The final sample test... Honest!

8 days left!

Try the test by clicking here

It should take you about 40 minutes and then the answers will be emailed to me.

Highest score received wins the prize!

Email your responses to s.miles@barnwell.herts.sch.uk

If you get finished quickly try another of the blog tasks. Successful completion of all the sensible blog tasks will give you a big head start in the exam.

The final week - compulsory task

The topics below are those where a large majority of students lost marks in the mock exams. Click on the links, check out the presentations, and post your responses to the blog:



Data Logging

What piece of equipment changes analogue to digital?

Give two reasons why remote data logging might be used?

What is a data logger?

What is the logging interval?


Validation and verification

Write down a definition of validation

What is the difference between a type check and a range check?

What does a presence check ensure?

List 3 types of verification


Programming languages

Give one advantage and one disadvantage of machine code

Why might you use an assembly language?

Give two examples of a high level language


Simulation and Modeling

Give two examples of modeling

Give two advantages and two disadvantages of using modeling


User Interfaces

What is a CLI?

Give two advantages and two disadvantages of a CLI

Give two advantages and two disadvantages of a menu interface

What is a GUI?

What should a good GUI be designed to do?


Data Protection Act

What is the difference between the data subject and the data commissioner?

Which of the following is not a principle of the Data Protection Act?

• Personal data should be obtained and processed fairly and lawfully
• Personal data should be adequate, relevant and not excessive for the required purpose
• Personal data can be transferred to countries outside the E.U. if the organization deems necessary
• Personal data should be accurate and kept up-to-date
• Appropriate security measures must be taken against unauthorised access
Give two examples of sensitive data

Give two examples of exemptions from the Data Protection Act


Society and ICT / Globalization and ICT

Explain what the digital divide is

Give two benefits and two issues with the use if ICT in society

Session 21 - Robotics

Every couple of years a question pops up asking students to consider the use of robots in the working world. Consider the presentation found here and then complete the questions at the end of the presentation. Support your answers with some pictures of friendly robots (can robots be friendly?).

Post the responses to the questions to your blog.

Session 20 - Validation V Verification

In nearly every exam paper they ask you a question about validation and/or verification. It is important that you can identify the difference between the two and give a suitable example of the two means of checking data.

Consider the presentation found here.

Complete the quiz at the end of the presentation and then produce a fact sheet outlining the following types of testing (you should provide examples where possible):

Validation:
Type Check
Range Check
Presence check
Picture or format check
Check Digit

Verification
Entering data twice
Comparing data after entry into the system

Post the finished fact sheet to your blog.

Session 19 - Data Handling & Storage

You are returning from a family holiday in your car and are stopped by the police.



To your surprise the police officer greets the driver by name. This is because his/her details and the details of the car are held on a central computer at Swansea.

Answer the following questions on your blog:

1. How did the police officer communicate with the local police station?

2. What device is required for the computer at the local police station to communicate with the central computer at Swansea?

3. What type of computer program is used to store all the details about all the cars in the country and their owners?

4. Name the device used to store these details when the computer is switched off.

5. Name 5 fields of data likely to be stored by this program, other than the owner’s name.

6. Suggest a query statement that the police officer might have used to locate the record on your car.

7. How were all the details about your car and its owner obtained in the first place?

8. Name an input device that could be used to enter these details into the computer.

9. When these details were entered into the computer a mistake was made in the owner’s age. The number 366 was entered instead of 36.

(a) Suggest how this error could be found.
(b) Suggest how this error could be prevented from happening again.

10. It is not a good idea to store a person’s age on the computer. Why is this?

11. Are you allowed to see personal information about yourself, which is held on a computer and check that it is correct?

12. Are you allowed to see personal information about other people, which is held on a computer?

13. Suggest one possible problem that might occur if your details could be accessed by any computer in the country.

14. State one way in which this access to personal information might be prevented?

15. What precautions are taken in case of a complete computer breakdown where all data stored on the computer is lost?

Easter Prizewinners

Click on the links to see the winning work:

Daniel - Outstanding form!

Mel - A near perfect Simpson's clone!

Selina - Outstanding law work!

Anthony - Beat my score! But it took him a week and 82 tries...

Task 18 - Face Recognition Software

The 6th form are now registering via a face recognition system.

Answer the following questions on your blog:

1. How do face recognition systems work?
2. What are the advantages of the face recognition system for the school?
3. What are the disadvantages for the 6th form students?
4. What alternative systems could have been used?

