Contemporary issues in ICT

Contemporary issues in ICT

Blackberries and their involvement in the London riots

A number of politicians, media commentators and members of the police force suggested that BlackBerry Messenger, had a role to play in the London riots. RIM’s BlackBerry smartphones are very popular among inner city youths on both sides of the Atlantic. The devices themselves are typically cheaper than Android models and the iPhone, particularly on pay-as-you-go packages. But it is software that central to BlackBerrys’ success in this market. BBM is an instant messaging application, allowing users to communicate in a similar way to text messaging, but effectively for free, as traffic is exchanged via the internet. According to analysts it is replacing text messaging among young people. Each user has a unique PIN that allows other BBM users to contact them. BBM PINs are typically shared more readily than phone numbers, which means news can spread through the network more quickly than via text messages.  By using these free and easily used ways of communications they created groups and sent “broadcasts” to their contacts to organize riot destinations and times.

E-learning(online education)

E-learning

MyMaths

My maths is an online maths revision site. You can do online tasks, revision and interactive tasks on certain topics of your choice. It is almost having a class lesson but from your room or wherever you can access a computer. Schools now use it as a way for teachers to set homework, once completed the students can submit it where it is automatically marked; this is a good way for teachers to view your progress of a topic. It can be used for both A-level and GCSE and for different grades.

Advantages:

·         It’s a good form of revision

·         Easy to Access

·         Teachers can review progress

·         Students can track their own progress

Disadvantages:

·         Teachers cant see specific areas of weakness

·         It costs to use it

For me MyMaths is a very good website it helps me learn new topics and revise topics that I have already done but maybe struggle with or just want to remind myself of how to do it. I didn’t enjoy revising but MyMaths made it much easier.

VLE (virtual learning environment)

VLE’s are becoming more and more popular and soon I think that 90% of secondary schools in the UK will be using VLE’s. VLE’s can be accessed from anywhere with internet access so you can access it from school, home or anywhere where else that has a computer with internet access. Teachers can set work can set work for you via the Virtual Learning Environment and the students can also the work back via the VLE. You can also access school drives, your timetable, key dates and the school website. An example of a VLE is frog.

Advantages:

·         If you or a teacher is ill they can set work via the VLE

·         If you’ve lost your timetable you can access it

·         Teachers can set homework on it so they don’t have to waste time in lessons telling everyone what the homework is

Disadvantages:

·         Hard to get used to

·         Teachers have to have training to use it

·         It can be unreliable

BBC Bitesize

BBC Bitesize is a free online study support resource for school-age students in the United Kingdom. It is designed to aid students in both school work and, for older students, exams. It allows students from  KS1 to A-level  to revise from almost every school subject. You can also do fun activities related to the work you are revising to provide a more fun way of revising and learning.

Advantages:

·         Easily accessed

·         It is a good form of revision

Disadvantages:

·         You may be taught different things to what you are taught in school

Online forums

On forums you can find any information that you will need on a topic you are stuck on, and if you can’t find it you can just create a new topic and ask your own question and people can posts comments on the question page. Some forums are specific for students to go on so they can get good, reliable answers and help. Teachers go on these forums and provide support for people that need it.

Advantages:

·         It’s a good way of finding information

·         You can get several answers and choose the best one

·         You can find answers for a question that is relevant to you

Disadvantages:

·         Answers may not be reliable

Copyright

Copyright is where a creator of something can stop being people from copying and taking credit for their work. This means they have control over their own words, logos and images. If you break the copyright rules you will be breaking the law.

Online Banking

Online Banking

banks such as HSBC have street branches and they also have online websites.  People use online banking as an instant way of transferring money and handling the money in their account with ease.

The advantages of online banking are:

• You can transfer money instantly so it saves your time
• There are no queue’s
• Your details stored when you first use your online banking account so it saves time having to put all your details again and again
• You can get access to Instant information of your bank account

However there are some disadvantages:

• Believe or not there are security risks
• It can be time consuming logging in and passing security stages
• It is easy to make mistakes
• There is no or an anonymous relationship between you and the bank

There are many features of online banking such as:

• <!Transactional (e.g., performing a financial transaction such as an account to account transfer, paying a bill, wire transfer, apply for a loan, new account, etc.)
• Payments to third parties, including bill payments and telegraphic/wire transfers
• Funds transfers between a customer's own transactional account and savings accounts
• Investment purchase or sale
• Loan applications and transactions, such as repayments of enrollments
• Non-transactional (e.g., online statements, cheque links, cobrowsing, chat)
• Viewing recent transactions
• Downloading bank statements, for example in PDF format
• Viewing images of paid cheques
• Financial Institution Administration
• Management of multiple users having varying levels of authority
• Transaction approval process

Security

Protection through single password authentication, as is the case in most secure Internet shopping sites, is not considered secure enough for personal online banking applications in some countries.

