Teacher Guidance Level 1

To support students to develop understanding of Characteristics of Technology at Level 1, teachers could:

• provide opportunities for students to discuss what is meant by the made world and the natural world.
• provide students with examples of technologists and guide them to identify the sort of things they do as part of their technological practice. Technological practice involves the defining practices underpinning the development of a brief, the organising practices underpinning planning, and the production and evaluation practices involved in the development of an outcome that is fit for purpose as defined by the brief.
• guide students to identify that the purpose of technology is to design and create outcomes to carry out specific functions.

Indicators of Progression

Teaching Strategy

Explanation

Identify that technology involves people designing and creating technological outcomes for an identified purpose.

Use pictures of products or actual objects and discuss what they do.

What is the product's/object's purpose?

Walking activity.

Go for a walk and identify objects that are a result of technology and those that are not. Identify the characteristics that make objects a technology.
Students bring in toys from home and discuss things such as:

• Why was this toy made?
• What may have the technologist been thinking in making the toy?

Visit to a practicing technologist to see the work he is involved in doing.

Discussions about what a technologist does.

Identify that technological practice involves knowing what you are making and why, planning what to do and what resources are needed and making and evaluating an outcome.

Use a familiar object or picture.

• Have a discussion with students to find out what they know about the technical practice that may have been undertaken by a technologist to make a product.
• Provide students with a food product (e.g. a pizza) and a range of ingredients and ask them to choose which ones they think would have ben used to make the pizza - challenge students to explain those they think were used with 'Why?'

Objects from home, such as toys they play with – discuss what the technologist needed to do and know to make them.
See scone-making activity, Level 3 below.

Teacher Guidance Level 2

To support students to develop understanding of Characteristics of Technology at Level 2, teachers could:

• provide opportunities for students to discuss the made world, the natural world and the social world and relationships between them.
• provide students with examples of technological outcomes and guide them to understand how they can increase people's capability to do things. Examples should allow students to recognise that increasing capability may result in both positive and negative impacts on society and/or the environment.
• provide students with examples of technological developments and guide them to identify how society and the environment influenced the decisions made.
• provide students with the opportunity to explore a range of technological developments and guide them to identify examples of positive and negative impacts on people and/or the environment.

Indicators of Progression

Teaching Strategy

Explanation

Identify influences on particular technological developments.

Identify what influenced the attributes of familiar products.

Use a familiar products (eg,such as convenience food, breakfast food, school bag, sports boots) and:

• identify their attributes
• identify why these attributes are important to the function of the product
• ask what influenced the incorporation of these attributes

Identify how particular technological outcomes have changed how people do things.

Compare "old” and "new” versions of technological outcomes (products), such as domestic phone versus cell phone, games (board games versus electronic).

Pictures of older telephones (timeline of photos) to talk about how people have expanded their lives through communication. Ask students:

• What do you use phones for today?
• Who uses them?
• What were the older phones able to do?
• explain what limits the ability of older phones to be useful today?

Explore examples of technological developments in history and discuss how they have changed how people do things.

Technology student website – technological developments in history

Watch Visa evolution advertisement (1.00), a short video about the evolution of technology.

Create a Venn diagram comparing the old with the new for example, a fax machine and texting.

Choose one of the examples in the TV ad and list how it has changed how people do things (re-play video to focus on specific items).

What kind of technological outcomes are referred to in the advertisement? Are they old or new, eg, fax machines, texting, phones, record player/stereos, cell phones, iPods, TVs, laptops, typewriters.

Describe examples to illustrate how a technological development has had a positive impact on society/environment.

De Bono's Thinking Hats = yellow hat

Choose a technological outcome (car, TV, soft drink) and discuss:

• how that technological outcome has helped people
• how that technological outcome has helped the environment.

Describe examples to illustrate how a technological development has had a negative effect on society/environment.

De Bono's Thinking Hats = black hat.

As above but discuss how they have harmed people and the environment.

PMI (Positive, Minus, Interesting).

