Throughout the ICT course program students constantly hear the terms ‘data’, ‘information’ and ‘knowledge’. They need to understand the concise definition of all of them. This is particularly important when it comes to Data handling packages such as Spreadsheet programs.

What do the numbers 12342433191, 140593 or perhaps the letters ‘aaabbbccd’ mean to you? Probably nothing – this is because they have no specific meaning or application. They are examples of DATA. Data consist of raw facts and figures – it does not have any meaning until it is processed and turned into something useful. It is essential that DATA is available because it is the first step in creating meaningful INFORMATION.

Information is data that has been processed in such a way as to be meaningful to the person who receives it.

INFORMATION = DATA + CONTEXT + MEANING

The next level up from collecting information is having wisdom – the capability of understanding the relationship between pieces of information and what to actually do with the information. This ability is called Knowledge

Consider this scenario: Person puts a finger into very hot water.

Data gathered: Finger nerves sends pain data to the brain.

Processing: Brain considers the data and comes up with…

Information: Painful finger means it is not in a good place.

Action: Brain tells finger to remove itself from hot water.

Knowledge: Sticking finger in hot water is a bad idea.

The nurturing of this type of cognitive behavior is essential for everyone in today’s environment. Within ICT we address this need with the teaching of programming, starting with Spreadsheet software’s like Microsoft Excel.

In Year 4 students are introduced to a Spreadsheet program, which in this case is Microsoft Excel. They learn the basics of how to interact with the interface and format data so it can be viewed as graphs and hence become meaningful information.

Every year after, we add to their knowledge with the objective of students being able to create autonomously, a working program using functions and formulas in Excel.

Students are also introduced to programming applications designed by MIT in the USA to teach the basics of computer game creation. Computer programming (often shortened to programming or coding) is the process of designing, writing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in one or more programming languages. The purpose of programming is to create a program that performs specific operations or exhibits a certain desired behavior.

The ICT department is delighted to announce that from the start of 2014 we are introducing a course on Mobile App Creation. Students are going to create a design firm that makes Mobile Apps.  They make use of the ‘Design Process’ to identify an area within the school environment or outside of that environment that could really benefit from a new App. Their core idea will be the focus of the ‘Business Plan’ and the template for their creation. They will finalize the project by submitting a business plan with logo and letterhead and working App.

For the programming stage students will use MIT’s App Inventor 2.

Below you will find the link to where, in the future, completed projects will be posted.

CLICK HERE to view student work.