The title and topic of my curation project is Technology Education and Sustainable Systems. My curation project is linked to the Australian Curriculum’s Technologies learning area. It curates resources that help facilitate the subject design and technologies for year five and six. The content of this curation project benefits the teaching profession by providing a set of resources such as projects, activities, topic experts and other digital media that has been explored by the creator throughout semester 1 2014. The curated resources have been used to help develop lesson plans and units of work that have been implemented during professional experience.

The online sources that have been used throughout the semester include Twitter, Facebook, Pocket and Scoop.it. Facebook and Pocket were particularly useful. These were the sources that were used to promote and carry out research throughout the semester. Twitter was used to some extent but engagement with peers and experts worked better through Facebook. Scoop.it worked well and provided an organized platform that allowed other users to explore my resources and allowed exploration of other curation projects. The sharing of the curation project was very easy through Scoop.it as the tools used across my professional learning network (PLN) were integrated into the site. I learnt that the more I engage with my PLN across the semester via the promotion of my curation project, the more I learnt about the design and technologies curriculum. I was able to explore various perspectives on topics that were similar to mine and I believe this approach improved the quality of my curation project. I believe my PLN has grown over the semester through my interactions with peers in the course. I have followed and commented on their curation projects which has aided in my understanding of the delivery of the technologies curriculum

The curation process implemented a seek, sense and share framework described within the EDP4130 course content. This framework provided a systematic process that was applied to each artifact. I found that the seek stage of the framework progressively became easier during the project as I was exposed to relevant technologies content from my PLN. I believe that a well-structured PLN will reduce the amount of time in the seek stage in the future. The sense stage became more streamlined throughout the semester as I became efficient at identifying key components of the artifact that related to my curation topic. Using my curation project during professional experience also enabled me to acquire a sense of the practical implementation of an artifact. I was able to sense whether the artifact would actually be of use to a teacher in a classroom. This became a defining factor across the later artifacts included in the curation project. I then applied this understanding to previous artifacts and edited them where needed. The share aspect of the framework was time consuming. While Scoop.it made it easy to share my curation project, I found the time I had allocated to engage with experts and peers was limited. In stating this the experts and peers I engaged with provided me with a better understanding of the sustainability and systems thinking. I believe that with more time my engagement with experts and peers in the sharing stage would improve and lead to a higher quality PLN and enhanced knowledge of the Design and Technologies curriculum. By using this framework content of only high quality was selected.

By completing this project I have learnt that the ongoing maintenance and expansion of a PLN will have a significant impact on my ability to deliver the technologies curriculum. The changing nature of the design and technologies learning area and its application implies a responsibility of an educator to maintain current and relevant knowledge. I believe that this curation project and the process of its construction will maintain my knowledge of this learning area and maintain relevance for students within my class.