We have included information about our upcoming professional learning events on this page.
In 2019, the Newcastle CS4S team will run three different professional learning programs, free for teachers to attend, at the University of Newcastle’s Callaghan campus. These programs will be accredited with the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA). The three programs that will be run are the:
For more information about each of the programs, please see the Program Details section below.
For some quick guidance about which of the programs you would be suited to attend, see the Which Program/s Should I Participate in? section below.
All of the programs are focused on developing competencies included in the Digital Technologies learning area of the national Australian Curriculum and the capabilities outlined in the NESA’s Digital Technologies and ICT Resources Guide. The CS4S workshops have been developed in partnership with Google.
You can register for the AI and VR workshops running in November by completing this online form.
If you have any questions about the 2019 CS4S programs, please contact Daniel Hickmott.
The details of each program are explained in the Program Details section below, but we have also included a quick explanation of the programs we recommend that you attend here.
To find out more about each of the 2019 CS4S programs, click the headings below.
This program focused on using Scratch 3 for teaching Coding, but the program also included some opportunities to learn about other Coding languages and tools, such as Microbits.
This program was best suited for teachers of Stage 3 classes implementing the new Science and Technology K-6 syllabus. However, the program was open to all primary school staff, including but not limited to RFF teachers, STEM specialists and teacher-librarians. The program’s activities were adapted from the Creative Computing Curriculum Guide, as these activities can be easily adapted for varying levels of Coding experience. We mapped the activities to outcomes of different K-6 Key Learning Areas (including Creative Arts, English and Mathematics), as well as the relevant AITSL Teacher Standards, ACARA General Capabilities and ACARA Digital Technologies content descriptors.
The Coding & STEAM program ran over 8 weeks during Term 3 of 2019 (Weeks 2 – 9). The program involved weekly after-school 2-hour tutorial sessions at the University of Newcastle’s Callaghan campus and a weekly homework task that each took around 1-2 hours to complete. The program was accredited with NESA for 32 hours for the following teaching standards at the Proficient level: 2.1.2, 2.6.2, 3.3.2, 3.4.2, 4.5.2, 6.2.2 and 6.4.2.
If you would like some help getting started learning and teaching Coding and Computational Thinking, then this workshop is for you. This workshop’s content will be most useful for teachers that are beginning to teach concepts in the Digital Technologies strand of the new Science and Technology K-6 syllabus and Digital Technologies context of the new Technology Mandatory Years 7-8 syllabus. However, Primary and High School educators that teach any Stage in K-12, and with any amount of experience teaching Coding and Computational Thinking, are welcome to attend this workshop.
The workshop’s activities were very practical and mainly involved using Scratch, which is a free visual programming language that is commonly used for teaching Coding and Computational Thinking at all levels of K-12. However, the concepts that were taught during the workshop (for example: algorithms, sequencing, branching and iteration) are essential Computational Thinking concepts that are in the Technology Mandatory and Science and Technology syllabuses, and these concepts will be applicable to all Coding languages.
This workshop emphasised Coding and Computational Thinking as skills that can help you address ACARA’s General Capabilities, including Critical and Creative Thinking. Free teaching resources that are focused on problem-solving and creativity in Scratch, such as the Creative Computing curriculum guide, will be shared throughout the workshop.
The workshop also included several activities that integrate Coding and Computational Thinking with a variety of Key Learning Areas, such as Science and Mathematics. These activities utilised and expanded on many of the resources and suggestions in the NESA’s Digital Technologies and ICT Resources Guide. This workshop was run over two days at the University of Newcastle’s Callaghan campus and was accredited with NESA for 12 hours for the following teaching standards at the Proficient level: 2.1, 2.6, 3.3, 3.4, 4.5, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 6.2 and 6.4.
Sessions in this workshop included:
If you are preparing to teach Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR) within the Years 7-10 Information and Software Technology syllabus or Years 11-12 Software Design and Development syllabus, or you are a primary or high school teacher looking for coding project ideas for teaching AI and VR, then these workshops are for you.
The AI and VR workshops will be run as one day workshops at the University of Newcastle’s Callaghan campus. The AI workshop will run on Tuesday the 12th of November and the VR workshop will run on Thursday the 21st of November. Both of the workshops will be accredited with NESA for 6 hours for the following teaching standards, at the Proficient level: 2.1, 2.5, 2.6, 3.4, 4.5 and 6.2.
In both of the workshops, we will share resources that you can use to extend your knowledge about AI and VR after the workshop. The software used in both workshops are free to use and non-commercial and the concepts that you learn about will be transferable to other tools and technologies.
You can choose to register for both or only one of the workshops, depending on your preference and availability. We have included more detail about the workshops below.
Register for the AI and VR Workshops
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already part of our daily lives. For example, you may be assisted by AI when shopping, travelling or finding information online. As digital technologies improve and AI becomes more advanced, AI is likely to play an even bigger part in our daily lives. It is important that we help students understand what AI is, how it used and give them the opportunity to create their own AI.
This workshop aims to be a practical and accessible introduction to Machine Learning, which is one of the large topics within AI. Machine Learning refers to the way that computers ‘learn’ from data. In the workshop, we will use the free Machine Learning for Kids website, which does not require any prior knowledge of Machine Learning or AI. In this workshop you will learn:
Primary and high school educators that teach any Stage in K-12 are welcome to attend this workshop. The workshop will be best suited to teachers that have some prior experience with coding but the Machine Learning for Kids resources mainly use Scratch and, therefore, you do not need to have had experience coding in text languages (for example, JavaScript or Python) to participate in the workshop. The concepts that you learn about in the workshop will be applicable to a variety of coding languages and the activities could be adapted for use with text languages, for high school or primary school students that prefer to use text languages.
The workshop will run on Tuesday the 12th of November at the University of Newcastle’s Callaghan campus, from 9am to 3pm. The workshop is free to attend and will be catered for morning tea and lunch. You can register for the AI workshop by completing this form.
Virtual Reality (VR) devices are becoming cheaper and more accessible. Software for content creation in VR is also becoming more common and there many opportunities for students to immerses themselves in educational experiences using VR. Through VR, you can travel around the world without leaving your home, experience historical events as if you were there when they happened, or practice practical skills (such as medical procedures) through hands-on simulations.
This workshop will focus on creating scenes in VR with a free tool, called A-Frame VR. A-Frame is a WebVR framework, which means you can use Web technologies (HTML and JavaScript) for creating VR scenes with A-Frame. The scenes created with A-Frame are easy to share and publish online and the scenes will work across multiple devices, including computers, smartphones and the high-end VR headsets (like the Oculus Quest and Rift). In this workshop you will learn:
Primary and high school educators that teach any Stage in K-12 are welcome to attend this workshop. The workshop will be best suited to teachers that have some prior experience with web development technologies (particularly HTML). If you are unsure about whether you have the necessary experience, we can send you some resources for an introduction and/or refresher of HTML prior to the workshop. We have chosen to use A-Frame because it is free (and always will be) and the project is non-commercial. We will discuss examples of other VR software, including commercial options that you can use to create VR scenes without any coding during the workshop.
The workshop will run on Thursday the 21st of November at the University of Newcastle’s Callaghan campus, from 9am to 3pm. The workshop is free to attend and will be catered for morning tea and lunch. You can register for the VR workshop by completing this form.
To find out when registration for these events open or new professional learning events are announced, please sign up to the mailing list.