Chose developments that are obviously either positive or negative or ones that can be both – plastic drink bottles, for example, are positive for peoples' safety but negative for the environment.

Teacher Guidance Level 3

To support students to develop understanding of Characteristics of Technology at Level 3, teachers could:

• provide students with examples of technological practice and guide them to understand how social and/or environmental issues have influenced the development of the brief, planning decisions, and the development and evaluation of outcomes.
• provide students with the opportunity to explore a range of technological developments and support them to determine why changes in technological outcomes have occurred over time. Reasons for changes refer to such things as changing needs, fashions, attitudes and the development of new materials, skills and knowledge.
• support students to determine the impacts different technological developments have had on society and/or the environment over time.
• provide students opportunity to identify that knowledge is valued for what it can do and support students to identify that knowledge in technology is considered to be of value if it allows for a technological outcome to function successfully.

Indicators of Progression

Teaching Strategy

Explanation

Describe examples to illustrate how social and/or environmental issues have influenced the technological practice undertaken.

Discussion starter cards.
Engage in debate.

Use written descriptions and/or pictures of a social and/or an environmental issue (eg, recycling, obesity, security, reducing consumption) and descriptions and/or pictures of real technological practice.Use these as discussion starters: "How has XXX issue affected XXX practice/outcome?”

Analyse contemporary and historical contexts where environmental and/or social issues have influenced the technological practice undertaken, for example, open cast mining, power generation turbines in Kaipara Harbor, wind farms, coal/gas generation, hydro generation, car airbags.

• Develop a set of questions specific to the context being studied.
• Identify the social agencies (DoC, local iwi etc) that would have an impact on the decision today.

Use 'Train' PowerPoint that explains the gauge of train tracks.

This example identifies consequences and cause and effect.

Explain why particular technological outcomes have changed over time.

Show a set of objects/pictures/words that have evolved over time eg, can openers, baby buggies, egg beaters.

Why have they changed?
What caused this change? Was it, for example, ergonomics, planned obsolescence, development of new materials (plastics, synthetics, electronic components, etc)?

Create a timeline of a range of dissimilar technological outcomes.

See: Technology student website – timelines activity.

Students choose a technological outcome and investigate its development over history.

See:

Technology student website – bicycles

Technology student website – clocks

Describe examples to illustrate how technological developments have changed society over time.

Take a product and talk about possible impact on a particular group.

Use the example to analyse what has happened to people as a result of a change.
Produce a timeline with photographs of the product as it has evolved over time and a description of what has changed.

Use topical examples, such as milk powder, windmills, light bulbs etc.

What impacts have these products/objects had on our lives?
Use De Bono's thinking hats to get different perspectives.

Describe examples to illustrate how technological developments have changed physical environments over time.

Discuss changes in physical environments. Compare photographs from current and historic periods.

Use a set of historic and contemporary photographs of the same area. Ask students to identify the changes and ask what may have caused these.

Interview an older person.

Interview an older person about their life in earlier times. Have students listen and then identify the things that are not present today.

Explain that technological knowledge is evaluated in terms of how effective it is in supporting an outcome to function successfully.

Create a bubble chart of possible knowledge required by students to develop a technological outcome that addresses an issue.

Students to identify:

• knowledge they consider will be relevant to addressing the issue
• knowledge that is missing in the bubble chart.

Create a 'Need to know' chart.

Student answer the following:

• What do we know?
• What do we need to know?
• How do we find out?

Use Bro Town and/or Simpsons video clips to identify current issues.

What do I need to know to make 'this' work?

Provide students with an issue or need and get them to ask themselves:
What do I need to know to:

• develop an outcome that addresses the issue/need?
• evaluate the outcome as fit for purpose?

Focus students initially on identifying the generic knowledge that is required to undertake technological practice rather than specific-context knowledge required to develop the outcome.

Identify the specific knowledge (context knowledge) needed to ensure a basic technological outcome functions (such as a suitable food product as an after-school snack).

