Digital Technologies Professional Development

Digital Technologies Workshops

Each year Dr Zagami organises and conducts free workshops for teachers on the Digital Technologies curriculum, supported by a Google CS Educator PD grant (previously CS4HS grants), the Gold Coast chapter of the Queensland Society for Information Technology in Education (QSITE), and the Gold Coast Griffith University Teacher Education Advisory Group (TEIAG). Similar workshops can be arranged for individual schools and systems.

Digital Technologies Curriculum

Dr Zagami can provide presentations and workshops that provide a general overview of the Digital Technologies curriculum, research in computer science education, computer science education content, various pedagogical approaches to teaching Digital Technologies, the technologies available to support the teaching of Digital Technologies, and the range of assessment approaches available to measure student learning of Digital Technologies concepts.

Project Based Learning 

Dr Zagami can provide presentations and workshops on Project Based Learning pedagogy (and its associated approaches such as Problem Based Learning and Inquiry Learning), how it can be used to develop a range of higher order thinking skills - strategic, futures, systems, computational, and design thinking, and address the curriculum rationale, aims, content descriptions, and achievement standards of the Digital Technologies curriculum.

Learning Activities

Dr Zagami can provide presentations and workshops on the development of learning activity scope and sequencing and the identification and development of resources to teach the Digital Technologies and senior CS / Digital Solutions curricula. 

Robotics

Dr Zagami can provide presentations and workshops on the use of Robotics to support learning in the Digital Technologies curriculum and senior CS / Digital Solutions curricula. He can demonstrate a wide range of Robotic device options including most available mobile robots systems, robot arms, underwater robots (UUVs) and drones (UAVs); with groups sets (up to 30 concurrent) of Bee Bots, Arduino, Lego Mindstorm, Edison, and Evo robotic systems, and up to 10 concurrent micro-drones. He can also detail the education application of Open Source Robotics and the Robot Operating System that can take robotics education beyond the limitations of commercial kits. Dr Zagami conducts research on the use of Robots for instruction with a NAO humanoid robot and a full size R2D2 demonstrating how robots can be used to interact with student to support their learning and replace many traditional teaching activities.

Drones

Dr Zagami can provide presentations and workshops on the use of Drones to support learning in the Digital Technologies curriculum. He can demonstrate a wide range of UAV (drone) device options including several drone systems, with a group set (up to 10 concurrent) of micro-drones, Lego and Arduino based drone construction systems, and the professional DJI Phantom 4 system. For student workshops a wide variety of remote control, programming, and FPV drone racing activities are available. Dr Zagami conducts research on the use of Drones for computer science instruction in programming and autonomous systems.

IOT (Internet of Things)

Dr Zagami can provide presentations and workshops on  the use of IOT (Internet of Things) activities and technologies to support learning in the Digital Technologies curriculum and senior CS / Digital Solutions curricula.

Teaching Strategic Thinking

Dr Zagami can provide presentations and workshops on incorporating entrepreneurial, moonshot, and managerial thinking processes, combined with project management, team leadership, and team followship skills.

Teaching Futures Thinking

Dr Zagami can provide presentations and workshops on Futures Thinking to support learning in the Digital Technologies curriculum. 

Teaching Systems Thinking

Dr Zagami can provide presentations and workshops on Systems Thinking to support learning in the Digital Technologies curriculum. 

Teaching Computational Thinking

Dr Zagami can provide presentations and workshops on Computational Thinking to support learning in the Digital Technologies curriculum. 

Teaching Design Thinking

Dr Zagami can provide presentations and workshops on Design Thinking to support learning in the Digital Technologies curriculum. 

Dr Zagami also develops and provides professional learning through online courses that can be modified to support school and system needs, ranging from single workshops to comprehensive courses of study. In 2017 Dr Zagami conducted a series of three 9 week online professional development courses on the Digital Technologies curriculum for 1500 Queensland teachers supported by the Queensland Government Advancing Futures #CodingCounts initiative. 

Dr Zagami is able to support school and system grant applications that incorporate staff professional development.