Digital Design & Technology

ECT Framework

Purpose

The ECT Framework has been developed to enable teachers to develop innovative and irresistible approaches to the teaching and learning of electronic product design within design and technology.

The website has been designed so that you can use rich starting points to develop appropriate design briefs for your pupils and provide necessary knowledge, skills and understanding through focused tasks so that pupils can make a wide range of design decisions.  As pupils move through the curriculum you have designed you can ensure it makes increasing demands by auditing both the curriculum intention and pupil response against the features of progression.

Designing

Underpinning the approach is the idea that within design and technology the main thrust of the teaching should be to enable pupils to make design decisions. A short section on the website describes the approach to design taken throughout the website; as pupils move through a design task they will need to find out, develop their ideas, implement them, use maths and science but... not necessarily in that or any other prescribed order.

Starting Points

The site uses the idea of 'starting points' for designing. The starting points have been chosen because they provide rich contexts in which there are many opportunities for pupils to design and make electronic products.  The six starting points are:

• Playtime
• Keeping in Touch
• Keeping Secure
• Staying Safe
• Thinking Machines
• Other Worlds

Focused Tasks

Features of Progression