The Australian Digital Technologies Curriculum (v9.0) aims to empower students with essential skills to thrive in an increasingly digital world. Pico Coding's platform has been crafted to support this goal, providing an engaging, structured way for students to develop both foundational and advanced skills in digital technologies. Here’s how Pico Coding aligns with various aspects of the curriculum for Stage 3 (Year 5 and Year 6).

Digital Systems

AC9TDI6K01
Students are expected to investigate the main internal components of common digital systems and their functions. Pico’s platform partially meets this requirement by engaging students with practical use of digital systems. While using Pico, students interact with hardware such as a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and touchscreen. These elements, along with Wi-Fi and browser navigation, give students firsthand experience with essential digital components.

AC9TDI6K02
Students examine how digital systems form networks to transmit data. Pico’s platform introduces students to this concept by using an internet connection, browser, and AI system that transmits data and checks answers, making the abstract idea of data transmission more tangible.

Data Representation

AC9TDI6K03
This part of the curriculum focuses on explaining how digital systems represent data using numbers. Pico fully meets this requirement through its various coding challenges like Birdie, Rocket, Potions, and Nibbles. These activities teach students how digital systems translate data into various types of representations - including using strings, numbers and boolean data types.

AC9TDI6K04
Exploring how data can be represented by binary states is another key component. The same activities—Birdie, Rocket, Potions, and Nibbles—help students understand booleans as a way to represent on and off states (true or false conditions), which is a fundamental method which computers communicate and represent data.

Investigating and Defining

AC9TDI6P01
While students are expected to define problems using design criteria and by creating user stories, this area is not currently covered by Pico.

Generating and Designing

AC9TDI6P02
Pico excels in helping students design algorithms involving multiple alternatives and iteration. Challenges like Match, Donuts, Fishing, Galaxy, and Arrows provide hands-on opportunities for students to apply their algorithmic thinking, exploring conditional branching and looping constructs. These activities also use conditional branching to handle user keyboard inputs - such as left, right, up and down arrow keys, space bar and more.

AC9TDI6P03
Students also need to design user interfaces for digital systems, which is fully met by Pico through activities such as Picasso and Kaleidoscope, where creativity and user interface design come together. Students learn how to build common digital applications such as a painting program and how a user-friendly user interface can facilitate the creation of digital artworks.

AC9TDI6P04
Generating, modifying, communicating, and evaluating designs are central to the curriculum, and Pico’s Fireworks, Balloons, and Planets challenges align perfectly with this objective, encouraging iterative design thinking and using coding to express their unique design ideas.

Producing and Implementing

AC9TDI6P05
Pico empowers students to implement algorithms as visual programs involving control structures, variables, and input through its Galaxy, Arrows, Sphera, and Bubbles challenges. These activities give students practical experience with core coding concepts, fostering problem-solving and computational thinking.

Evaluating

AC9TDI6P06
The curriculum encourages students to evaluate solutions against design criteria and user stories, considering broader community impacts. Pico fully meets this expectation by fostering discussions around coding solutions, allowing students to reflect on how well their code satisfy given criteria.

Collaborating and Managing

AC9TDI6P07
While selecting and using appropriate digital tools to create, locate, and communicate content is part of the curriculum, this element is not yet covered by Pico.

AC9TDI6P08
Collaboration and project planning are partially met through Pico, which encourages students to work together on coding projects, enhancing teamwork skills.

Privacy and Security

AC9TDI6P09
Pico meets the requirement for teaching privacy and security by instructing students in the use of usernames and passwords for authentication, reinforcing the importance of safeguarding personal information.

AC9TDI6P10
Although the curriculum includes teaching students about digital footprints and privacy when collecting user data, this area is not yet covered by Pico.

Conclusion

Pico Coding provides a robust platform that aligns well with many areas of the Australian Digital Technologies Curriculum (v9.0), especially in the realms of data representation, algorithm design, and digital system interaction. While some areas like problem definition and privacy education are not yet fully addressed, the platform’s strengths in coding challenges and digital tool usage make it an invaluable resource for educators. Pico is a dynamic tool that fosters digital literacy, preparing students for future success in a tech-driven world.