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This is a common question that is a good starter for team discussions when designing local curriculum to support students' critically thinking about the world around them. The technological systems component of the technological knowledge strand is essential for students to understand how and why systems operate in the way they do.

Technology is about transformation of energy, information, and materials, intervening by design. The technological systems component looks more closely into what this transformation is and how we can design systems to be efficient, equitable, and inclusive. A technological system is a set of components or parts that serve to perform a function to make life easier or simpler. A system transforms an input into an output.

Your glue bottle versus glue stick is a great example of a technological outcome. A glue stick is also a technological system. This is because it transforms the input (human energy) by a twisting action of the simple, hidden, thread mechanism that pushes out the glue (the output).

Sometimes we can see the process part of the system with our own eyes. For example, the bevel gear in a hand operated egg whisk or the pivot part of the lever system in scissors. But mostly the process part is hidden, like in a door lever mechanism. This hidden stage or the process part, is referred to as the black box of a system (see achievement objectives level 2 - approximately year 3 and up).

Yes, mechanical systems like scissors, whisks, doors, and engines are all technological systems. Anything which performs a function and changes/transforms energy as it does its job, is a technological system. It's lots of fun to have a quiz with students to look at everyday technological outcomes around them and discuss which are systems and which are products, and which are both. For an example of teaching and learning on technological systems in years 1–3 see the snapshot: Exploring technological systems and computational thinking using household appliances.

The only expectation of the standard affected by a delay in not receiving the actual final fabric is whether the complex applied design enhances the final product (in this case a garment.) (AS91621 Explanatory Note 3)

The standard expects the student to interpret and apply a complex design to a specified product.

This includes how students have trialled and decided upon the equipment and materials for the applied design and how they use complex techniques (while complying with health and safety regulations) to create the (applied) design.

Due to the delays with COVID 19 in 2020, if the student has evidence of the complex design being trialled and applied to a similar fabric and can explain how this would enhance the final product, the standard could be considered as met in 2020.

The consensus of teachers and industry professionals, including chefs who are teachers, is that each student should be developing the HACCP plan for their own food product that they had developed as a prototype/item being assessed by the standard.

That the group are then producing multiple dishes in a restaurant situation and will require multiple HACCP schedules seems to be a separate issue.

No one could find a justification for requiring every student to develop multiple HACCP schedules in order to cover all the menu options. Each student could produce one food product (developed through prototyping) and HACCP plan. In order to run a restaurant scenario, everyone shares recipes and HACCP plans. This is a situation that the assessor needs to manage carefully and be very mindful not to over assess the students.

It can be difficult to meet the audience interactivity component of the standard using only a website. By choosing a website, with only basic navigation, takes away the ability of the viewer to control their own movement throughout the site. The website becomes essentially two dimensional (although movement is possible). The student designer is expected to consider and plan for how the viewer could interact with the exhibition; this could include the ergonomics of the viewer in relation to the screen, whether they are sitting or standing, and for example, what choices they can make about within the website.

Yes the standard 91611 is still valid. See NZQA resources exemplars and commentary (PDF, 1.8MB). The standard can be round on NZQA here.It is currently available for assessment and is due to be reviewed at the end of 2020.

The standards mentioned are all currently available on the NZQA site for assessment by education organisations who have consent to assess.

If this applies, please be aware the National Certificate in Electronics Technology for Level 2 (of which most of the standards listed above comprise) is expiring at the end of the year. The last date for assessment is 31st December 2020.

See NZQA electronics technology for further details. There is no information available at this point, as to whether the unit standards will be available after this time.

The project and aims for the learning you have described, is a rich, student-centred, local, and authentic project. This is because the students/school community are doing the setting up, testing, and evaluating when they create the digital outcome that compares the digital and human senses.

By doing this, the students are designing and developing digital outcomes for a specified purpose – to test, compare, and produce results. Arduino are excellent tools for delivering the intent of the revised technology learning area. This project fits well within the context of designing and developing digital outcomes (DDDO) area of technology learning. If students were to extend their learning and make changes to the existing, given code, that would then also include the computational thinking for digital technologies (CTDT) area. It is also okay that it doesn't.

Schools should ensure that students are learning across all five contexts/technological areas in years 1 to 10. Look for natural connections to issues that require solutions in your local environment. Look for where those issues require the students to draw knowledge from the contexts (materials, processing, DVC, or digital), in order to solve that issue or problem. In other words, when designing curriculum, start with the issue and then guide the students to see which of the five contexts are needed to solve it.

The rich nature of your project lends itself particularly well to integrating the not optional technology strands, alongside the digital areas. The nature of technology strand looks at the relationships between people and technology. Have a look at the indicators of progression for characteristics of technology to see if your students, at their year and curriculum level, are achieving their learning outcomes. There are eight components across the three strands. Maybe consider discussing with your colleagues to see who is delivering learning in which context so that you can together ensure students are learning across all three strands and the five areas/contexts.

There is no requirement for students to create their own text and graphics for US 18734.

The three patterns listed meet the requirements of the special features as outlined in explanatory note 7 that is:

"Special features are those that rely on the application of advanced skills. These include but are not limited to: style features, such as set in sleeve, fly front, tailored collars and cuffs, welt pockets and/or decorative features such as pin tucking, embroidery, and shirring and/or structural features such as 3D felting and combining different fibres in felting and different materials e.g. nuno felting."

(NZQA.govt.nz AS 91345) 

The style features noted in each of the patterns are:

• Sapporo Jacket: Angled seaming and pockets hidden in the front seams.
• Stacker jacket: Choice of flapped in-seam pockets or oversized patch pockets, plus a tailored collar and set in sleeve.
• Kobe dress/top: Set in sleeve, pleats overlapping and a keyhole neckline. 

Lining the jackets is not necessary to meet the requirements of AS 91345 Implement complex procedures using textile materials to make a specified product with special features, but it is one of the features that may be considered for complex procedures at level 3 using AS 91621 Implement complex procedures using textile materials to make a specified product.