Education in Schools

Education in Schools
The level of education has increased due to the increase of electronics that can be used to make things better in the classroom, in terms of showing things to children and giving them the necessary things to maximise their learning.

Computers Being Integrated into Schools
One integration of the information age in the classroom are white boards, where teachers can easily show power points of the work that they have done previously to move things much more smoothly and to get more things covered in lesson, it also provides the teachers a good idea of what work that students have done in the specific topic. The whiteboard that teachers use can also be very useful when writing, as they can easily save class notes from previous lessons and even send them to their students for revision or if they have missed the day of school.

Across many schools in the UK, there has been an increase on the amount of computers that students have access to. This is mainly because with the computer industry constantly expanding, computer equipment has become much more affordable for schools, within their budget. Students are given free access to these computer to do all kinds of work for school, weather it may be research for a specific topic on the internet, or to type up something that have done. One popular way to do essays is to actually type them up using a computer, this method offers a lot of benefits compared to the traditional way of writing them out. Few of the advantages of using a computer is the option to spell check everything that you type, the simplicity of editing paragraphs but also the fact that it makes it look much neater and more professional.

Because of the expansion of computers, these has been a decrease in the paper work that students need to carry, as teachers do not have to print out documents, but simply upload them online where students can access them on the computer either at home or at school. However students still have access to printers if they wish to have a paper copy that they can bring with them wherever they are.

With the expansion of microprocessors, the size of calculators has greatly decreased meaning that the availability of them has greatly increased to the stage that any student now days can simply buy a handheld calculator, when they once used to be as big as a whole computer.

When did ICT become a school subject?

ICT in the UK became an official core subject in 1995 with the seeing increase of computer usage and help students develop their computer skills for their future life, however the main subject itself has greatly changed due to the increase of development in ICT. An example of this can be the new addition to the school system which is ‘Computing’ which is actually a new subject that teaches students how to program computer, and to teach them how they actually work, not only how to use them.

Computers have also made teachers lives a lot easier. One system that teachers widely use is called SIMS. This can also be known as the main database of the school where teachers can keep contact details, behaviour reports, attendance and grades on the computer which saves a lot of paper work.

Advantages and Limitations
he advantages of using computers at school are that teachers can show films on whiteboards, which students find much more enjoyable than just listening to the teacher talk but also including the fact that films can give a visual representation of things. Teachers can also use specially fitted cameras on holders and project the image on to the whiteboard. This could be used when the teacher wants to show something small that might be on the table, or in science when using a microscope they can zoom in on the object and project it onto the screen as well.

The usage of IT has also been integrated with subjects like art to produce computer aided design, which can also be used in subjects like graphics, or RMT.

However, some of the disadvantages of using IT is that it is extremely expensive to run all of the many computers at school, as well as to maintain the system to run them, which means that you also have to hire ICT specialists to be available most of the time to fix anything that might go wrong.

As software upgrades, it also need better processors and therefore school computers need to be updated which costs the school even more money otherwise the computers become unbelievably slow and almost impossible to work on.

On the other hand, another advantage of using IT in schools is the usage of USB sticks, what this allows students is the availability to be able to take work home and do it there on a computer instead.

In my personal experience, I have found the usage of IT very useful, and like the fact that it is a compulsory subject as I believe that it is necessary for adult hood and it is something that almost all employers are looking for. I also very much like IT but am disappointed by the fact that only now schools have become introducing ‘Computing’ as a subject, as that is something that I very much would like to take as a subject, and it could also help me to get into a university.

Employment in the information age

Employment in the information age

The information age can changed he entire employment sector around the world. In a daily office now days, people will have separate desks fitted with a landline phone, and a personal computer probably linked to the company database as well as the basic text editing software like Microsoft Word and some basic keyboard skills to be able to type on a computer keyboard. However in the early 1970’s offices, people have some of these things, like a personal computer, and instead had to use a type writer as well as having big filing cabinets full of paper work that is now-days all stored on the company’s server.

Installation of Computers in offices

The first ever computer programs were office work programs that offered basic typing and text editing capabilities as well as spreadsheet programs for office work. Many work innovations have been driven off office work. The technology of computers and programs like these have widely expanded to offices across the world at an immense rate as that have been proven to be much more convenient than the old methods of office work that included typing machines and a lot of paper work.  The integration of computers in office has started the seeming never ending decline of paper used at offices.

