ICT can be very over powering however it can also be very cost effective. Putting a community IT centre ore kiosk in a central point of a village will cause a lot of the to be taught about IT resulting in lots of people having access to information and communication on the internet therefore changing their lives. In Bolivia, these identical internet centres are used to check information on crops, markets and regulations that might effect them.
Broadcasting
Digital broadcasting is a good example of technology and political barriers eliminating the gap in the divide. Villages in rural Asia used to rely on low-quality broadcasts given by low quality equipment. Nowadays they have access to high quality images and sounds that given at a range that was at one point unimaginable. Rivers, jungles and densely populated cities are all more fortunate with wireless technology. In the Middle East and North Africa they consider digital TV as a bad thing because they think it is a bad thing to have access to western values and norms because it is seen as corrupting as in some religions. Community radio stations in Africa have been used to provide health warnings, agricultural information and weather disaster warnings.
Governance
A major challenge is often associated with the governments of under-served nations. Most of the time there are high tariffs on importing high technology, occasionally there are large amounts of red tape or regulations that have to be cleared before goods can be imported. Successful strategies have been adopted in Afghanistan and United Arab Emirates. The Dubai Internet City has been set up to act as a free trade zone. This is to encourage investment in ICT through the Middle East.
Thursday, 9 May 2013
Net Books
An e-book is an electronic book. It is nothing more than an electronic file that contains the text of an existing book. One of the most confusing aspects to the e-book is the fact that they come in such a variety of formats. The purpose of an e-book is to be able to carry a library of books on something the size of the paperback book. A more complex e-book can show a film or play a music file.
Text e-books
A text e-book is the most simplistic form and all that needs to be done is write the text into a text editor or scan the text from paper using a text converter. The file format is simple and is in the standard linear form in the document. This has been used extensively for computer manuals in the past before Adobe invented their Portable Document Format (PDF). With it's simplicity it also has the advantage of being very easily searchable and portable to any platform.
Word e-books
Word documents can be made into books and are stored under the same document name. Having hyperlinks within a document allows there to be a presence of multimedia content. Multimedia files can be large especially when images are included. This means that this format is only most effective when everyone has the Microsoft Office software and where different author have to work together.
Adobe PDF e-books
The Portable Document Format books are stored in a PDF file. This type of e-book has been a massive success, as proof almost all computer and software manuals are in PDF format. This is even starting to take off well as a full e-books. However to create this it is probable that you will need specialised program such as Adobe Acrobat. With this said some operating systems can allow PDF files to be directly printed from a document.
The PDF format itself has a number of features that allows it to be useful for the presentation and layout of textual material. These features allow a PDF file to be very small compared to a similar word document. Another good prospect is that you can impliment multimedia and sucurity features such as passwords and even digital signatures. It is possible to lend e-books for a period of time and deactivate them when this time period is up.
Reader e-books
This is designed to give the reader a feeling that they are reading a normal book. It is quite unique because it allows you to bookmark pages, make notes and also give you the option for the e-book to read to you. These formats are ususally made from a word document and have had a convertion software added to make it a single incrypted file. You can access any of your books from microsoft reader. This sort of format works well on pocket PC's and Personal Digital Assistants. It's best attribute is that it makes a good simulation of the total paperbook reading experience.
Website e-books
The most important and felxible format is created as a website in HTML or XHTML format. All the pages are linked together to create an e-book feel. It is argued that this type of e-book is the best because it allows images, animations and sound files to be added. Typically this format offers the richest multimedia experience of them all. There are simple text based websites/e-books with page to page navigation.
As a website is a collection of files it is hard to control so some website e-books have put the site into .exe format. However if this is done then it makes to process of creating an e-book longer and as a whole the resulting file could be quite large.
An e-book good or bad
There are both good and bad things about e-books here are some examples of both.
E-books are good because it allows people to carry around a vast amount of books with them on something that is the size of a small paperback. Another good thing about e-books are that most formats actually resemble a paperback book with added extras to make reading more fun and exciting.
E-books might not be liked or used by people because of the fact that however much it is made to seem like a paperback, it will never be one. Some people just like the feeling of having a real book in their hands.
The PDF format itself has a number of features that allows it to be useful for the presentation and layout of textual material. These features allow a PDF file to be very small compared to a similar word document. Another good prospect is that you can impliment multimedia and sucurity features such as passwords and even digital signatures. It is possible to lend e-books for a period of time and deactivate them when this time period is up.
Reader e-books
This is designed to give the reader a feeling that they are reading a normal book. It is quite unique because it allows you to bookmark pages, make notes and also give you the option for the e-book to read to you. These formats are ususally made from a word document and have had a convertion software added to make it a single incrypted file. You can access any of your books from microsoft reader. This sort of format works well on pocket PC's and Personal Digital Assistants. It's best attribute is that it makes a good simulation of the total paperbook reading experience.
Website e-books
The most important and felxible format is created as a website in HTML or XHTML format. All the pages are linked together to create an e-book feel. It is argued that this type of e-book is the best because it allows images, animations and sound files to be added. Typically this format offers the richest multimedia experience of them all. There are simple text based websites/e-books with page to page navigation.
As a website is a collection of files it is hard to control so some website e-books have put the site into .exe format. However if this is done then it makes to process of creating an e-book longer and as a whole the resulting file could be quite large.
An e-book good or bad
There are both good and bad things about e-books here are some examples of both.
E-books are good because it allows people to carry around a vast amount of books with them on something that is the size of a small paperback. Another good thing about e-books are that most formats actually resemble a paperback book with added extras to make reading more fun and exciting.
