content descriptions and achievement standards in the Digital Technologies subject in the Australian Curriculum.

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Classroom ideas: Choose your own adventure: years 3-6

This PDF provides a sequence of activities that allow students to view and create planning templates and algorithms when making 'Choose Your Own Adventure' stories. Older students can use the visual programming language Scratch to build their stories.

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Beautiful biomes

In this lesson students learn the features of the five main biomes, and use ClassVR headsets and CoSpaces to design and create a virtual biome to explore. They research and identify the features of a biome and then create their own virtual environment. The resource explores the human impacts on biodiversity and explore ...

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Classroom ideas: Micro:bit environmental measurement (visual and general-purpose programming): years 5-8

This tutorial shows ways in which environmental factors such as lighting and temperature can be measured and improved using micro:bits and sensor boards, and programmed using pseudocode, visual programming and general-purpose programming.