Block 4 work - audience analysis

As I explained in class, there's a Writing for an Audience task at the bottom of the week 4 page (link direct to PDF file).

You might find this blog post from Septemnber 2009 handy actually

This asks you to investigate how ICT might be used by the visually impaired - specifically to use the internet. I've asked you to write a brief newsletter article (note: not a newspaper article!) with a target audience of teenagers - you'll see that I'm using a familiar target audience again. How nice of me...

You can keep this brief. Really it's about the investigation of the ways in which visually impaired people (i.e. a group with specific needs) might use the internet. The writing for an audience bit isn't that important - and certainly don't worry about the newsletter aspect of it - just try and make people want to read it. We'll come back to some techniques about how to make people want to read something in Block 6...

So, there you go.

Data Security Work

I need you to be able to:

• deal with benfits and drawbacks effectively
• find information from a variety of sources
• produce a bibliography effectively

For these reasons there's a short piece of work about Automatic Number Plate Recognition for you to complete this week. By the end of next week will be fine (that'll be by Friday October 1st (eek - October already!)

You'll find the work on That Blue Square Thing - it's the Automatic Number Plate Recognition task in the Data Security section of Block 3 - Law. Here's a direct link to the PDF document.

Public/Private Data and the Law

A bit of an update on a few things.

Firstly, these articles may be helpful to develop some of the legal and data security issues you need to understand:

• BBC Webwise guide to the DPA
• Doctor loses patient details - an example of poor security

In terms of the distinction between private and public data, I was interested to see some of the examples people were coming up with in class. Good examples of private data included information about criminal records, health records (with the specific example of records from an STD clinic), PIN details for bank cards, national insurance numbers and driving licence details.

I wonder, however, if there are ever cases where criminal records need to be made public - when someone is convicted their case may make the press, for example, and this is then a matter of puboic record (think of Pete Docharty for example - everyone knows he has a criminal record). I wonder, as well, whether there is an argument that sex offenders should, in some circumstances, have their details made public in some form?

Interesting examples of public data included gender and your family relations, say through a family tree. I wonder, though, whether there are some people who may wish to keep their gender private? I think this happens - you may be able to find examples of history where this has happened as well (George Eliot for example).

Perhaps your relations might be a slightly tricky area as well. Some people may not want to reveal their who their relations are! If you think about typical bank security questions like "what's your mother's maiden name", then perhaps the information is actually something we should be a bit more concerned about.

I did wonder in class whether there was a difference between the amount of information people of my age like to keep private and the amount that people of your age make public? Facebook profiles, and other social networking sites, can contain an awful lot of information which, in the wrong hands, might be better to keep private...

Communications revolution?

Interesting questions I have today:

• does e-mail make me more or less efficient at work?
• could I communicate without the internet for a week?
• is there sometimes just too much information out there?

I don't think there's much doubt that ICT has changed the ways many people, certainly in the western world, communicate. But there are certainly drawbacks as well as benefits to using stuff like e-mail.
Here's this weeks task:

1. think about the question "Should Leiston High School use e-mail as the main way of communicating between staff?" There are some context questions you might want to think about in the E-mail pros and cons presentation on That Blue Square Thing
2. you might want to take a look at other sources as well - there are some web links on the website
3. use the E-mail @ LHS writing frame to write a short report to answer the question
4. e-mail me this, preferably by Friday September 24th

Any problems, please let me know. You should have my e-mail address by now.

ICT & Society - web resources

Interesting questions I have today:

• Should I buy an iPhone now or wait till the next generation of phone appears?
• Do all the hidden computers that help to run our lives actually make us any happier?
• What happens when the computers stop working?
• Where is my aerocar a la Jetsons? Why don't I have it yet?!

I've finally gotten around to putting resources for AS Unit 1 (ICT and Society) up on the interwebz. Great.

That includes, very lovely Year 12 people, a spot of work for you to be doing I'm afraid:

1. complete the Future Technology document. This is a fairly simple job working out what some of the abbreviations that get used in really cutting edge ICT mean. Note that the "Source" column simply means I want to know where you got the information from - whether it's one source or more than that.
2. make sure you have an e-mail address which you can use in school - if you don't already have one then google mail seems quite effective
3. e-mail me the work (like, attach it to the e-mail as a document in a form I'll be able to read)
4. make sure that it's going to be really obvious who you are - if necessary just sign your e-mail to tell me!

In an ideal world, I'd like this done by next time I see you, but so long as I get it by next Wedesday morning that'll probably be fine (that's the 15th September I guess).

e2a: I've updated the web page from Block One to include the examples I used in class to (hopefully) help to make the difference between control/monitoring and information provision.

Belle and Sebastian Write about Love

Oh, look, I just like it OK?