Expansion of computers across jobs

These days of the information age, it’s quite hard to think of jobs that do not require the functionality of computers. Most places that you go now use a computer, like the gas station or the local shops. This expansion came much slower compared to offices, computers first started expanding with very big supermarkets as they had the most money to invest into computers which were very expensive at that time then it started to expand to smaller shops like the news agents and small local shops. However, not all places across the world incorporate these kinds of methods, and still use the old methods of communication and dealing with money in third world countries like India or Pakistan.

Today, some jobs that you might not have even imagined use IT like the postman where they use a little hand held computer for you to sign for you package and for them to keep track of all their deliveries.

Computers and their effect on the industry

When every there is any new technological invention, can have a negative effect on the industry. For example, employers are slowly replacing real people with computers designed in their specific roles as computers are more efficient, but also the fact that they don’t have to pay computers for employment.

In the car industry, there has been a loss of jobs due to the expansion of robotics, because of wages and efficiency.  There has especially been a decline of jobs in the skilled industry that can be replaced by machines like sowing, where machines are doing the sowing now much more faster and accurately than people could. In the design industry there has also been a decline in jobs as companies used to hire people that has do drawings of prototypes of products and they used to have very big wages, however now all companies have to do is teach a person how to use a program to design these things on.

The usefulness of computers in the information age

There have been a lot of positive points to the expansion of computers and robots in employment however. Using computers and the internet meant that people are able to work together over long distances and do not have to be in the same room to work on a project, as well as the option to work from home on computers and then submit the work back to your employer thro
ugh email.

Computers are also able to monitor things in very dangerous environments like under water, volcanoes or space which means that computers can remove the risk from people doing work and hurting them selves.

Some computers that are used today that make some jobs amazingly more easier, but won’t take peoples jobs like parcel deliveries, where they use satnavs that tell the drivers exactly how to get from one point to another and do now have to worry with physical maps which can be confusing to read. However in the future, there might be a chance for the invention of fully functional cars controlled by computers, which will have an effect of the employment of drivers in the future.

Some of the disadvantages of the use of IT in jobs is that it resulted in people having low tolerance scale, as computers can do things to a very accurate scale unlike humans. Before computers people were used to having things not be perfect as that’s just how humans are, but after the use of computers, people make sure that almost everything is within the 1mm accuracy. It is also a negative effect on society knowing that computers are taking jobs that people should be doing, however there are more jobs being created because of the expansion of computers like computer programmers that have become necessary for the use of computers, there have also been expansions in the entertainment market with game consoles as well as virtual reality for companies like oculus that are always hiring in multiple offices across the world for new developers to expand this new technology.

Some jobs were not able to be done
in the past, but are available now because of computers. Companies like Amazon run on computers, where people are able to order things online one day, and literally receive them the very next day which would have been impossible without the use of computers.

I personally find the expansion of computers on jobs to be very interesting and beneficial to businesses to make them work more efficiently. I come in contact with things like these almost every day in places like shops, where they are replacing cashiers with self checkout lanes where you are able to scan the items yourself and pay for them which I have found to be much more efficient for me. I also believe that with the expansion of computers in jobs, means an increase of new technological inventions like the recent growth in the virtual reality market and the sale of the oculus rift which can not only be used for entertainment, but has also been taken by major organisations like NASA to be used for astronaut training or surgeons.

Download Services

Online Download Services

Before download services were available to people, you had to buy CDs when you wanted to get a program on your computer, anything like an antivirus or an editing software. If you wanted the latest music, you had to go to a shop and buy it physically, the same with movies, you could either buy them or you could rent them for a limited amount of time and have to give them back in. Soon after that, all this became possible to download and it all became possible because of the new broadband technology, which allowed faster Internet download speeds and became more feasible.

At first you were able to download simple things like online forms that you could download, print out and fill them out and send them off, but then as broadband became more sophisticated toy were able to download bigger files.

The ability to download content online has opened a completely new entertainment market where people can watch videos, download music very quickly and stream videos to your computer. Streaming videos is different to downloading videos, when you stream a video to your computer, you get to see the you are able to see the footage live being streamed on the website, where as in downloading you actually get to keep the file forever. In gaming, when you download a game, you don’t actually play the game online, but play it offline after if has been downloaded, with the possibility that it has a multiplayer feature built in with the game where you are able to play with other people online.

There are many examples of things that you are able to get online like music and video probably being the most obvious ones, but also things like updates for satnavs, this has proven to be very useful as roads get constantly updated and new routes are created and when going abroad, you want
to know the most updated roads so that you don’t get lost when you get to the location.

