Activity 2

Two different office applications that could be used by a small business to improve upon the paper based systems are Microsoft Office Excel and Word due to their highly capability of working with documents and being experts in the market.

Having Excel and word it allows anybody to use them not just professionals or experts but with old based jobs typists and secretaries were more suited for the job. So when these packages were introduced it was then harder for people in a typing profession to get jobs.

Many jobs where available when Microsoft started to released word packages which make working so easy but this took away specialized employees careers but i.t opened many jobs allowing alot of careers in i.t

Task 2

Communication with sms does not affect social downside due to mobile phones are used widely trough society and for many social activities. Texting is just a simple method to get a message across and cheaply whereas a voice conversation you can talk for ages about any topic but with sms you could be a mile away and still communicate.

Unit 1.2

Activity 1

John can use many aspects of ict to improve his lifestyle for example using a:

PDA

A pda is like a mini handheld computer (Personal Digital Assistant) they are very useful with their many features like, phonebook, email ,sms, internet, fax and spreadsheets.

LAPTOP

Portable laptops allow john to carry on doing his work on the move wasting no valuable time. Laptops are better than pds’s due to them being like compact portable computers with same components but just more smaller and portable.

GPS

Having GPS allows john to go anywhere he wants which makes it possible for him to reach many new different location, it is a simple process where all you type in is your location and desired destination and it will give many details like instructions, directions, speed and a estimate time.

MOBILE PHONE

Mobile phones are very useful if you want to stay in touch with friends or family and anybody else. Having a mobile phone it allows you to communicate daily and more often because of it being a long ranged device portable device.

INTERNET CONNECTION

A internet connection is highly recommended due to the amount of information john could access and possible research which would make his life easier with all his information on a computer or saved onto the internet which he could access later on

Activity 21- Online Entertainment

For online entertainment i tend to use youtube due to the many comedy shows on air for free and machinima's, Xbox live because i can recap on achievement or downlaod music, game demo's, film trailers and updates and game websites where you can play many different games on your browser. drawbacks are mainly that for online entertainment you will be needed to connect to the internet and internet problems occur alot.

Activity 20

i mainly downloaded music and application of the internet before due to it being easy and simple to do. Downloading of the internet is quick and easy and saves you time instead of going to shops and looking for the product yourself and then coming back home. By doing this all online you can save on time and even money when most cheap items are on the internet.
Downloading fufills its purpose because of the simplicity of it and also the simpleness.

Activity 19

The internet is used widely now and is reccomended to be a vital aspect in a modern household because of the many purposes it can do.

Online Reporting And Advice
Online reports provide information and advice straight away instead fo going to customer services and wasting time when you can read a report online and save time thanks to the internet.

Online booking-
Has increased due to the simpleness and effectiveness of the task by simply using the internet to organizr information and catagorize customer bookings. The use of internet allows booking to be more simple and also allowing the person to book more people.

Online payment
Online payments are used alot in the modern day due to most transaction take up time when going to bank whereas doing it online you can save time, get it done and also some banks give you rewards for using online features.

Activity 18 Online Education

Blended Learning
is when many different learning styles are mixed through the use of 'blended' virtual and physical resources. Learning styles refer to the way in which people learn, through blended learning this can be accomplished by making a lot of learning assignments and activities with the use of technology and instructor and peer interaction.

Virtual Education
refers to instruction in a learning environment where teacher and student are separated by time or space, or both, and the teacher provides course content through course management applications, Multimedia resources, the Internet and videoconfrencing etc. Students will receive the content and communicate with the teacher via the same technologies.

Electronic Learning
E-Learning lessons are designed to guide students through information or to help students perform for . Information based e-Learning content communicates information to the student. Examples include content that distributes the history or facts related to a service, company, or product. In information-based content, there is no specific skill to be learned. In performance-based content, the lessons build off of a procedural skill in which the student is expected to increase proficiency.

Flexible Learning
Flexible learning approaches are often designed using a full range of teaching and learning theories, philosophies and methods to provide students with opportunities to access information and expertise, contribute ideas and opinions, and correspond with other learners and mentors. This may occur through the use of internet-based tools such as virtual learning enviroment or learning managment systems, discussion boards or chat rooms; may be designed as a "blended" approach, with content available electronically and remotely, as well as "face-to-face" classroom tutorials and lectures.

Virtual University
The term virtual university is used to describe any organization that provides higher education programs through electronic devices such as the computer. Some of the Universities are real institutes, the bricks and mortar type that provide online learning as part of their extended university courses while others provide courses only on-line.

Activity 17

Using macromedia and flash is very easy software which helps you learn more on your chosen topic by educational videos or information which anybody can access via the internet, the visual content allows you to get a better understanding on what your researching for but it would more suitable for visual learners.Also if you missed out on something you can play the video again and again if needed to allow the student a better understanding.