Using this example, the specific knowledge to develop a suitable food product as an afterschool snack requires such specific knowledge as:ingredients, health and safety, safe oven use, temperature, utensils, cost, mixing, measurements, nutrition, storage, an understanding of consumer preferences.
Evaluation: sensory evaluation, shelf life, cost, nutritional benefits, fitness for purpose.

Teacher Guidance Level 4

To support students to develop understanding of Characteristics of Technology at Level 4, teachers could:

• provide students with opportunities to examine a range of technological developments that have and/or could expand human possibilities by changing people's sensory perception and/or physical abilities. Examination of technological developments should allow students to gain insight into how decisions are based on what could and what should happen.
• support students to understand that expanding human possibilities can result in positive and negative impacts for particular groups of people, and the wider social and natural environment.
• provide students with opportunities to examine and debate examples of innovative technological developments that resulted in new possibilities. Examples should draw from the past and present and allow students to identify the creative and critical thinking that underpinned the developments, and how what could happen and what should happen were considered.
• support students to analyse a range of examples of technological developments and to identify the knowledge and skills that informed design decisions. Examples should be drawn from within their own and other technological practice and allow students to gain insight into the range of disciplines that can support technological developments.

Indicators of Progression

Teaching Strategy

Explanation

Describe examples to illustrate how technological developments have expanded or have the potential to expand human possibilities and discuss the possible short and long term impacts of this.

Have students pick a decade of New Zealand's history and find a significant technological development that occurred during this time. Identify how this technological development has expanded human possibilities.

Examples of technological developments in New Zealand include:

• Hamilton jet boat
• Buzzy bee
• pavlova
• electric fence
• baby formula
• bungy Jump

Review Visa Evolution ad and identify how technological developments have expanded human possibilities.

Visa evolution ad - Watch the ad (1:03) and identify the opportunities that are provided through the use of the current versions of the technologies mentioned in the clip: cellphone, video, iPhone, computers (word processing) and EFTPOS and credit cards (and debit cards).
Discuss current impacts and potential future impacts

Discuss examples of innovative technological development to illustrate the role of creative and critical thinking.

Have students Google: 'tomorrow's technology' and find a New Zealand technological outcome that they can research and discuss.

Discuss a specific technology and the innovations that have enabled (or need to occur to enable) these technologies to be realised (developed through to implemented products).
Discuss questions such as:

• What is 'creative' about the technology (such as design features – functions and/or its appearance) and/or its development (such as the reason why it was developed, how it was developed)?
• What 'critical thinking' may have been needed to enable the technology to developed through to implemented products?

Identify the knowledge and skills that have informed design decisions in particular technological developments.

Analyse the technological development used to develop a technological outcome. For ideas on New Zealand-developed technological outcomes Google: NZ Inventions.

Contexts that could be explored include:

Top 10 New Zealand Inventions

Maungatautari Reserve Vermin-proof fence

Mountain Buggy
Have students discuss questions such as:

• What was the main issue(s)/problem(s) that needed resolution?
• What knowledge (specific and generic) did the technologists need to resolve the issue/problem(s)
• What skills did the technologist need to resolve the issue/problem?

Teacher Guidance Level 5

To support students to develop understanding of Characteristics of Technology at Level 5, teachers could:

• support students to analyse a range of examples of technological developments to examine people's perceptions and/or level of acceptance has influenced the developments. Examples should be drawn from past, present and possible future technological developments to allow students to gain insight into the influence that perceptions and past experiences have on the acceptance of existing and future technological practice and outcomes.
• support students to analyse a range of examples of technological developments and to identify codified technological knowledge that was used to inform design and production decisions. Codified technological knowledge refers to such things as codes of practice, codes of ethics, intellectual property codes, codes of standards, material tolerances etc. Examples should be drawn from within their own technological practice and that of others.
• provide students with opportunities to discuss the role of codified knowledge in technology and understand why and how particular knowledge becomes codified. Codified knowledge serves to remind technologists of their responsibilities and provide them with access to established knowledge and procedures that have been shown to support successful technological development in the past. In this way codified knowledge can be used to provide constructional, ethical and/or legal compliance constraints on contemporary technological developments. Technological knowledge becomes codified when technological experts consider they have adequate evidence to validate it.
• support students to understand how established codified knowledge can be challenged and that ongoing revision is important due to the changing made, social and natural world. For example, the development of new materials, tools, and/or techniques, shifting social, political and environmental needs and understandings, and technological outcome malfunction, can all serve to challenge existing codified knowledge.

