The Data Story of my Life
The ideas and suggestions provided below are given to assist in the teaching of the key learning areas of Technologies (Digital Technologies sub-strand) and Humanities and Social Sciences. They are intended to assist in teaching students about different types of data, and how data can be transferred from one location to another through the use of peripheral devices. The ideas and suggestions provided will allow students to practice data transfer skills themselves, and will assist teachers with suggestions on how to guide students in the creation of a digital photo story timeline about their lives, which will be depicted as a PowerPoint presentation, into which students will enter additional written text about their life using laptops or desktop computers.
As this resource provides ideas and suggestions only, the actual unit of work in which the work should be implemented is at the full discretion of the class teacher. No actual unit plan is provided. Content for the lesson ideas and assessment all address the following Australian Curriculum content descriptors:
Technologies - Year 3/4
Digital Technologies - Processes and Production Skills: Collect, access and present different types of data using simple software to create information and solve problems (ACTDIP009).
Digital Technologies - Knowledge and Understanding: Identify and explore a range of digital systems with peripheral devices for different purposes, and transmit different types of data (ACTDIP007).
Humanities and Social Sciences - Year 3
Inquiry and Skills: Sequence information about people's lives and events (ACHASSI055).
As this resource provides ideas and suggestions only, the actual unit of work in which the work should be implemented is at the full discretion of the class teacher. No actual unit plan is provided. Content for the lesson ideas and assessment all address the following Australian Curriculum content descriptors:
Technologies - Year 3/4
Digital Technologies - Processes and Production Skills: Collect, access and present different types of data using simple software to create information and solve problems (ACTDIP009).
Digital Technologies - Knowledge and Understanding: Identify and explore a range of digital systems with peripheral devices for different purposes, and transmit different types of data (ACTDIP007).
Humanities and Social Sciences - Year 3
Inquiry and Skills: Sequence information about people's lives and events (ACHASSI055).
Suggestions for Teaching
- Before beginning the following learning task, a note should be sent home to parents, detailing the use of student photographs for the digital timeline assessment task [link to example note below].
- Have students bring a USB flash drive to school, which contains photos of themselves during 4 key stages of their life: as a baby, as a toddler, when they first started school, and last year (the year prior to the study of this subject area).
- As well as the USB flash drive, have students and their parents/carers complete a homework worksheet [link to an example provided below]. Within the worksheet, students and their parents/carers provide information about each of the photos, including who is in the photo with them (if anyone), how old the student was in each photo, when and where the photos were taken, and if each particular photo was taken during a special occasion (such as a birthday, wedding or Christmas).
- Explicitly teach students how to use digital cameras to take photographs of their classmates. Assign each student a partner for this activity, so that each student only needs to concentrate on photographing one other student. This activity allows students to engage in the use of digital cameras (a digital technology, and peripheral device). Guide students through this activity, giving students advice on taking digital photos, such as holding the camera steady so the photo is not blurred, how far away to stand, how much of the student should be photographed (head and shoulders only or whole body).
- Explicitly Instruct the students on how to transfer the photographs of themselves, taken by their classmate, from the digital camera's SD cards to their USB. This is transferring data using peripheral devices, as described in the Australian Curriculum Content Descriptors used throughout this learning period/unit.
- Guide students through the transferring of images from peripheral devices, such as digital cameras, SD cards and USB flash drives to the school laptops or computers. These images will be used, along with the information provided on the worksheet brought from home, to create a digital photo story timeline of their life.
- Instruct students on how to enter the 5 images of themselves, as well as the information from the worksheet about the first 4 photos, into a PowerPoint presentation of their life in chronological order, with one page for each photograph and information pertaining to that photograph. (Be sure to remind students that they should include a title page with their name and date of birth included (eg. Mary Smith - 04/12/2008), as well as a title for each photo page which has their age in that photo, (eg. Me starting school - age 4). This PowerPoint presentation will be used as the summative assessment task for this learning period/unit.
- NOTE: It is assumed that students have studied chronological order in Humanities and Social Sciences previously, and have created PowerPoint presentations using digital technologies in the past.