Not only can you borrow Edison robots, Bee-Bots, Spheros, Ozobots and more for your classroom but you can make use of the free Digital Technologies curriculum-approved lesson plans designed here in South Australia by CSER, an initiative of the University of Adelaide.

An Australian computational thinking challenge for children run through the CSIRO – originating in Lithuania with global participation.

The regular Bebras challenge is offered during specific limited periods each year whereas Bebras 365 is available all year round.

PICOCTF is a challenge hosted by Carnegie Mellon Cylab where older children can reverse engineer, break, hack, or decrypt to solve the challenge. Access to materials is available outside of challenge dates. Most suitable for ages 14 years+.

If you’re after ways to connect digital technologies with your subject areas then have a look at the collection of resources found at the Digital Technologies Hub. There are some great ideas for ‘speaking Robot’ across English, Science, the Arts, Maths, Physical Education and Humanities and Social Sciences.

Lead Learners were asked by the Digital Technologies Hub team ‘what’s something that you have implemented that has made a difference in your school?’ 

• ICT vs Digital Technologies
• Three Key Initiatives for Implementation
• Building a Programming Mindset
• Building Teacher Capacity in ICT
• Whole School Approach to Coding

Taking Small BYTES is a series of play based learning opportunities published by the Learning and Teaching Branch for the Department of Education and Training in Victoria.

If you are an Early Learning provider or a parent or carer to a 3-5 year old child, you might want to check out the Commissioner’s 100% device-free Learn to Speak Robot Challenge for Early Learners – Early Learning Unplugged!

Understand how Digital Technologies fits within the national curriculum alongside Design and Technologies

View some examples of student portfolios here.

A range of resources from the Grok Academy Limited.

Understand the Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies with this resource from the Grok Academy Limited

Free lessons and printable materials for the classroom from the Grok Academy Limited

Grasshopper provides free intuitive JavaScript coding lessons for adults. Families with older children might like to try using these tools to learn together. 

Bringing Coding and STEM to life with fun and easy to use VEX GO activities.

VEX PD+ offers ongoing, year-round, personalized professional development. With its flexible learning platform, you can curate your own professional learning according to your needs, interests and time.

15-20 hours of self-taught online learning to obtain your VEX Certified Educator Qualification to enable you to teach VEX Robotics.

A free 90 minute intro course from Stanford University on getting started with design thinking – the backbone of digital success.

The Design Thinking Toolkit for Educators offers tools and methods for teachers to apply design thinking—discovery, interpretation, ideation, experimentation and evolution – in real world scenarios.

Find out about mapping tools for systems in this article from Dr Leyla Acaraglou, founder of New York City’s Unschool and Disruptive Design.

A range of simple activities from STEM FAMILY for families to try such as listening to your child’s day using systems thinking.

Parable of the Polygon is an interactive demonstration of systems thinking created by Vi Hart and Nicky Case. 

A printable card game from the Digital Technologies Hub to introduce categories of component within information systems.

Children can replicate a digital system using everyday household objects to learn more about components, inputs and outputs with this activity from the Digital Technologies Hub.

Download and print these handy flashcards from ACARA’s Digital Technologies in Focus program that can be used in a range of activities to teach F-4 students about digital systems.   

Digital Technologies Hub have made this Scratch game to introduce students to AI. *Tip: Play in full screen view.

This lesson from Digital Technologies Hub and Digital Technologies Institute can helps your students to recognise where the system of AI exists.

Intelligence is a system. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a system. If you’d like to train AI how to think you can get started here with Quick Draw from Google’s AI experiment suite – where you’ll teach AI to draw.

NB* This activity is a lot of fun but it uses your computer’s camera, so if you try this one, remember to disable your camera and check your setting and permissions afterwards – you have the right to be aware of what you share online and sometimes that means taking practical steps to protect your privacy. Read more about your human rights in the online space here at 5 Rights: https://5rightsfoundation.com/about-us/the-5-rights/

Teachers can discuss emotions as a class, and introduce the idea of artificial intelligence (AI). This lesson from Digital Technologies Hub and Digital Technologies Institute can also be used to introduce image classification – a key application of AI.