Monday, March 31, 2008

CASE study assignment Tuesday 1 April

Online Stores View the Marks and Spencers

http://www.marksandspencer.com/gp/node/n/42966030/026-2737318-3944440?ie=UTF8&mnSBrand=core
and Tesco’s Online stores http://www.tesco.com/
Questions:
a) Describe all of the features of the sites that you have looked into.

b) Outline the policy statements included on these sites?

Marks and Spencer policy statement Terms and conditions Outlines:
Ownership of rights , Accuracy of content Damage to your computer Password/account security, Availability Ordering errors, Delivery charges Acknowledgment and acceptance of your order, Delays Cancellation right, Substitution Restrictions on purchase ,Gift list gift messages and gift wrapping, Technology guarantee Links to other websites, Exclusions of liability,


i) Describe the hardware and software that would be required to set up an online store.

ii) You are a website designer – write a proposal to La Vianda for a website design so that customers could order online – describing the features that you would include and what hardware would be required to run this site.

iii) Describe how you would make online ordering secure and describe the payment methods that you would offer.

iv) You are the Marketing Manager – brainstorm with your team, how you would launch the opening of the new website and encourage existing loyal customers to use it? Global customers to be aware of it? And to encourage local residents who are not customers to use it.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Interactive Whiteboards (Area of Imapct education)

Interactive Whiteboard

a) What is it and how does it work?

b) What potential does the interactive whiteboard have on changing your lesson?

c) Discuss the impact on learning from the introduction of IWB using ISB as an example

d) Try out the ActivStudio software to see it’s full functions and visit www.promethean.com to look at all of it’s features.

Ipods In educations

The task is to be done individually.

Ipods in Education

Read the following case studies of the use of podcasting and ipods in education.
http://www.gracemount.edin.sch.uk/

http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2005/12/ipodupdate_print.htm
a) Define the term podcast

b) Describe the steps in detail that a teacher would need to take to make available one of their lessons through podcasting.

c) Describe the benefits from using this new technology in these schools/universities


d) Describe the limitations or drawbacks from introducing this technology?


e) Research using the Internet to find out if other schools/colleges are encouraging the use of ipods in schools and describe your findings.

Education (Area of Impact) DP1

Research on how telelearning has been used in the areas assigned to you. Be prepared to present your findings. In your research
a) Define telelearning and VLE (virtual learning Environments)
b) Describe how the technology works
c) Name the stakeholders and at least two real examples from research
d) Describe the effects of its use
e) Discuss at least three social/ethical issues arising

Swaleh & Sabeeha
Hospitals

Samantha & Hussein
Prisons

Oshan & Akshay
Retirement Homes

Shailen & Sahil
Military camps

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Virtual Actors Assignment(HL/SL)

Ananova has her own news site on the Internet. She is not real, but merely a virtual actor (VActor). She is a sample of the virtual characters that can be created using 3D graphics programs. These actors live in a virtual world and their designers offer descriptions of their virtual lifestyles. Such Web sites are very popular and are visited by thousands of fans.
Visit http://mrl.nyu.edu/~perlin/experiments/emotive-actors/,
NOVA Online Special Effects- Titanic and Beyond Virtual Humans

Practice with the characters on this website.
a) Describe the advantages and disadvantages of designing a play with this site. (4 marks)
b)Describe two IT processes which are used to create VActors. (4 marks)
c)Investigate 3D modelling software, wire mesh and rendering software.

Visit: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/3dgraphics3.htm

d) Explain three economic issues which are related to the use of VActors. (6 marks)
e) Discuss three non-economic issues which emerge from the use of VActors. Use specific examples in your discussion. (10 marks)

Thursday, March 13, 2008

DP1 Graphic: Digital Rights Management

1. Digital Rights Management

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/08/18/file.formats/index.html

a.What is a DRM and what does it do?For a more recent article Music Lovers caught in a DRM battle http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5041684.stm

b. Describe how DRM controls what we do with our CDs

c. Why is DRM considered unfair for consumers?Has the program Fairuse4wm enabled DRM technology to be circumvented?

2. Sony’s XCP copyright system to prevent the illegal copying of its CDs has had to stop. read the article. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4430608.stm
a) Explain how the system worked and why it has had to stop? How were consumers compensated?

b) Learn more about file formats and prepare to have a class discuss on the same http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2004/online.music/interactive.html
Prepare for a discussion on Facing the Digital Music – Downloading Music in the link below http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/07/20/digital.download/index.html

c) What have companies like iPod and the new Napster allowed new artist to accomplish?

