Teachers implementing new primary school digital technology areas: What are we teaching now?

Abstract

New digital technology areas were added to the New Zealand primary school technology curriculum in 2020. These areas aim to grow students who are not just passive users of technology but, instead, students who understand how computers work, who are digital creators, informed by design processes and critical thinking. The new digital areas of the technology curriculum appear to have created tension between the expectations of teachers and their relative capabilities. Examining three primary teachers' implementation of the new digital areas, this project utilised a participatory action research (PAR) methodology to review teachers’ journey of adoption. Findings indicated that implementing the curriculum areas was not as complex as teachers first imagined and that unplugged activities (those without devices) played a significant role in the new digital technology areas’ successful implementation in the classroom. The main themes that appeared from the data included levels of teacher knowledge, teacher confidence and curriculum learning area integration.