Indicators of Progression

Teaching Strategy

Explanation

Explain how people's perception of and experiences with past technological developments (both in terms of practice and technological outcomes) influences their acceptance of technology.

Students brainstorm all the technological products they own or use.

The idea is for students to realise they readily accept new technology because of their past experience with technology.

Students investigate their parent's/grandparent's acceptance of new technology (such as video conferencing, Thunderbirds/Star Trek, Skype, microwave).

The idea is for students to realise that other generations have had different experiences with technology, and that this influences their relationships with new technology.

Watch an advert such as the Telecom XT ad and discuss if we should adopt this new technology.

Review future technologies and have students:

• debate: "If people accept these technology(s), should they be developed and implemented?”
• discuss what would need to change for the technology(s) to be accepted.

Use a science fiction movie extracts or trailers – see: www.fancast.com/trailers

www.apple.com/trailers/genres/science_fiction/
Explore websites such as 'Future Technologies' to find an idea for a technology that is yet to be realised.

Explain how people's perception of and experiences with past technological developments (both in terms of practice and technological outcomes) impact on future technological developments.

Forecasting future developments for everyday (familiar) products.

In groups, students choose an everyday technological product (such as phone, schoolbag etc ) and brainstorm what further development could be done to this product. Inform these ideas based on your own experiences and predictions about future needs/technological developments.
The aim is for students to understand how they can influence future development based on past experiences.

Provide students with a brief to further develop an everyday technological product.

Have students explore design ideas to enhance the functionality/appearance of technological product.
Class to provide initial stakeholder feedback on student design ideas. Students then present the design ideas to wider stakeholders (parents, grandparents) and compare this feedback to the class feedback. Actively discuss (compare and contrast) any differences identified between the feedback and discuss possible reasons for this.

Identify examples of codified technological knowledge and explain its role in particular technological developments.

Indentify examples of where and when codified knowledge is, and can be used.

Brainstorm different occupations and subcultures (such as surfers, computer geeks, electrician, gamers, etc). Discuss the codified knowledge that each of these groups uses.

Manage a class activity to support understanding of the purpose for codified knowledge (including graphic codes).

Students brainstorm questions about the value of codified knowledge. For example:

• What is the purpose of the codified knowledge
• Where it is this codified knowledge used
• Who could you expect to understand this codified knowledge?

Examine codified knowledge in action.

Put an unfamiliar 'code' in front of students to see if they can read it./determine what it means.
Discuss the importance of /reason for having standard codified knowledge.

Have a technologist visit and talk about their responsibilities, and the Codes of Practice and Codes of Ethics they work within.

Set up a scenario that you are going to be working with the local daycare centre (such as making a movie, making, toys, furniture etc). Brainstorm some of the factors you would have to consider in this situation.
Using understandings gained from the visiting technologist, discuss the technologist's responsibilities:

• to the community (daycare centre)
• to their professional organisation/peers

Provide students with a practical example of how a technologist works with codified knowledge when developing a technological outcome.

Discuss where codified knowledge was used in the development of the outcomes and how this enhanced/hindered their technological practice in terms of their ability to:

• communicate with their peers
• record ideas.

Explain how and why technological knowledge becomes codified.

Review a YouTube video of product failure or technological disasters (for example; Iran air, Technological disasters).
Students discuss lessons learnt from such disasters and how this informed the development of codified knowledge (such as changes in building codes).