Stuck? Try:

howstuffworks.com

Task 17 - simpsonizeme.com

Extended learning - Easter

Consider speech recognition technology (If you are not sure what it is find out)

Write a comment after this post saying how you feel speech recognition software will change your world in the future.

Newsflash!

If they can do it so can you!

Task 16 - ICT in the working world

The ability to quote real working world examples of ICT in your exam will make a big difference to your final grade in those longer essay style questions. As you get about (digitally and in person) be aware of those systems around you. Quote as many appropriate examples as you can in the exam. In this video The Traffic Police reveal some of the ICT technology they use on a day to day basis:
Task: Identify and describe an ICT system used by one of the other emergency services. Support your blog entry with appropriate pictures. (150-250 words)

Extended learning - Week 9

Consider how ICT is going to change the typical school in the future. What will classrooms be like in 20 years time when your kids are at school? What equipment will they be carrying around with them? Will they be laughing when you tell them about the phone you had, when you was their age?

Post your comment here:

Task 15 - Social, Moral and Ethical

Listen to the 2 podcasts and respond to the 11 questions below (Click on the link and you should find the podcasts on that page. They each last about 10 minutes, pause them as necessary, you will need headphones.)

GCSE ICT Social Moral and Ethical Issues

GCSE ICT Social Moral Ethical 2: Social Issues

A number of issues are discussed in these podcasts. Copy each question below to a Word document and then make a comment on each topic, saying how you feel about it. Post the finished document to your blog.

1. Un-restricted Internet Access - Should Internet access be restricted in the UK as it is in some countries?

2. Copyright theft - should you be allowed to access and download music and films for free off the Internet?

3. ICT and job losses - how have computers changed the workplace?

4. CCTV and monitoring - Is it OK to have 'Big Brother' watching every move you make out on the street and on the Internet?

5. Pace of life - Has ICT made life too fast? Or do we need to chill out a bit?

6. Reading and writing - Does it matter that we are not reading and writing as much as people did a few decades ago. Should there be even less focus on skills like writing as many people rarely need to write anything (they type it all)? Should all exams be computer (typing) based?

7. Communication - How has it changed over the last 20 years? What effects has this had on society?

8. Fitness - Is the world of IT leading to more people being unhealthy? Will we all become massively overweight and rarely step out of our houses when computer games become nearly perfectly lifelike and most jobs can be carried out from home via the Internet?

9. Relying on IT - Do we rely on IT too much?

10. The price of technology - should everyone be given free access to computers? Should you all be given lap tops and free Internet access?

11. The digital divide - what can be done about the digital divide? Does it matter? What implications does it have? Are your grandparents computer savvy?


Extended Learning - Week 8

Add a comment to this post giving your opinion:

In 25 years time video games will be very different to what they are now because...

Newsflash!

Teacher in eBay football top scam.

Click here to read more

Task 14 - You be the teacher

Fancy being the teacher?

Prepare and deliver a lesson (5-30 minutes) on a GCSE ICT related topic of your choice.

You might do a demonstration to the group, a few class activities, a worksheet, or a blog task.

Do a good job and I'll reward you accordingly.

Task 13 - GCSE ICT Bitesize

Check out the GCSE ICT Bitesize website found here

Create a revision mindmap for ICT using the software found here (you dont have to use this software if you dont want to)

Post your finished mindmap to your blog - There will be a prize for the prettiest and a prize for the most detailed.

Extended Learning - Week 7

Download the ICT millionnaire game at home (its safe). Click here

First person to post a picture on their blog showing a win of £1000000 gets the prize.

First task today

Create one of these Voki's at http://www.voki.com/

Post the code to your blog. If it makes me laugh I'll count it as a task.

You can record your voice with a microphone or type in your message like I did.

Newsflash!

YouTube to block UK music videos



YouTube blocks access to premium music videos in the UK after failing to reach a licensing agreement with the Performing Rights Society.


Click here to read more...

Task 12 - Computer Viruses

Watch the video (headphones required)



Use the presentation found here: http://www.teach-ict.com/gcse/theory/virus/miniweb/index.htm to answer the following questions (copy and paste the questions into word, or if you are feeling brave straight to your blog). Post the answers to your blog.

1. In ICT terms, what is a virus?

2. When did the first ICT viruses appear and what did they do?

3. What effects can malicious viruses have?

4. What is the most common way to be affected by a virus?

5. What is anti virus software?

6. Give two examples of anti virus software

7. Why is it important to constantly update anti virus software?

8. Give three sensible precautions you can take, to stop the spreading of viruses

9. Describe what each of the computer pests do, and how they get onto your computer: Trojan, Worm, Adware/Spyware, and Logic bomb . You might need to surf the internet to find out about some of these.

