ICT in society.

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Thomas Mann 11.0

UNIT 3A
ICT
IN
SOCIETY


ICT IN SOCIETY
UNIT 3A

Almost everyone in the UK will use or be involved in the use of I.C.T during the day, if you walk into a shop with automatic doors, straight away you are being involved in I.C.T. Very few people realise how much they rely on I.C.T and how much it is used during their everyday life.

I.C.T In The Home

Almost every home in the U.K will have some form of I.C.T within its walls, kitchen appliances, timer sockets, computers and televisions all use I.C.T. I will cover some important areas in which I.C.T is used in the home in this report.

My diary

To help me decide on the areas in which I was to cover the uses of ICT, I kept a diary throughout a 2 day period to see how much I really use ICT and what ICT I used. The days were Friday and Saturday, to give me a fair representation of my use inside and outside of school, the results of my diary are shown below,

I.C.T In School

I.C.T is also used in the school. In the school I use ICT mainly for work and research.

Television.

The television is one of the most widely used forms of I.C.T. and was used on various occasions throughout the 2-day period. Almost every household in the UK has one, or sometimes more. It is very simple to access, but without I.C.T it would not work at all.

        The T.V works by projecting millions of small dots known as ‘pixels’ onto the screen, our brain amalgamates these dots together to form a clear picture.

There is I.C.T in the remote control, to allow it to send messages to the television through an infrared beam. This is extremely useful. Without the remote control you would have numerous amounts of buttons on the television set, also with a remote you are not require to move to change channel, this is very popular, as people do not like to have to move to change the channel on the television, while eating their tea for example. The remote allows more functions of the television to be accessed, and allows use of teletext (explained further on). The remote has many functions, e.g. the sky remote is important for their interactive service, .‘The red button’. Some of the uses of the red button are such that, while watching sports games one can select which camera to view the game from, during David Blaine’s

Types of television services include, satellite and cable TV, such as NTL and Sky, and there is the revolutionary technology of ‘TV through the phone line’ brought to televisions by Kingston Interactive Television or ‘K.I.T’. These bring more channels than is possible than through an aerial. K.I.T brings something in the region of 80 Television channels, Sky about 600 and NTL around 200. Sky is the most widely used and is distributed via a satellite connection, which  ‘beams’ pictures down onto a satellite dish on your home. There is also interactive T.V, which allows you to change for example which camera angle you are watching a sporting event from. You can also play games on these interactive services.

Teletext/Ceefax

T.V. is very important part of many people’s lives it brings most of us the news and information that we need, this is also given by a service known as ‘ceefax’ on BBC 1 and 2, and ‘teletext’ on Itv and Channel 4 and 5.  This gives us a selection of pages to choose from, all containing different information, however not all TV’s have this function, and is not accessible without a remote. It is very useful and gives us the information we want quickly and is easily accessed. One fault I find with this service is the fact that sometimes information is contained one more than 1 ‘sub-page’ inside a page, these sub-pages are set on a timer so they go round in a loop, this takes time and can be frustrating.

A picture of a teletext page is on the right. As you can see in the top right hand corner it is page 516, the time and date are also located in the top right.  In the bottom left are the ‘sub-page’ indicator, showing what page you are on, and how many pages there are. At the bottom of the page are 4 different pieces of text each in a different colour. If you press the corresponding coloured button on your remote it will take you to the page quoted in the text. E.g. in this page if you would have pressed the green button it would have taken you to the Sport page. Some remote controls have a fairly useful function when it comes to teletext, called a hold button. This holds the sub-page which you are currently on, giving you more time to read it, if you are a slow reader, or wish to read it more than once, this is a very useful service, as it allows quick and easy access to all kinds of information at the press of a button. Teletext has had a great impact on people’s lives, although they may not realise it. Now instead of purchasing a daily newspaper, people will just access teletext or ceefax for there news, as this is quicker, easier and cheaper way of doing so.

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Uses for Television

  • Entertainment
  • Find News
  • Listen To Radio (Digital TV only)
  • Play Games (Again Digital TV only)
  • Teletext/Ceefax

Evaluation of the Television

         The television is very prominent in many people’s lives, including mine. It is extremely useful, and gives a lot of entertainment value. Teletext is a quick and easy way of accessing information, and the digital services provide better and more in depth viewing. The T.V gives people something to do when they are bored, without it you would not have videos or DVD’s, which provide more entertainment when you want it. ...

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