Why the Digital Curriculum?

So why the sudden urge to implement a digital curriculum?

I’m sure a lot of us have heard that saying that we are preparing students for jobs that, most of which, probably don’t exist today. So, our aim is to prepare students for the world they live in, and the world they’ll be finding jobs in.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report notes that 46 percent of jobs created between 2005 and 2018 were in digitally intensive sectors – and that’s just in New Zealand! Which means if we are wanting to make sure that our classrooms reflect the world today, we need to equip students with the skills to become creators of digital technologies.

This is why the Digital Curriculum has been introduced. We’ve past the point of being able to turn a blind eye to the importance of digital technologies, we are past the point of relying on high school to cover the immense load of basic digital fluency, and we are 100% past the point of sitting children in front of devices and applications and hoping that they learn something.

The goal around introducing the new Digital Curriculum is to ensure that all learners have the opportunity to become digitally capable individuals. This signals the need for a greater focus on our students building skills so that they can become creators of digital solutions, instead of becoming solely users of digital technologies.

This is a massive key theme throughout the Digital Curriculum. We are empowering students to become creators instead of users.

With this being said, since the release of the Digital Curriculum in 2017, and now 2022, there has been a lot of change within our schools. Especially as we moved into lockdowns and found ourselves almost forced to use digital devices. Some students may have learnt how to simply use and operate a digital device, while other students may have become competent in using applications such as Google Docs, Google Slides, or even Google Sheets. They may have learnt how to research information better, or even use Zoom!
It’s easy to look at this and think that students are succeeding within the digital realm.
However, this is where we look at the key theme, are students being users or creators?

For example; if students are answering questions on Google Slides – are they truly being creators in authentic contexts, or are they simply using an application?

Don’t get me wrong, being able to operate applications like Google Slides is great, and it’s progress from where we once were. But these are the questions we need to ask ourselves.

“The digital curriculum is about teaching children how to design their own digital solutions and become creators of, not just users of, digital technologies, to prepare them for the modern workforce.” – Chris Hipkins, 2018

This new curriculum is not centred around getting children on devices for longer. It’s not about digital fluency, it’s about digital technologies.