This 6 week-long unit of work, entitled “Wondrous Words: George’s Marvellous Medicine”, utilises the context provided by Year 2 – Australian Curriculum: English (ACARA, 2017a). This particular unit centres on Roald Dahl’s (1989) literary text George's Marvellous Medicine. This unit encompasses the use of Information and Communication Technology (ACARA, 2017b), in order to construct and transform student knowledge in regards to the concepts surrounding procedural writing. As ICTs are recognised as a general capability (ACARA, 2017c), students will develop their ICT abilities by generating solutions to challenging task, understanding ICTs by utilising the appropriate technologies, and collaborating and sharing their creations with peers.
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This incorporation of ICTs enhances teaching and learning by facilitating opportunities for students’ to construct and transform knowledge, in turn engaging and motivating students during the progression of this unit. Moreover, the ICTs that have been used within this unit are in alignment with the R.A.T Model: Replacement – Amplification – Transformation (Hughes, Thomas & Scharber, 2006). The ICTs used in the Replacement phase simply introduce technological elements, whilst the curriculum, mode of instruction and opportunities for student learning remain unchanged (Hughes, Thomas & Scharber, 2006). For instance, using the online brainstorming tool bubbl.us (LK Collaboration, 2017) replaces brainstorming with the use of a conventional whiteboard, whilst still engaging students in the learning process. Whereas, the ICTs utilised during the Amplification phase employ technological elements to enhance student learning opportunities, pedagogical instruction and the curriculum (Hughes, Thomas & Scharber, 2006). For example, using Glogster – Multimedia Posters (Glogster, 2017) to create a character profile, which could be completed on paper; however, using ICTs enhances student engagement and the depth for student learning. Thereafter, the ICTs used in the Transformation phase significantly change the ways in which student learning is facilitated by using technologies to enhance the pedagogical instruction of the curriculum-based content (Hughes, Thomas & Scharber, 2006). For instance, students use Book Creator for iPad (Red Jumper Limited, 2017), in order to create and present their own procedural text, which allows students to incorporate elements that would not be available