• The PIN/TAN system where the PIN represents a password, used for the login and TANs representing one-time passwords to authenticate transactions. TANs can be distributed in different ways, the most popular one is to send a list of TANs to the online banking user by postal letter. The most secure way of using TANs is to generate them by need using a security token. These token generated TANs depend on the time and a unique secret, stored in the security token .Usually online banking with PIN/TAN is done via a web browser using SSL secured connections, so that there is no additional encryption needed.

• Signature based online banking where all transactions are signed and encrypted digitally. The Keys for the signature generation and encryption can be stored on smartcards or any memory medium, depending on the concrete implementation.

E-Government

E-government

Health care
NHS Direct is the health advice and information service provided by the National Health Service (NHS) for residents and visitors in England, with advice offered 24 hours a day, every day of the year through telephone contact on the national 0845 46 47 number, web based symptom checkers at www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk and via mobile, both as apps for iPhone and Android smart phones and a mobile website. As a part of the National Health Service, all NHS Direct services are free at the point of care.

NHS Direct's vision

To be the national healthline, providing expert health advice, information and reassurance, using our world class telephone service and website, and to be the NHS’ provider of choice for telephone and digitally delivered health services.

They don’t just help over the telephone they offer over services, these services include:

• Out of hours support for GPs and dental services
• Telephone support for patients with long-term conditions
• Pre and post-operative support for patients
• 24 hour response to health scares
• Remote clinics via telephone

The advantage of this is that you can get quick help of you are ill and unable to get to the doctors or maybe don’t have the time to the doctors. It also helps people that maybe too embarrassed to see a doctor about their problem. However there are disadvantages, you may not be able to diagnose some of the symptoms that doctors might so you might not get an accurate diagnosis. You may also think you have an illness but you might have a different one which means you are treating it wrong.
Applications

UCAS is the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service it is the British admission service for students applying to university and college. UCAS is primarily funded by students who pay a fee when they apply and a capitation fee from universities for each student they accept.

This is good because it allows students that want to study at university a quick and easy way to apply they can also easily find out if they are in via an E-mail.

E-petitions

E-petitions are an easy way for you to influence government policy in the UK. You can create an e-petition about anything that the government is responsible for and if it gets at least 100,000 signatures, it will be eligible for debate in the House of Commons.

The stages of creating an E-petition:

• <!Search for existing ones before making a new one
• Create your own e-petition
• It will then be checked by a government department
• It can be open for up to a year, the public can sign it and if it collects 100,000 signatures the petition could be debated in the House of Commons.

E-petitions are good because they give people that do not work for the government a chance to publicise their ideas and help make positive changes. It also helps the government think of new ideas and gives them more opinions and views they can help make the UK a better place.  

E-voting
E-voting is electronic means of casting a vote and counting votes,  Electronic voting technology can include punched cards, optical scan voting systems and specialized voting kiosks. It can also involve transmission of ballots and votes by telephones, private computer networks or the Internet. Electronic voting technology can speed the counting of ballots and can provide improved accessibility for disabled voters. However some methods of e-voting could promote fraud because it is done through means which in some circumstances cannot be controlled.
Driving application
You can apply for a provisional driving license so you can learn to drive when you are 17 and then eventually drive your own car. You can apply for your license 3 months before your 17^th birthday.

You can apply for your first British provisional driving licence online if you:

• are a resident of Great Britain
• can meet the minimum age requirement
• can meet the minimum eyesight requirement
• are currently not prevented from driving for any reason
• can pay £50.00 by MasterCard, Visa, Electron or Delta debit or credit card
• have a valid UK passport or another form of identity
• can provide addresses of where you have lived over the last three years

 They also have a sub heading saying “do it online, do it quicker” all you need is:

•  valid debit or credit card
• your UK passport if you have one
• your National Insurance number if you have one
• details of previous addresses

bring able to apply online is good because it is quick and easy to do from the comfort of your own home, it is also good because it has procedures so people that are not legible for one cannot get one.