Classroom Activities

Here are some ideas for activities for your Year 5/6 to address the Digital Technologies Knowledge and Understanding content descriptor of ACTDIK015.

Create the alphabet in binary code and display on walls like the alphabet would be displayed on walls in lower primary classes, complete with the pictures of apples for A and books for B. A bit of fun.
- Differentiation – Higher level students can work on the letters that are at the end of the alphabet and require more calculations. Students who struggle with the concept can work together in pairs or small groups to complete their letter.

Send ‘coded’ messages to classmates to work out what they say.
- Differentiation – Allow lower students to have a binary alphabet mat that they can refer to instead of having to work out the value of each number.

Leave a question of the day on the board and the first person to work out what it says gets a prize.
- Differentiation – split the class into two groups, red group and green group and split the students into ability levels with a more complex word for the higher group. Or make it a group work activity and give the students different people to work with on the problem each day.

Binary is like patterning right, so get your more hands on learners to create beading patterns with two different coloured beads to represent 0 and 1 to create a number or word.
Code with lego! Have students practice their coded messages with pieces of lego in two different colours to make message boards. You could even make a ‘message of the day’ on a lego board for students to decipher for a reward? It’s bright, it’s fun and it beats writing!
Make binary code braclets or Christmas tree ornaments. Great activity for fine motor skills and could make a funky friendship bracelet?
Binary code snap! Make cards up that have the binary code representation of letters on half the cards and the English alphabet on the other cards for students to match and snap!

Knowledge and Understanding - ACTDIK015 Activities

We also said that we would address some activity ideas for the Digital Technologies Process and Production Skills content descriptor of ACTDIP016 (acquire, store and validate different types of data, and use a range of software to interpret and visualise data to create information). To address this content descriptor, students will be looking at information management, data storage, data representation and collation of information and data.

Some activities that would address this content descriptor may include:

Students creating an online survey through a website such as survey monkey to collect information from their peers that is relevant to them. You could get the topic yourself or they could decide a topic for themselves. They could then graph the data collected. (Incorporates General Capabilities of ICT and numeracy).
- Differentiation – Students could work in small groups or you could have a number of topic choices for the students to choose from to avoid certain students stressing over making a decision on a topic to survey people on. You could also pre-teach students who may struggle how to use the program. To extend higher students, you get them to write a report on the findings of their survey.

Students create a spreadsheet, inputting formulae’s to automatically update the author of the document based on who is logged in to open the document and the date that the document is printed. (Incorporates General Capabilities of ICT).
- Differentiation – Pre-teach concepts to students who struggle.

Students practice retrieving information through an online library by narrowing the search filters (advanced search functions). Students can set challenges for each other or the teacher can have different task cards for information that the students have to search for using the advanced search functions. For example: I am looking for how many students graduated from Year 6 in 2015 in Queensland. Students would have to perform an advanced online search function and write down parameters they entered to find the information. (Incorporates General Capabilities of ICT).
- Differentiation – The task cards could be colour coded for levels of difficulty. The lower level cards would include one or two key words or search criteria that they could start with and the content that the students would be looking for wouldn’t be as specific. Higher levels would be looking for very specific information with no tips or hints on what information to enter into the search fields.

Process and Production Skills - ACTDIP016 Activities

An activity idea that incorporates both the Digital Technologies Process and Production Skills and Knowledge and Understanding content descriptor of ACTDIP016 and ACTDIK015 is:

Students work out the binary code representation of the capital and lower case alphabet and numbers up to 100.
Students then create a database of the binary code representations.
From that database, students input a formula that converts words or numbers and the computer retrieves the binary code representation. Essentially, they would be creating a binary code dictionary.

Differentiation for this activity – Students could work in mixed ability groups for this project. As with the above alphabet activity higher level students can work on the letters that are at the end of the alphabet and require more calculations. Students who struggle with the concept can work together in pairs or small groups to complete their letter.

Students could also create a glossary or dictionary of words that have been turned into binary code representations. They would store this dictionary or glossary on a common drive on the computer system that all students could access. Students would be able to retrieve the words they needed when sending messages in binary and they can also use it to help them translate messages. Each time they have to decipher or create a new word that they cannot find in their dictionary/glossary they can add it to the collection of data. This task requires students to encode, decode, transmit, receive and store messages. (Incorporates General Capabilities of Literacy).

Differentiation – Lower students would work on smaller words to add to the glossary. Higher students would also add the definition of the word being entered to incorporate the Literacy general capability building on vocabulary.

Binary Code Professional Development