Almost all software is updatable online like flash or Java which are almost always necessary to have the latest version for your computer to be working up to speed but to also fix any security problems within the program. Some updates you don’t have and option whether you can update or not, for example windows automatically detects when you are turning off your computer and updates your operating system during that time, so that when you next turn on your computer it restarts it.

Automatic updates can cause you to download more data that you don’t want but also take up mor space on your hard drive. 

One example of this happening is the recent event of a U2 album that everyone got on ITunes automatically for free, which in fact left a lot of people very angry as they did not want their album and did not like their music. The band then apologised for what they have done and said that they just wanted to share their music to more people, but even more this has caused news agencies and other music artists to criticise U2 for devaluing music by giving away free music to people.

Another thing that many people are able to download today are phone apps that you are able to download at anytime when you have a connection to the Internet. However the only problem is that some of the apps can be very big In file sizes and can take up a lot of space on your phone, or if you are connected to a 3G or 4G network and have limited credit, it can take a lot of your credits away so it is recommended that you download these apps when you are connected to a WIFI connection. With downloading phone apps, developers are able to issue updates for their apps that you are able to download online as well.

Another form of entertainment that you are able to get downloaded off the internet are e-books which you are able to download on to tablets and other electronic devices.

Some of the limitations for download services are that you actually need a good online connection in the first place to be able to do all of the things above. Another limitation are the automatic updates that can cause some problems like unwanted updates and updates that take up space on your computer which can be annoying. A third problem can be hacking and security issues, as on some websites when you download something like a program or videos, they could actually be computer viruses that can damage your computers or steal your private information.

However the good points of download services are they they are amazingly useful, especially with the increase of laptops, tablets and phones not having access to a CD drive, means that they have to rely on the download services that are available.

In my personal experiences I tend to use download services a lot as I download a lot of apps on my phone like games. I also tend to download a lot of music on my computer at home, which I then transfer onto my phone. Another thing that I tend to download on my PC at home are programs and games. For games, I use a service called Steam that offers a wide range of games that I am able to buy, download on to my computer and able to play them within hours depending on the file size and my internet speed.

Online Entertainment

Online Entertainment

One of the main reasons why the online world has taken off is due to the fact of entertainment. There are many different types of entertainment such as music, video or games; some people consider communication online with friends and families as a part of entertainment as well. Some popular websites like Omegle let you chat with random people from around the world that are on the website at the same time, there are an average of about 10,000 people on there at all times.

Downloading videos form a central part of entertainment.

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One thing that you can do online is play games and interact with others in the virtual world. Some examples of this are games like ‘Second Life’ or ‘Minecraft’ which are very popular with people form around the world and are constantly expanding with the amount of users they have. In ‘Second Life’ you are able to design your own character, set their hobbies and generally everything about them, then they are able to join things called ‘Realms’ which are really different servers for people that speak different languages or to just get a better connection to the server hosting the game. Within realms you are able to join different lobbies for different topics of pop-culture like certain movies/TV Shows or fan-bases.

Another very popular interactive multiplayer game is ‘Minecraft’. This game is based on building and construction, similar to Lego. You either have the option to play on
your own is single player mode or search multiplayer servers online. There are many different servers that include special interactive games within Miecraft as well as other modes like ‘Free Build’ where players are able to join and build where ever with friends. This is a very popular interactive game as a lot of people tend to play online with their friends.

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Another part of entertainment is music online. The music industry has changed dramatically over the past years because of the online service, which has caused big record labels and stores like HMV to close down due to the increase of people buying music digitally. People prefer to buy music online as it is much easier as you are able to instantly buy music and download it on places like ITunes, as well as buy separate songs instead of buying the whole album like you would hav
e to do with a physical CD copy.

To play MP3 files, people need MP3 players meaning that MP3 players like the IPod sales have dramatically risen over the years as people like to listen to music ‘on the go’ with them and not just at home where they might have a computer or a CD player to play the music instead.

Because of the online industry of music, it has changed the format in which music comes in which are formats like MP3 and MP4. Originally music came on vinyl disks which produce an analogue sound, which is real sound unlike digital format which is compressed.


Analogue is the sounds that we hear everyday, analogue wave forms are infinite meaning that they do not have a fixed point in the travel of the sound wave; vinyl is analogue as the disk has the real sound scratched into the disk that the vinyl player later picks up, where as digital sound has got a fixed point as the sound wave keeps on going on and off really fast to the point that our ears pick it up as one long sound. For example some lights do this as well where they keep flashing on and off really fast to the point that we think the light is constantly on, in reality the room is going black for a split second and then back alight again, our eyes manage to pick this up but our brain converts this into a long stream of light, that’s why long exposure to artificial light can cause eye strains.

