Term 3 Storage devices

Statement of inquiry: Data storage involved through technological advances in the meduium of storage devices. 

Global context: Information literacy and Communication

Task: Creating a booklet for Storage Devices

Target audience: Grade 7

Information literacy

My task is to create a booklet with information about storage devices. This task is very interesting to do for me because my prior knowledge about storage devices is very little. This task will help me finding out more about storage devices by using research skills which are very useful in real life.

Introduction:

Storage device is a a piece of computer equipment on which information can be stored.

There are two types of storage devices used with computers: a primary storage device, such as RAM, and a secondary storage device, like a hard drive. Secondary storage can be removable,internal, or external storage. Random-access memory (RAM ) is a form of computer data storage. A random-access memory device allows data items to be read and written in approximately the same amount of time, regardless of the order in which data items are accessed.

Cover Page (sketch 1)

As my booklet is going to be for year 7 students I decided to make it very colorful and use a lot of pictures to make it eye-catching. I used bubble writing for the title and made it very big. I used 4 pictures of USB, SD card, cloud and CD so people would know which storage devices I will be talking about in the booklet.

Inside Pages (sketch 1)

My titles are big and eye catching so that people would know what exact devices my booklet is about. I need my inner pages to be informative so there needs to be a lot of space for the text which I've shown in orange. But it wouldn't be interesting for year 7 students to read just a wall of text so I also left some space for pictures (shown in blue). I will also use different colors to make my booklet look good and interesting to read.

Reflection:

I could have done the cover page in a different shape. For example, I could do it in a shape of a big CD. Also I could use more different colors for it to look more attractive. But overall it looks nice and I am happy with how I did it.

For the sketch of inside pages for this booklet I used different colors to represent what the layout is going to be. The page is going to be divided in 3 columns and each column is going to represent one storage device. Green sections at the top are the titles. Orange parts are the information about the devices. Blue sections are spaces for images. I was thinking creatively and decided that it would look very eye-catching to put samples of the devices on the booklet, so in violet parts I'm going to stick on SD card and a part of a CD.

(153 words)

Cover Page (sketch 2)

I like this sketch much more than the first one because booklets are usually rectangular shape but this one is round which makes it unique and eye-catching. I decided to make the booklet in a round shape because one of the devices I've chosen is a CD. I used different colors. I improved my sketch my putting annotations.

Inside Pages (sketch 2)

This is the inner page for the booklet with the cover in  shape of a CD. However, it's not really an inner page. This is going to be at the back of the cover page. It's also in a round shape which is same size as the cover page. As I will be describing 3 devices I divided the inner page into 3 sections. Each section will contain information and pictures about a device. I still didn't decide if the background is going to be a solid color or a picture of a CD because it depends on how appropriate the font is going to be. I think that it would be hard to read text if the background is going to be a picture of a CD. 

Reflection on my designs

      The first design of the cover page for my booklet wasn't good enough because it didn't have enough annotations. It's not very creative because it's in a simple rectangular shape with simple pictures and I don't like the layout. In the first sketch of inner pages I used colors to represent different parts of the booklet like title, pictures, information, etc. The layout is very simple and not really eye-catching. Also, it would be hard to create, because I would have to print the inner pages on an A3 format paper because it's horizontal and front page is in A4 format and vertical. 

      I reflected on my first designs and decided to be more creative with my booklet. i decided to make the second design in a shape of the CD because one of the devices I will describe is a CD. I used many bright colors in this design and made annotations big and eye-catching. The inner page of the second design is not really an inner page. I thought that it would be an unusual booklet and the page with information will be on the other side of the cover page. I drew the same size circle as the cover page however I decided that the background for the text will be solid color because it would be hard to read the text if the background is going to be a picture of the CD. I divided the circle in 3 parts but when I will be doing the digital version on Publisher I will make sure the 3 parts are equal. I found space for pictures on the information page and placed the titles in the middle of the circle. I think I should make titles bigger because they aren't going to stand out when I will add information to my booklet. 

I've chosen my second design because it's much more creative and eye-catching than the first one. 

(321 words)

Cover page MC Publisher

Inside page MC Publisher

References (back page)

Self-evaluation

Peer evaluations

By Sarah


By Omar

Conclusion

I should improve on my graphics by using more pictures because y7 students will like colorful booklet with a lot of pictures. Also, pictures can help explaining and describing devices. I also should check for grammar mistakes because it's important not to teach smaller students wrong spelling or punctuation. I did well on communicating information and organization of my booklet. Also, I had all the sources which is very important. 