3. Copyright Laws – How copyright laws hurt culture?http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,48625,00.html
Write brief points for discussion iin class.

a) Why does the author feel copyright laws have hurt the actual artist and helped the corporate side of digital media?

b) What is the DMCA? When was it passed? What is the maximum penalty?

Monday, March 10, 2008

DP1 Graphics Notes

1) Obtain brief notes on the following;

Animation, bit-mapped versus vector graphics, object oriented graphics, clip art, CAD, hypermedia, hypertext, pixel, resolution, MP3, MIDI, and Morph.

2) Visit this site to describe the various forms VR can take: http://www-vrl.umich.edu/intro/.
a) In your own words outline the similarities and differences between the following: (6 marks)
BOOM
CAVE
HMD
b) Distinguish between immersive and non-imersive VR technologies. Provide examples.
(3 marks)
c)) Explain whether VRML is immersive or non-immersive VR technology. (3 marks)

d) Outline 4 areas of business that VR would be helpful. For each area describe how it might
be applied. You may need to do some additional research here for examples. Type the
keywords ‘VR application’ or ‘virtual reality’ into a search engine. (8 marks)

Total - /20 marks

DP1 Ecommerce

Discovering Computers – online chapter review Chapter 14 at www.scsite.com/dc2005/

1. Watch the Power point presentation on e-commerce (CC Chp 13 – slide 6) and explain what is meant by e-commerce

There are 3 different types of e-commerce models

Business to Business This is where businesses handle transactions with their business colleagues such as suppliers, distributers and banks.

2. Read about how businesses use information systems for business transactions.
3. How has EDI helped business transactions

Business to Consumer – which handles retail transactions between a company and individual consumers.

4. How is online shopping done? http://www.scsite.com/selabs/

Thursday, March 6, 2008

DP1 HL Friday class work

Respond to the following question in one page.

1. Visit the site: http://www.banksafeonline.org.uk/
a) identify the types of scams that are available at the moment.

b) Write down the steps that customers should be taking to protect themselves the types of scams.


2.
a) Define the terms "Phishing" and "Pharming "

b) Visit http://www.howstuffworks.com/ for an update on how ‘Phishing works. Explain in your own words how phishing attacks occur.

c) City Bank and PayPal are common targets of Phishing attacks, search their websites to find out what the company is doing about phishing.

d) Provide some easy advice to users on how to prevent phishing attacks.

DP1 both (HL & SL) Weekend Assignment (7th March 2008)

Prepare a one page document in response to the below questions (10 marks)

File Sharing
Visit the following link and answer questions 1 & 2. BBC ClickOnline; File Sharing 3-18-04
http://www.bbcworld.com/content/clickonline_archive_11_2004.asp?pageid=666&co_pageid=2

1. What company supplied the “big break” in file sharing?

2. What are three reasons why file sharing music and software was so successful?Who is responsible for downloading?

File-sharing suffers major defeat
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4627679.stm

3. In June 2006, The US Supreme Court has made a new ruling about who is responsible for the downloading of media from file sharing networks? Who is responsible? How is this different to the comparison to video recorders?

Monday, March 3, 2008

DP1 Banking Assignment

Research using the Internet and the site www.bankrate.com/brm/olbstep2.asp

a) What is meant by e-money?
b) What is meant by the term Digital Cash?
c) What are ATM Machines and how do they work?
d) What details are stored on credit/debit cards and how do they work?
e) How easy is it to create forged cards and what steps can be taken to minimise this?
f) What does online banking mean and what services does it include?

Have you ever been Internet Banking? Are you too young? Go to the following site: http://www.banksa.com.au and try out the interactive demonstration.

Visit the HSBC Branch and from this visit find out the following:

  • What banking services do they offer for individuals and banks
    Which of these services involve the use of IT?
  • Are there any future services that are being planned?
  • Security and banking is in the news a lot at the moment with stories of Phishing. What extra steps are banks taking to ensure the security of customers bank details when doing Internet Banking.
  • What measures do you feel that customers should take to work with you on the extra security of the Internet banking?
  • If security was breached who would pay? The bank or the customer?
  • How does the bank feel that customers benefit from online banking?
  • What impact has the technology developments had on banking employment and training.