Designing an Inquiry Learning Activity - I.T. Boot Camp

After analysing the Year 7 History unit taught within my college in the previous post I now have a better understanding of the skills required by the Year 7 cohort and the level of inquiry they are expected to work at in a curriculum area other than my own. The Inquiry Learning Activity I have designed in response to these considerations is a small part of a large modular course aimed at introducing the college's IT systems' protocols and abilities to new students. The first section of the course, the Essential Modules, will be explicitly taught over 10 sessions to all year 7 students in term 1 starting next year. The remainder of the modules are specifically aligned to either the Library or Technology areas and can be taught ad hoc* over the remaining terms when time is available or an explicit skill is required for a subject.

*It is worth mentioning that IT skills have not been explicitly taught in the college at the junior levels for many years. And the level of digital instruction for those years has solely come down to the teacher and therefore the "luck of the draw" for students. This is especially troubling as we are a 1-to-1 school. So the allowance for even the 10 sessions in term 1 is at least a small victory for myself and other advocates of 21st Century skills within the school, though we still have a long way to go. The adoption of Google Apps for Education across the school this year is a step in the right direction for embedded digital technologies in the classroom but is a steep learning curve for many teachers.

I.T. Boot Camp, currently in its infancy, is an indefinite series of modular lessons which I plan to build over time. It is broken into three categories of modules/units that explicitly tackle different areas of digital and information literacies required by students to move comfortably through high school. Although it is being taught at year 7 level I have removed all mention of year levels from the curriculum site (a google based website where the modules are accessed) in order to be able to set the modules for new students across all year levels and our high numbers of international students sitting in cross age groups. Keeping inline with the schools new focus on observable skills, I will be using the Australian Curriculum ICT Capability Learning Continuum to inform the development of an ICT continuum of observable skills needed to progress towards the demands of the senior elective classroom (the VCE here in Victoria).

This whole task is mammoth and I would be naive to think that I can complete it in due time for this particular university assignment, but the design and learning sequences are becoming focused in my mind and I will share what is the starting point of a long developmental process. Being involved in the mentoring of teachers in the use of Google Apps for Education and the construction of Google Sites to deliver the school's common curriculum means that the site and learning experience that I produce for this unit needs to be the epitome of best practise.

The breakdown of I.T. Boot Camp into 3 major modules and subsequent elements of
the Essential Modules - screenshot by author

I.T. Boot Camp is delivered via the Google Site pictured to the left. The 'Essential Modules' learning sequence (please note this is a working document and will change and update over time) is designed to take roughly 7-8 x 50 minute sessions. If the sequence has finished within that timeframe then teachers can choose modules from either the Technology or Library streams to go on with for the remaining time (depending on the specific teacher's area of expertise). Currently the new Australian Curriculum subject Digital Technologies is awaiting final endorsement although it is ready to roll out for state and territory use. In order to prepare for this new subject I am designing the modules to fit as well as possible within my limited timeframe and specific objectives. 

Students create artefacts to embed in their ePortfolio
throughout their specific Apps modules

As students progress through the Essential Modules they accumulate digital artefacts that summarise their progress through each element of the digital platforms we are indoctrinating them into (G.A.F.E., Compass & Windows). These artefacts are then reused to facilitate understanding of the Google Sites app in the ultimate production of a digital portfolio* (ePortfolio) that will follow the students through high school and act as a display of formal formative and summative tasks undertaken by the student.

A basic model of what students could produce
- screenshot by author

*A digital portfolio is a purposeful collection of learnings over time that documents personal, academic and professional development. It is a visual guide that maps where you have been, where you are going and how you plan to get there. In this context, a digital portfolio is a tool to communicate what you know and can do. Portfolios could also be assessed during it’s development as a formative assessment.

The level of inquiry embedded within this unit is not as open as I would ultimately like due to the time restrictions, but over time once the explicit teaching in I.T. Boot Camp is over students will be completely self-guiding this inquiry learning activity. Teaching explicit skills is generally a generic view of Information Literacy according to the GeSTE windows model put forth by Dr. Mandy Lupton. By introducing the production of an ePortfolio and embedding it across all the students subject areas I am hoping that this will contextualise the skills learnt. The ability for the student to design their own journey for the ePortfolio will further open the inquiry process as they will ultimately search for fixes and instructions on how to get the formats they are hoping for. Depending on what the students end up doing with their portfolios in the future (evidence for job interviews or gaining entry to future study) will effect the transformative ability of the (very long) inquiry. The creation and continued evolution of the individual portfolios situates this unit within the highest level of Bloom's Taxonomy - create, incorporating all the levels below. Each task given to the students aims to interrogate the App in question using the provided questioning framework (outlined within the curriculum scope & sequence) governed by a process resembling Lamb's 8Ws of Information Literacy.

As an aside I am also trying to embed the practise of awarding digital badges for achievements across the college which students can display on their digital portfolios. Like a virtual scout uniform covered in representations of skills learned and jobs well done. As I stated earlier this whole endeavour is gargantuan, and only in it's first stages. As with any design it is only when you start to get 'users' using it that you can tweak and refine practises to resemble the outcome you had envisaged. My first year of guinea pigs are only four months away from putting me and my learning design through its paces and I expect to be on my feet refining all aspects of I.T. Boot Camp frequently, but hopefully with a diminishing level of complexity.