Reflection

My task was to make a booklet which would educate year 7 student on storage devices. In the beginning my sketches weren't very good because they didn't have any annotations. but then I improved on it and added some annotations. However, I could make the annotations more detailed. I think my idea with creating a booklet in a shape of a CD is pretty creative and very visually-appealing and appropriate for the audience. On the inside page I decided not to have to much information and just have main information about storage devices in bullet points. Bullet points are easier to remember and faster to read. Year 7 students wouldn't like to read a lot of information and would like to see more pictures. I think I should have had pictures on the inside page too because it would make my booklet more attractive and interesting to read. In the process of creating my booklet I think the hardest part was to create an inside page because I had to divide it in three equal parts and plan it so I could fit all the information needed. Also, had to see which font is going to be easy to read and can be seen from far away. My headings are pretty big, but I should have made the font of the information much bigger. 

Overall, I'm pretty happy with what I've done because I put a lot of time and effort into completing my work. Peer-evaluation helped me with reflecting on my work so I could improve in the future.

Worksheet Answers

1. Computer viruses are small software programs that are designed to spread from one computer to another and to interfere with computer operation. Through the course of using the Internet and your computer, you may have come in to contact with computer viruses. A computer virus might corrupt or delete data on your computer, use your email program to spread itself to other computers, or even erase everything on your hard disk.

2. Data can be lost if:

• It will be corrupted by computer viruses.
• Computer will be hacked by unauthorized users and data will be deleted or altered.

3. To protect data you can:

• Add backup files on storage units such as disks or hard drives.
• Encryption is the most effective way to achieve data security. To read an encrypted file, you must have access to a secret key or password that enables you to decrypt it.
• You should send or store data only on wireless networks that use encryption because hackers don't need physical access to the network or its devices; anyone with a wireless-enabled portable computer and a high gain antenna can capture data and/or get into the network and access data stored there if the wireless access point isn't configured securely.

4. 3 features I've used in MS Excel:

• Excel spreadsheets help us make sense of large amounts of data. To make it easier to find what you need, you can reorder the data or pick out just the data you need, based on parameters you set within Excel. You could sort on first name (alphabetically), second name (alphabetically) or by the numbers (numerically).
• You can type the calculation you want to perform directly into the cell or the formula bar and when you press Enter the answer will show in the cell.
• Recommended pivot table. PivotTables summarize large amounts of Excel data from a database that is formatted where the first row contains headings and the other rows contain categories or values. The way the data is summarized is flexible but usually the Pivot Table will contain values summed over some or all of the categories.

5. 4 functions I've used in MS Excel:

• Sum function. Adding values in cells using formula. Example: =SUM(A3+A4)
• Average function. Finding average of selected cells with numbers.
• Max function. Finding biggest value from selected values.
• Min function. Finding smallest value from selected values.

6. 3 features I've used in MS Word:

• Grammar checking feature. Checks of correct spelling of words.
• Copy and Paste feature. Allows users to copy information from different sources and copy it to Word document.
• Insert chart. Allows users to insert different charts like Excel chart, bar chart, pie chart, etc.

7. Sensors used in weather forecasting:

• Digital temperature sensing. It's simply a digital thermometer.
• Digital rainfall monitoring.
• Ultrasonic anemometers. Measuring wind on surface.
• Ceilometers. Determine the height of the cloud base.

8.  Animation is where a series of still images are linked together as part of a timed sequence. This makes the image appear to move.

8 bits = 1 byte, a combination of 1's and 0's
1024 Bytes = 1 KB
1024 Kilobytes = 1 MB
1024 Megabytes = 1 GB

Three main tasks performed by a computer is input, processing and output.
The spreadsheets that you have created at school are stored on the hard disc drive in the computer.
The shortcut for copy is Ctrl+C and the shortcut for paste is Ctrl+V.
The shortcut to cut some text is Ctrl+X.
The shortcut to undo some changes is Ctrl+Z. The shortcut to print your document is Ctrl+P.
NIC stands for Network Interface Cards. To connect to a network, a computer uses a network interface card. NIC controls the wired and wireless connections of a computer to exchange information with other computers and the Internet.
URL means Uniform Resource Locator. It is the address of a web page. Each page has its own unique web address (URL). This is how your computer locates the web page that you are trying to find.
RAM stands for random access memory. It's a type of computer memory that can be accessed randomly; that is, any byte of memory can be accessed without touching the preceding bytes. RAM is the most common type of memory found in computers and other devices, such as printers.