The analogue entertainment that we enjoy today, has become much more accessible due to the internet, as we can easily and quickly download music, as we can easily share music online unlike in real-life with vinyl or any analogue music you would have to actually record the music in its original form.

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E-Books are another very popular type of entertainment as you can download entire books in an amazingly quick time and be able to read them on any tablet which proves to be much more convenient as books tend to be quite tricky to carry around with you everyday.

Amazon which is a product distribution service now as well, used to specialize in books retail. With its recent expansion, Amazon has created the Kindle where you are able to download E-Books from Amazons E-Book store and read up to a 1,000 any time you want.

With the creation of E-Books and E-Book retailers like Amazon, the business in physical books has been greatly effected by loosing sales and have stripped physical paper books, because of this, many book retail stores have had to shut down due to the low business.

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The advantages of Music online entertainment is that you are able to download single songs instead of havening to buy an entire album, as well as no having to physically go in store to buy it and the fact that you can download music within seconds which is much more convenient.

An advantage of the E-Books is that you are able to carry around over 1,000 books with you at any time and read them on any tablet device, which removes the need of carrying physical paper books around, as well as removing the fact that you have to go to the store to buy it and the book that you might want, might not always be in stock!

One Limitation of music online is that the quality tends to be slightly worse than analogue sound as the MP3 format compresses the audio to make the file size smaller. A limitation of the E-Book is similar to the same concept of MP3 with the quality as when your read the E-Books on your tablet, you are able to see individual pixels on the screen.

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I personally always listen to music online through platforms like YouTube or Spotify as it seems much more convenient for me instead of going in store to buy an album, but also the fact that you can easily get access to new songs that have been released very recently. I have however never bought an E-Book mainly because I prefer the touch of a physical book, I’m also not too much of a reader so I don’t really need to invest into a tablet like the Kindle for reading books, but it might be something that I might look into, in the future if I have more time and read more.  

E-Government

E-government

E-government is when governments do the work online or electronically, that’s where the ‘E’ comes from in E-Government as in ‘Electronic’

Due to the increase of households getting access to internet to the point that almost everyone has internet these days, the government has found a new way to expand and has found that moving electronically has greatly increased the simplicity of work, as well as decreasing the amount of paper work.

There are currently 473 different government departments that range from Ofstead to Healthcare services. Most of these departments have become available to get in contact with through the internet now, which is why the amount of people using the UK E-Government service has increased.

One way that people get in contact with the government is when people pay for tax through the HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs) using the Government Gateway website.

Another new recent change to a part of the government is the way that people pay for their road tax, which hasn't changed for the past 60 years. People used to be able to pay online for their road tax disk and receive their tax disk through post, but now people still have to pay online, but do not receive their road tax disk at all, but update the police database to tell them you have paid your road tax. This new system has decreased a lot of paper work that people had to physically review as well as decreased the amount of people working. However for some people this is a bad thing as it results in less jobs for people, on the other hand it does decrease the amount for human error in the forms being physically reviewed.

The gov.uk website is currently working on combining all the different departments under its website, for example the Ofstead website is a separate website, is soon to be combined and be under the gov.uk web address.

Each town has its own county council which usually has its own website, there, people can keep updated on any events in the local area or look up the different garbage collection days. You are also able to do things like request a new bin online, as it might have gotten stolen or broken. All these things you would normally have to go to a council and do in person. I haven't personally, but I know that my parents have recently requested a new bin online as the one we used to have had a broken lid, apparently the process online has been reasonably easy, and the bin was delivered the next week.

Another reason why people might come into contact with the government is when people vote, this has allowed a larger amount of people to vote for the next PM, as most people these days are busy with work and do  
n't have time to physically go and vote. However some people think that because of this, theories of conspiracy and hackers being able to completely change the results

E-Government can also use the internet to share information, for example with the recent outbreak of Ebola, the government has issued information on how the UK is currently working on preventing the outbreak of Ebola in the UK, and what to do in case of an outbreak. The government is also able to share download links to forms for different things online, that you would have to normally have to go to your local council to get the specific form.

Some E-Governments have incorporated an E-Petitions system on their websites. There, people can set up different petitions and get people to vote for different topics for the government to review.