In our second post on ICAS 2025, we look at how to prepare for the Digital Technologies paper. Digital Technologies is available for NZ students in years 3 to 8, with sitting dates between 3 to 8 August.
What’s involved in the assessment?
The Digital Technologies assessment looks at a student’s ability to understand and perform crucial digital tasks. The number of questions and test duration depends on the year level and paper.
Key skills and knowledge
The key skills assessed are:
It’s important to note that all year levels are tested on all six key skill areas as these are all essential for sound digital literacy. Students are asked to identify key terminology, perform tasks relevant to their year level, demonstrate their understanding of important concepts, and use a range of software appropriate to their needs.
You can see more information on the Digital Technologies paper on the ICAS website here.
Preparation tips
As with all the ICAS Assessments, Digital Technologies is a digital assessment. Students should therefore be familiar with the device they will be using in the test. We made some suggestions in our Tips & Tricks post last time on this topic.
The assessment framework for Digital Technologies makes clear references to the kinds of activities students will be asked to do. We therefore suggest that your child practices the tasks listed in the assessment framework for the paper they will be sitting.
For younger students, this could involve asking them questions as they sit in front of a desktop screen, an open Word document, a browser, or a simple database. Ask them to find menus and tools to perform different operations, format and send an email, or create a slideshow with multimedia components.
For older students, this could involve recognizing algorithms in coding, structuring databases and troubleshooting hardware and network connections.
ICAS Digital Technologies at Focus Education
Focus Education offers ICAS preparation classes customized to our students’ needs. If you want to find out more about these, please contact us.
If you have registered your child for ICAS with us, keep an eye on your email for notifications, as well as instructions on the day.
We hold our ICAS Assessments in a BYOD (bring-your-own-device) format, which means that your child should be able to prepare for Digital Technologies on the device they will be using in the test. Check the technical readiness of this device via the ICAS website here.
We wish all students registered for ICAS Digital Technologies the best!
Look for our next post on Janison’s locked-down browser, essential for sitting the Writing and Spelling Bee assessments.
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