Input devices:
Keyboard, mouse, scanner, digital camera, joystick.

Output devices:
Printer, projector, speaker, earphones.

Storage devices:
USB, CD, DVD, hard disk, magnetic tape.

References:

1. Microsoft. (2016). What is a computer virus?. Available: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/pc-security/virus-whatis.aspx. Last accessed 21th Mar 2016.
2. Rhys, T. (2016). ways that data can be lost and how to prevent it..Available: http://www.slideshare.net/wolfblood11/research-the-ways-that-data-can-be-lost. Last accessed 21th Mar 2016.
3. Shinder, B. (2006). 10 things you can do to protect your data.Available: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/10-things-you-can-do-to-protect-your-data/. Last accessed 21th Mar 2016.
4. Kuriacou, C. (2014). 5 Features of Microsoft Excel you Should be Using. Available: http://learn.filtered.com/blog/5-features-of-microsoft-excel-you-should-be-using. Last accessed 21th Mar 2016.

Tech Fair project. Ahmed and Lyoma. Veteran Warfare.

They created a first person shooter game. They didn't code it but just did the design of the game. The disadvantage is you can spawn the enemies and kill them yourself which isn't very entertaining. I think that game isn't creative enough, because there are already too many games. If the game helped society and environment somehow it would be better. I think their game is just like a lot of other games. They could improve on design of the game. Their game is still on alpha stage which means on a very basic stage. Ahmed and Lyoma's presentation could be better if they were louder and were a bit more confident with what they were saying. They were reading of the powerpoint presentation almost all the time which is not enough eye contact with the audience.
I think their project shouldn't be a part of Tech Fair.

Tech Fair project. Emil. Honor and conquest.

Emil created a game which is supposed to help children read. There are 3 phases with 3 levels in each. To complete all the phases you have to read a lot to understand what to do in next level and in the current level. Children think reading is boring and prefer playing games but Emil combined both in one. I like his idea but he could put in more effort like coding the game, not just doing the layout of it. Also, there are already a lot of different games and Emil could be more creative with his project. His presentation was great but he could be more confident. His blog was complete and he showed us how his game works.
If he improves the game it could be a part of Tech Fair.

Tech Fair project. Thrisha and Hiya. Braille keyboard.

Their video is good, but could be better if it showed what exactly their project is. The presentation is great and they described clearly their idea. I really like the idea and realization is fantastic. This project is very useful and will really help society. Blind people are same people as others and deserve to benefit from life and technologies. Their project will help blind people to learn how to type. The disadvantages were that the recordings didn't work sometimes but they managed to fix it.
I think their project must be a part of Tech Fair.

Tech Fair Project. Romee and Joudei. Delivery bot.

Their project is a remote control car with a box on top. Romee and Joudei made two delivery boxes. One of them had portable chargers inside and another one was bigger and was empty so that it could carry some stuff. The disadvantage is that this bot can't go up and down the stairs and to use it you'll have to have all the doors opened because the bot can't go through the doors or open them. Also, this bot can't carry too heavy stuff, because the box is a shoe box and the pressure on a remote control car is going to be to big and it will slow down. And you will have to charge the portable chargers anyways at some  point of time. I like the idea and I think it's very useful.
I think their project should be a part of Tech Fair.

Tech Fair project. Racha and Samra. Nintendo phone.

Their project is a bit easy to make and I don't think the realization of their idea was good. Their project was a Nintendo phone, which is kind of a case for a phone which looks like Nintendo. The way they presented their project was great but the project itself could be improved. Their project wasn't really neat, because the outside was made out of paper which wasn't glued together properly. I was talking to Samra after they presenting their projects and she said she had an idea of an outside being made out of CDs, but they didn't have enough time. If it was made out of CDs, it would look better and be harder to break than paper. Also, not every phone can fit in their project, so your phone may not fit in their project.
Overall, they could improve on their project but still might not be good enough for TechFair.