Activity 16 - Virtual Classroom

The macromedia virtual classroom is a place where students can connect to via internet and join a virtual classroom and follow assignments set by the teacher. Virtual classrooms are more easier to work in due to the students has his own space and also the internet to do there work also you can fit more students in a virtual class where as in a real one there are limits

but virtual classrooms have there disadvantages for example

• students can get distracted easily over the internet
• computers can be easily damaged which may not some student participate in lessons
  
• all students should have average i.t skills and know how to work on the website

Activity 15

http://frog.edschool.virginia.edu/Frog2/

The websites give us a view on how to disect a frog and give us tips and what to do. the webstie allows us to understand whats going to happena and also saves us on wasting frogs with disectiong online we can disect up to many times and not kill a actual frog where as if in real life we would need to have more dead frogs to disect and waste resources

Activity 14

http://www.makingthemodernworld.org.uk/learning_modules/

Making the modern world is a good wesbite helping a level students with many topics.
it allows students to learn alot more than they can at school or get a better idea of the subject chosen to revise. The site helps students get a better view on there topic chosen and understand a but more which fuflis the purpose of the site.

Activity 13 Online Banking

Online Banking is used widley trough out the world due to the many advantages ti has like on saying time, instead of wating in a line at the bank or taking time out of your life you can just fo to your banks online website and either take money out, deposit, pay bills or just save and also banks make your online transactions safe and simple due to the risk of online hackers.
Online banking is pretty useful for people who have busy lifestyles or run business so the main audience would be busy people but it can be aimed at anybody with access to the internet.
Online banking can improve by being more safe and secure so it allows people to know there money is safe

Activity 12 Ebay

Ebay is a widley used online auction website and being famous for being a online market place where anybody can access. Ebays major purpose is to allow people to be able to auction off there products to potential customers which is not hard when ebay allows your prouct to be viewed by millions of people.
Ebays target audience is the whole internet de to them being a online auction website they aim for everyone so products can be sold allwowing ebay to remain online. The auction process works in 5 steps

• Ebay user wants to sell old item, he/she creates a auction listing on the old product
• During the auction hundreds of potential buyers look at the produt and some place a bid
• Buyers places higher bids until maximum is reached and the winner recieves a confirmation email and then options on how to pay the item holder
• Cstomer can pay directly, paypal or other
• Old item is delivered to customer

ebay fulfils it purpose of allowing online members to sell there products online or buy desired items and recieve over the internet easily.Ebay allows people to buy and sell items in there own homes which saves time and save you of the hassel of the product of going to an auction and wait for your product to come up and buying it and taking it home. Ebay has been prone to many fraud auctions where sellers just accept the money and deliever nothing or false items and also many people have been frauded due to false advertisement or not reading into seller feedback

Activity 11-Birmingham Weather

Thursday 9th -monday 13th weather checks from
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/5day.shtml?id=1113
and
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/wm/birmingham_forecast_weather.html


Thursday
BBC Max 16°C
Met Office Max 16°C

Friday
BBC Max 17°C
Met Office Max 15°C

Saturday
BBC Max 16°C
Met Office Max 16°C

Sunday
BBC Max 15°C
Met Office Max 15°C

Monday
BBC Max 16°C
Met Office Max 16°C

Both websites gave similar results to the weather but finding the 5 day forecast took time on the met office web site due to the bad layout whereas it was easy to find on the bbc site also bbc gave more information and witha better layout it was easy to read and find whereas met office was all plain writing.
paying for the met office would be more suitable for people who just want weather and information on future predictions but not for people who just want a simple prediction and might resort to free predictions on the tv or teletext.

Activity 10

To get to tottenham court road from birmingham i used multimap because they give really good directions and also give you a map with great detail and other features to get to your destination for example you could find a route to your destination by foot, car, shortest or quickest.

multimap gave me a map for my journey which i will take by car and also multimap gives us a breif sum up of the journey and a rough sum up of the jouney.

This journey from my house will take up to 2 hours 15 mins and travel 119.51 miles.

By using multimap i was easily able to find the route to my destination easily and very simple to find. using multi map was quick and easy and is very simple to use due to the fact less information was needed.

Activity 9

Google Groups Digital Divide usenet

You can find lots of updated information and in different genre's which does proove useful if you want a different view on a certain topic, also with google being a large famous search engine you can search about anything on your topic.But also the imformation you are viewing is or could be biased based written up by the owner which dosent allow you to see the disadvantages and might have to do more research towards the topic

Activity 8

Hiku

This is my hiku

Out of his own confusion
he works blindley and is lost
in his own world

Ive chosen to send it by email due to it being quicker and you can write as many words u want
and also it being free alows you to send much more emails instead of paying money for a single text

Activity 5

The purpose of an email is to be able to send a multiple amout of people a message qucik and easyliy over the internet. emails can be for any purpose for example family occasions like if a family abroad wanted to know when there cousins where going to arive at there country they could send a email and at airport allowing them to know when they would be arrive or any other information

Email meets its purpose perfectly due to it achives its target by allowing users to send and recieve emails. allowing a online user to create a message and then snending it to the recipeint is one of its main purpose

The many benifits of using email is being able to send emails instantly and quickly and saving,

• sending a email is free and dosent cost money.
• when sending a email it should reach the recipeint under a minute or at max a hour depending on the internet speed the user has.
• your email will be stored and saved until the recipeint is ready to view it and then after can send it to other users if he/she desires

There are also many Drawbacks to sending emails are that anybody in the world can send you email if they get ahold of your email adress and can fill your inbox with unwanted trash like junk emails or advertisements.

• spam emails can be sent to anybody unless they take precautinon and set up a firewall or change the settings in there inbox to filter junk.
• emails can contain computer viruses through attachments.
• emails being easily sent to the wrong person accidentally, or forwarded on, as a carelessley

to sum up all information using emails is highly recommended due to the many advantages it has.

Uk Goverment Link

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/index.htm