Students realise that from failure, lessons can be learnt that can lead to guidelines and codes to prevent failure in the future.

Individual students do a simple task (such as package an egg or drop an egg from a height) and then pass on knowledge of how it worked to others via text.

Students realise that codified knowledge is not only developed from failures (eg, knitting patterns, recipes, sewing pattern, skateboard, music genres).

Teacher Guidance Level 6

To support students to develop understanding of Characteristics of Technology at Level 6, teachers could:

• support students to analyse a range of examples of interdisciplinary technological developments and identify the impact the interdisciplinary nature had on the technological practice undertaken. Examples should be drawn from within students' own and other technological practice and allow students to gain insight into the way disciplines have been combined to support technological practice.
• support students to identify examples of where collaborative work between technologists and/or other people has led to new possibilities for technological practice and/or outcome design. Examples should be drawn from within students' own and other technological practice and allow students to gain insight into the way idea generation and exploration can be enhanced through collaboration.
• ensure students understand that interdisciplinary collaboration provides exciting opportunities to 'work at the boundaries' of established fields, however this may cause situations where no codified technological knowledge exists to guide practice, tensions between people may arise, and unknown consequences may result.

Indicators of Progression

Teaching Strategy

Explanation

Explain examples of technological developments that are interdisciplinary in nature to demonstrate how the range of disciplines involved impacted on the technological practice.

Spend 15 minutes playing computer game. Brainstorm/discuss in pairs the different knowledge bases that may have been involved in the development of the game.

Students identify different knowledge bases required to develop the game such as mathematics, physics, graphics, etc.
Discuss what each discipline has contributed to the outcome.

Present different examples of technological outcomes that are obvious results of collaborations
For example:

• tent – textile shell and resistant structure
• electronic product – package design and electronic circuit design.

Discuss the links between material areas, common and specific knowledge and the attributes that involved successful collaboration.

Explain examples of technological developments to demonstrate how collaborative practices of technologists have enhanced and/or inhibited technological developments.

Find an industry example or a case study that shows good collaborative practice between technologists, such as:

• The Pixar story
• www.melissaplasticdreams.com (Melissa shoe company collaborates with well known fashion/product designers and architects to develop new shoe products).

Individual or groups of students undertake an inquiry to identify the different disciplines involved and the collaborative practices adopted by technologists and then present their findings to class.

Students explore examples of where unsuccessful collaborative practices have led to product failure, such as:

YouTube – toy dog lips

YouTube – exploding ford

YouTube – Defibrillator

Students use knowledge gained of what makes a successful collaboration to determine examples of unsuccessful collaboration.

Teacher Guidance Level 7

To support students to develop understanding of Characteristics of Technology at Level 7, teachers could:

• support students to critically analyse examples of technological practice to gain insight into how technologists identify and deal with contestable issues and competing priorities. Examples should allow students access to such things as how changing attitudes, values and ethics, new and/or different knowledge and materials, impact on Technological decision-making.
• support students to understand technology as a field of on-going contestation and competing priorities that require resolution through complex decision-making and balancing of resources against stakeholder needs and desires.
• guide students to recognise the role of functional and practical reasoning in complex decision-making.
• support students to critically analyse examples of innovative technological developments. Examples should draw from the past and present and allow students to gain insight into how informed creativity, critical evaluation and the pushing of boundaries allows for innovative decision-making and resulting in innovative outcomes.

Indicators of Progression

Teaching Strategy

Explanation

Explain technology as a field of on-going contestation and competing priorities and explain how this impacts on technological development.

Establish all factors that technologists may face and their potential priorities.

Brainstorm all factors and priorities. Link to existing products that exemplify these priorities and may cause contestation.

Review designers/technologists such as:

• Victor Papanek – ethical and sustainable design
• Chris Bangle – car design
• Peter Jensen – fashion design.

Identify the contestations and competing priorities that impacted on these technologists technological practice.

