Technology

Technology at St Joseph’s

Technology is intervention by design: the use of practical and intellectual resources to develop products and systems (technological outcomes) that expand human possibilities by addressing needs and realising opportunities. Adaptation and innovation are at the heart of technological practice. Quality outcomes result from thinking and practices that are informed, critical, and creative. NZCp32

Through learning practical technological skills, when making models, products, and systems, students at St Joseph’s School will be able to participate in society as informed citizens and know about technology-related careers. They will learn about how people have used energy, information, and material technology in the past and today, and possible future focuses. Technological areas include structural, control, food, and information and communications technology and biotechnology.

The Technology learning area comprises three strands: Technological Practice, Technological Knowledge, and Nature of Technology. Teaching and learning programmes will integrate all three, though a particular unit of work may focus on just one or two, within a given context.

Technological Practice strand helps students to:

• examine the practice of others and undertake their own.

• develop a range of outcomes, plans, briefs, technological models, and products or systems

• investigate issues and existing outcomes and use the understandings gained to inform their own practice

• consider ethics, legal requirements, protocols, codes of practice, and the needs of and potential impacts on stakeholders and the environment.

Technological Knowledge strand helps students to:

• develop knowledge particular to technological enterprises and environments – understand how and why things work

• learn how models and prototypes are used to evaluate design ideas and products understand material properties and uses, how and why products work the way they do

• look at how parts of systems work together and how and why systems operate in the way they do

Nature of Technology strand helps students to:

• develop an understanding of technology as a discipline

• learn to critique the impact of technology on societies and the environment – explore how developments and outcomes are valued by different peoples in different times

• appreciate the socially embedded nature of technology and become increasingly able to engage with current and historical issues and to explore future scenarios.