Reflection

Australia has had a strong focus on incorporating ICT capabilities into the curriculum for more than a decade. According to the 2013 International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS), Australia was the second to top performing country for ICT proficiency (Thompson, 2015). Digital technologies are a ubiquitous and now essential element of society. It is imperative that schools prepare young people become digitally literate citizens, capable of not only consuming the enormous about of media that is now dispersed digitally, but also be able to interact with, and create such media.

Further, digital technologies have changed the ways we approach problems. They have allowed for substantial streamlining, not only of processes, but also of how and what we teach. In Mathematics, digital technology provides an incredibly rich way to interact with mathematical concepts. Concepts that previously were long and laborious to express or construct, can now be visualised instantaneously. For example, when I first learned about transformations of polynomial functions in school in the 90s, we had to learn the long and slow way of calculating tables of values and plotting results by hand on a cartesian plane... transform the function and repeat... and repeat... and finally compare the graphs and draw conclusions about the behaviour of the graphs. Now the same thing can be done using sliders on Desmos instantaneously. This means that the work of the classroom becomes more about constructing understandings and connections, rather than repetitive, time-consuming calculations. This course has revealed just how limitless the possibilities with technology are and I'm enjoying learning new skills in a wonderfully practical way.