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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Creating a digital game

This is a unit for Year 6 from the Scope and sequence resources from the DT Hub. The topic of creating a digital solution is organised into four key elements. Use this flow of activities to plan and assess students against the relevant achievement standards. Students follow the problem solving process to design and create ...

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Game-based learning

Find out about Game-based learning. Use this topic from the Digital Technologies Hub to learn more, get ideas about how to teach about it, find out what other schools are doing and use the applications and games in the classroom.

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Robotics

Find out about robotics. Use this topic from the Digital Technologies Hub to learn more, get ideas about how to teach about it, find out what other schools are doing and use the applications and games in the classroom.

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Data Representation

Find out about Data Representation. Use this topic from the Digital Technologies Hub to learn more, get ideas about how to teach about it, find out what other schools are doing and use the applications and games in the classroom.

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Visual programming

Find out about Visual programming. Use this topic from the Digital Technologies Hub to learn more, get ideas about how to teach about it, find out what other schools are doing and use the applications and games in the classroom.

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Visual to text coding: Lesson 5

This is the fifth 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 and use arrays (also called lists).

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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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Can a computer recognise your sentiment?

This lesson plan enables students to explore how Natural Language Processing (NLP), a subset of Artificial Intelligence (AI), is used to assess and categorise a user’s online comments. (AI is the ability of machines to mimic human capabilities in a way that we would consider 'smart'.)

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Visual to text coding: Index page

This lesson sequence provides a bridge between visual coding (eg. Scratch) and General Purpose Programming languages (eg. Python or JavaScript). This resource is most suitable if you have never done General Purpose Programming and/or you benefit from slow-paced, step-by-step video tutorials.

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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 ...

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Ciphering a sentence

A cipher is a message that has been written in such a way (encoded) that it is unreadable by others. In this lesson, students will use mapping to encode a sentence. Students will work with a partner to create an algorithm that describes the encryption process. They will also examine encoded and decoded messages to recognize ...

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Learning to loop

Students create algorithms with a condition that tells the computer to repeat a sequence of instructions.

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Note the music

We can program a computer to play music. Conventionally this is done by hard coding, which is the process of coding all possible expected behaviours. Alternatively, we can train an artificial intelligence (AI) computer about what notes go well with others, so it can play a duet with a human musician. Students can make their ...

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Heads or tails

In this lesson we show how to transition from a visual based programming language to using a text-based programming language using the example of a heads or tails coin toss application.

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Check out the checkout

This sequence of lessons explores how to incorporate user input, decision-making and loops in programming using the context of a shopping experience, particularly the checkout. It combines data in the form of a barcode and programming choices.

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Scratch Creative Computing Guide

There is also a series of units comprising learning activities, paired with assessment activities and templates that can be used to support use of the Scratch (MIT) platform. The Scratch Creative Computing Guide supports assessment activities with visual programming environments.

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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 8

This is the eighth 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 brings together skills from the previous lessons to design and develop a Higher Lower game, where the player tries to guess ...

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Makey Makey Orchestra

In this learning sequence students explore an orchestra and use Makey Makey to make a musical instrument for an ensemble.

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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.