View Techlink Technologists' Practice case studies, at:
www.Techlink.org.nz/Case-studies/Technological-practice/

Find a suitable case study that highlights the competing priorities that the technologist had to deal with. Class discussion on role of practical and functional reasoning in complex decision-making.

Arrange a technologist to visit the class to discuss decision-making.

The technologist could talk about their own process when making complex decisions, and answer students' pre-prepared questions that focus on identifying the competing priorities they had to address when developing their product.

Choose a technological product and investigate.

Discuss what complex decisions might have been made during the products development, eg, aesthetics and functional considerations, stakeholder desires.

Describe examples to demonstrate how critical evaluation, informed creativity and boundary pushing impacts on innovative technological practice and/or technological outcomes.

What are boundaries and how do you push them?

Brainstorm and discuss with class. Class debate?

www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/tim_brown_on_creativity_and_play.html

Critically analyse a range of innovative technological outcomes from the past and present.

Choose a range of innovative technological outcomes. Explore www.ted.com videos of the developer talking about the development of the product, or case studies on the development process.

Introduce concepts/contexts that deserve critical evaluation.

Explore sites such as the following for examples of critical evaluations undertaken by technologists:

www.ted.com

www.youtube.com/
watch?v=boQ5unUxjuY

Teacher Guidance Level 8

To support students to develop understanding of Characteristics of Technology at Level 8, teachers could:

• support students to critically analyse examples of technological developments and their consequences (known and unknown, intended and unintended) to gain insight into the social responsibility technologists have due to the interventionist nature of technology. Examples should enable students to gain insight into how technology has real and long-term impacts for the made, natural and social world. Students should be supported to discuss the implications this has for Technological collective responsibility.
• support students to understand that technology can challenge people's views of what it is to be 'human'. Contexts for exploration could include contemporary developments in the area of communication technologies, artificial intelligence, human/robotic interfaces, second-life gaming, genetic engineering, nanotechnology etc.
• ensure students explore and discuss such things as the ethics of designing for limited technological outcome lifespan, designing to comply with minimal engineering ideals, utilising and developing sustainable materials, reducing energy consumption and waste, developing and managing socio-technological environments etc.

Indicators of Progression

Teaching Strategy

Explanation

Discuss technology as intervention by design and use examples to demonstrate the impacts and implications of this.

Critically analyse case studies of technological developments such as: data storage, genetic modification, medicine, antibiotics, aviation, smart materials.

Teacher supports students to explore at the technological developments and their consequences (known and unknown, intended and unintended, short- and long-term). Students present findings to class and discuss.

Class debates the role and responsibility of a technologist.

Pose the following question of Victor Papanek as the subject of debate;
'Can designers, architects, and engineers be held personally responsible and legally liable for creating tools, objects, appliances, and buildings that bring about environmental deterioration.'
Assign students as pro or anti this view and have a formal class debate.

Describe examples to demonstrate how technology can challenge people's views of what it is to be 'human'.

Watch movies and/or YouTube clips that challenge ideas of what it is to be human.

To introduce the concept of 'challenging what it is to be human' by watching clips such as:

• www.quazen.com/Arts/Architecture/
  10-Mistakes-in-Modern-Table-Design.202419
• Honda Robot see: www.youtube.com/
  watch?v=cfaAiujrX_Y and www.youtube.com/
  watch?v=VTlV0Y5yAww
• Swimsuit design
  See: blog.djsports.com/2009/08/01/
  swimsuit-ban-will-be-enforced-on-janurary-1-2010/
  and www.jsme.or.jp/English/news08(535KB).pdf

Have students work in groups and produce a short skit/movie clip that challenges people's view of what it is to be human.

Have students to work in pairs/groups to choose a context (such as artificial intelligence, second-life gaming or genetic engineering), research that context and illustrate with examples.

Each group uses the research make a presentation to the class challenging people's views on what it is to be human. In their research/presentation students should cover:

• ethics
• minimal engineering ideals
• sustainable materials
• reducing energy consumption and waste
• developing and managing socio-technological environments.