ICT in society

David Jones 1RJS

Unit 3A: ICT in society

ICT is widely used in every aspect of everybody’s life. The main two categories of the uses of ICT are at school and at home. The ways I use ICT in school is mostly in my ICT and Business studies lessons. I use the Internet and programs such as Microsoft PowerPoint, word, publisher, excel and access. The ICT I use at home are computer for entertainment and educational purposes, playstation, Playstation portable, DVD and mobile phone.

At school

I use Microsoft Word in my Business studies and gay ICT lessons to type work out in best such as coursework and classwork. I use word because it is easy to use and it is the only word processing program available on the computer. I use Microsoft PowerPoint in school to create presentations for lessons such as business studies. I use publisher as school to make posters, front covers and leaflets for lessons such as English and ICT. I use access to make databases this program is very useful in business studies because it regularly need to make a database. I use excel to make spreadsheets this comes in useful for the financing work in business studies because the formula make it easier and quicker to complete them. The advantage of having these programs at home and a school is I can start work at school and compete it at home. The disadvantage is that the spell check is in American what is quite annoying. A way forward in the future would be to make the spell check in English.

I use the Internet at school to access vital information to help me complete tasks in lessons such as ICT.

Most of the classrooms at my school have been fitted with projectors and interactive white boards. These are mainly in the ICT and maths rooms. These help my educational progression because the teacher can show the class examples of the aspects of the subject what the class doesn’t understand.

The biggest way in what pupils get school dinner is by the cashless catering swipe cards. These work by going to the machine to put money ...

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I use the Internet at school to access vital information to help me complete tasks in lessons such as ICT.

The biggest way in what pupils get school dinner is by the cashless catering swipe cards. These work by going to the machine to put money on my card swiping it and putting the desired amount of money on my card or getting a cheque and putting it in the box opposite the machines. I can then by my lunch at the canteen, the tuck shop or the swipe card vending machines what are placed around the school. The advantages of having a swipe card is that it is easier than having lots of money and it stops bullying and theft. The disadvantages of a swipe card is if I don’t have any money on it I can’t get lunch and if I was to lose it I would have to buy a new one. A way forward for the cashless catering system would to have a finger print scanner so once you get your lunch you scan your thumb and it takes the money out of your account.

ICT is a big help in my education because it helps my progress and it makes my life easier when faced with making copies of work for example in history and to write essays up in neat for example in English.

At home

At home I use a playstation to play computer games on. A playstation (PS2) is made by Sony and it is a black (but also comes in silver) rectangular box with one disc tray. It can play compact discs (CD’s), digital versatile disc (DVD’s) and playstation and playstation 2 games. I play on my playstation nearly every night because it is entertaining. The playstation games are the same size as a CD and to buy the games they cost about £30.00. To store the game saves of the games I need to regularly buy memory cards because the playstation doesn’t have a hard drive. Standard memory cards are 8MB and cost about £20.00 but now companies such as Action replay have been bring out memory cards what hold 32MB and they cost around £40.00 I have brought one of these because they are good value for money and they last a long time. In time new games consoles will come out from the makers Sony and Microsoft these are he X-box 360 and the playstation 3. These will have life like graphics and be able to connect to the Internet. The advantages of a PS2 is it is a great machine because it can do a lot of things but they are really expensive with all the games and accessories what need to go with it the price is quite expensive.

I have got a playstation portable (PSP). PSP is the newest hand held consol. It is made by Sony and it can do lots of things. I can play games which have Playstation 2 graphics, I can watch films on it, I can listen to MP3 music on it and I can store and view digital photos. The discs what are compatible with the PSP are UMD (Universal media discs) they are a small disc covered by a plastic cover because if the disc gets scratched a bit it will not work. The UMD disc about 2 inches in diameter and can store about 1.3g of memory. It has a USB connection so I can connect it to my computer and save music files onto it to listen to.

The PSP has a rechargeable battery what lasts for about 8 hours and it takes about 2 hours to charge. To save pictures, music and game saves I need to buy a memory stick. Memory sticks come in 32MB, 64MB, 128MB, 256MB, 512MB and 1GB. The PSP has a WLAN capability so two or more PSP can connect wirelessly together and play multiplayer games. Also the PSP can connect to the Internet if a wireless router is nearby and it can establish a connection.

I have got a digital versatile disc player (DVD). A DVD player is a device what plays films from discs. These work in the same way a VHS but on my DVD player I can’t record stuff off the TV. I like to watch a DVD rather than a video because a DVD has better picture quality and better sound quality. A DVD also has some disadvantages such as if I was to scratch the disc then it wouldn’t work or it would keep freezing.

I find having a mobile phone is really useful because if I am out and I need a lift home because the bus was late or I need to text a friend then I can without any trouble. My mobile phone is with the network 3 and it has a camera and it is able to record sound and video. These things are a lot of funs to have on a phone but the most practical things are texting because it is cheap and short and being able to make a phone call because there are not many phone boxes around. I think that mobile phones are expensive to buy because they are about £200 for a decent one and every week or every other week I need to top up about £15 so it think that is a bit of a rip off. The battery life on a mobile phone is short. I need to charge up my mobile every other day because I always have it on.

The most important bit of ICT in my house it the computer (PC) because it allows me to complete homework and coursework such as ICT coursework and it also has other functions. I have the Internet supplied by BT it is BT broadband basic and it is quite slow even though it is broadband. The Internet allows me to use MSN to talk to friends even though I don’t very often. The advantage of MSN is I can talk to friends and download thins. The disadvantage is that I could download a virus what can break my computer. I also watch movie clips and Game trailers from website such as www.ign.com and . The programs I use on my home computer is word, excel, publisher and PowerPoint.

At home ICT makes my life more entertaining because of my Playstation, PSP and computer. I also can do work at home on my computer such as English essays and business studies spreadsheets.

In conclusion I think ICT makes my life easier. ICT makes my life easier by allowing me research things and write things up in neat for educational purposes. ICT also allows me to entertain myself with playstation and computer.