Activities related to Characteristics of Technology

Activities to support student learning related to the Characteristics of Technology (CoT) component could include:

Technology versus Art

The teacher could begin the focus on CoT by setting up a debate about the difference between art and technology. At the end of this discussion it would be useful for the teachers to check all students can put forward a well-reasoned argument for why the wearable art creations could be described as both art and technological outcomes.

Expert Group Activity

All nine of the main stories include information about the starting point of each creation, the influence of personal background on the development of design ideas, and the knowledge and skills the person had already and/or had to develop and how this influenced their construction decisions.

Students could be organised into nine groups to carefully read all the material related to one story and creative outcome. From this they could participate in a class discussion around the following questions:

• How do initial design ideas start?
• What sort of things influence what people think is a good design?
• How do the knowledge and skills people have change the way they go about making things?
• What examples of critical and creative thinking did you find?

Individual Activity

All students could then focus on the Queen Adelaide and Rattle Your Dags exhibits and stories. They could develop a mind map for each showing how personal influences, social, historical and/or environmental factors affected the decisions that Emma, and Paula and Ursula, made as they designed and made their wearable art creations.

Link to Technological Practice learning

If the students are involved in designing and/or making a piece of wearable art themselves, the teachers could bring the class together so the students can discuss the impact that other designers' way of thinking and working has had on their own thinking about designing and making wearable art.

Sponsorship plays a key role in the World of WearableArts™. Teachers may like to encourage students to read through the sponsorship notes and think about the mutually beneficial ways their own technological practice could develop within their local community.