Watch the video (headphones required)



Extended Learning Week 6 Name a recent computer virus that has hit the world. Explain how this virus has worked its way around the world and what the virus does to the systems it infects. In addition you will need to explain how this virus can be stopped.

Need help? Use the BBC news, CNN Technology and How Stuff Works website to search for information on computer Viruses. In the search facilities on all of these websites type in ‘Computer Viruses’. This will give you links to information, which will help you to answer the question.

Need a little light relief after all that hard work? Watch the little horror movie about a physical computer virus.



Need more?

Watch some of the video's on hacking and computer security here: http://www.teach-ict.com/news/news_features/crime/home_crime.html .

Newsflash!

Mr S.Miles finally closes all three Warcraft accounts that his family has at home after reading the following report (and spending over 2000 hours playing it!):

Warcraft game is "like crack"

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2281902.ece



Any thoughts??? Go on tell me how sad I am...

Task 11 - Law, Law & More Law

You need to know about 3 laws for your GCSE ICT exam:

The Data Protection Act
The Computer Misuse Act
The Copyright, Designs & Patents Act

Complete the tasks below by carrying out your own research (click on the images to make them larger, print them out, fill them in and submit):

The Copyright, Designs & Patents Act:


The Computer Misuse Act:


The Data Protection Act:


Week 5 - Extended Learning

Watch the following video on the history of hacking. You will need to do this at home (there are six parts altogether, watch at least one, but dont get any ideas!):

Newsflash!

Delete may not work on My Space, You Tube, Facebook, Twitter etc.

Your postings could exist for ever, even if you delete them!

Check out the story here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7912267.stm

What is the point? Watch the video at home. Post an opinion.

Task 10 - Data Capture/Entry Forms

Before information can be processed it is necessary to collate, collect or capture it. There are a number of ways that this can be done.

One of the most common methods of data collection is through a data capture form. You probably use these on a regular basis on the Internet. You might have already created one if you made a database for your GCSE project or maybe you have created a questionnaire for another subject.



The information on paper data capture forms is usually entered into the computer manually by someone typing in the results or sometimes automatically using an input device such as Optical Character Recognition [OCR] (e.g. National Lottery, multiple choice exam papers).

Electronic data capture forms such as the one above speed up the process as data can be instantly transferred to the electronic database. Processing of the data can take place as soon as the data is entered. For example you might have received an instant confirmation email when signing up to services online.

Below is an example of a questionnaire I have started to design to find out what effects people think computer games have on students. I think video games are a good thing and will become a much bigger part of education in the future, not many people agree with me!



It still needs some work which you are going to do for me (click on it to make it bigger). You might think I could have incorporated some extra spreadsheet features such as drop-down boxes. You might think I should have allowed some extra space for responses. You might think I should have used entirely different software to create my questionnaire... Recreate my data capture form using your own design. Add the following questions with suitable data capture facilities:

5. Have you played any video games that you feel are educational? If so what and why?

6. On average how many hours a week do you spend playing video games?

7. On average how much money do you spend a month on computer games?

8. How do you feel ICT will change education in the future?

When you have finished your form, post a picture of it to your blog. Do a really good job and I might buy copyright of the finished questionnaire from you to use in my own studies!

Week 4 - Extended Learning

Visit http://www.reviseict.co.uk/revision/

Download and print out the revision guide/booklet that appears about halfway down the screen. Staple it together and pop it on the fridge in your kitchen with a big blue magnet type thingy. Every time you visit the fridge read and remember one little bit.

Newsflash!

Hackers target Xbox Live players!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7888369.stm

Beat my grade!

Any A* bags a positive slip!

Post the screen print to your blog to enter (how many 'edited' images...)

http://www.reviseict.co.uk/games/general/gong_revision.shtml

Beat my score!

Highest score over mine wins this weeks bonus prize.

Post the screen print to your blog to enter (how many 'edited' images...)

http://www.reviseict.co.uk/revision/invaders.shtml

Task 9 - Warriors Of The Net

Warriors Of The Net is a video introducing how the Internet works. The movie is about an IP packets journey through the Internet, past routers, firewalls and transatlantic cables.

Watch the video and then describe the journey an email takes when you press send on your computer. Post your response to your blog.