E-books might not be liked or used by people because of the fact that however much it is made to seem like a paperback, it will never be one. Some people just like the feeling of having a real book in their hands.
Wednesday, 8 May 2013
Decision Making
An obvious effect of the Information Age is the amount of information sources available. People nowadays are bombarded with data and freedom of choice in a way they never used to be. A major impact of this is the fact that people can feel stress and a sense of hopelessness because of the overload of information. This is particularly correct if the information is not straight forward or clear about the subject it talks about.
My Grandmother does not know a lot about technology and therefore already I would suggest a cell phone over a smartphone. The difference between the two is that a cell phone cannot really do a lot of the things a smartphone does. With this said a smartphone is like a mini computer as it runs an operating system that allows them to do everything that a computer does. My grandmother is not good with technology as I have already mentioned so a cell phone will be more than perfect for her. I would however suggest that she gets a cell phone with a physical QWERTY keyboard so if she does decide to start using computers then she will at least be familiar with the keyboard setup.
She is ok with her eye sight which is a god send because a lot of these cell phones are quite small which means the keys on these phones are small. I have seen a Nokia 201 Charcoal in Tesco for £45.00. This is a good price to pay for a cell phone. It fits the criteria for my grandmother, this is because she wants a mobile phone that isn't too expensive and is fairly simple.
Managing the Information Overload
A spreadsheet can help with decision making because it filters out information and puts it into catagories. This makes the information more digestible or in some cases makes it somewhat easier to make a decision due to less clouded judgement from the overload of irrelevant information.
Simulation software can help with decision making because it takes something that is something great and quite complicated and simplifies it using mathematical formulas. This is also all without an individual actually performing a single operation. This would help because a machine would calculate the right outcome to make decisions easier.
My Grandmother does not know a lot about technology and therefore already I would suggest a cell phone over a smartphone. The difference between the two is that a cell phone cannot really do a lot of the things a smartphone does. With this said a smartphone is like a mini computer as it runs an operating system that allows them to do everything that a computer does. My grandmother is not good with technology as I have already mentioned so a cell phone will be more than perfect for her. I would however suggest that she gets a cell phone with a physical QWERTY keyboard so if she does decide to start using computers then she will at least be familiar with the keyboard setup.
She is ok with her eye sight which is a god send because a lot of these cell phones are quite small which means the keys on these phones are small. I have seen a Nokia 201 Charcoal in Tesco for £45.00. This is a good price to pay for a cell phone. It fits the criteria for my grandmother, this is because she wants a mobile phone that isn't too expensive and is fairly simple.
Managing the Information Overload
A spreadsheet can help with decision making because it filters out information and puts it into catagories. This makes the information more digestible or in some cases makes it somewhat easier to make a decision due to less clouded judgement from the overload of irrelevant information.
Simulation software can help with decision making because it takes something that is something great and quite complicated and simplifies it using mathematical formulas. This is also all without an individual actually performing a single operation. This would help because a machine would calculate the right outcome to make decisions easier.
Bridging the Gap
There are vast amounts of initiatives to bridge the gap of the Digital Divide and they are all sponsored by the government. There is a list of the range of initiatives offered in the UK, however it is not intended to be exhausted. It keeps track of what has been done and also the amount of investment that has been put into an area.
UK Online - This is a government project that aims to give computer access to those people in the community who do not know about computers. The idea is to teach them new ICT skills and it has taken off well. There is now over 6,000 UK centres that are located in lots of libraries and schools. This seems like a very good program for people who lack ICT skills, with Digital Technologies becoming more predominant is many people's lives it is very relevant for more people to use computers. If it has only been running 7 years and they have 6,000 centres that function on a regular basis this means that there is a high demand for this service. I can also see how this would help to close the gap in the divide. This would be by widening skills in ICT for people who don't know and understand so the gap will get smaller.
University for Industry (UFI) - This is a partnership between the government and private industries. It is in place to improve job prospects for individuals who are not confident in ICT and making them more competitive for businesses. Working as a public-private partnership, UFI aims to put people into better positions to get jobs and improve career prospects. This seems like a good initiative as it allows people who are unemployable due to lack of education in ICT to obtain enough skills to allow them to become employable. This reduces unemployment in the UK and this is how the government benefits from the scheme. As for the business side of things, having a person who is competent in ICT will allow them to promote and offer better jobs within the company to the person so they can feel motivated from making progress in their job.
Wired up Communities Initiative - £10 million funding was provided by this initiative to connect 7 of the most disadvantaged communities to the internet to see what effect this would have. In east London 750 households and one school was connected to the internet, this was in the hope that it would make education better and improve job opportunities. I can vastly see how this could improve the current state of the divide. A lot of activity occurs on the internet and giving internet to that many homes and a school widens that activity to them. this now means that potentially 750 more people can apply for jobs online. This is apparent considering that most job applications are done over the internet. As for the school, the teachers can set homework on the computer for the child to do when they go home. This will allow them to not only see if the child has done it or not but also allows them to give online help to that child.
People's Network Project (Hertfordshire) - This initiative was designed to give free access to 400 computers with internet, Microsoft Office software and even photo editing software, these resources would be available in most of the libraries in Hertfordshire. Even the smallest of their libraries have at least one computer in for people to use. This is good for bridging the divide because as it offers everybody in the community an opportunity to get on the internet. This can be for whatever reason like applying for a job, putting together a CV for a job application or even just researching and looking for information. This closes the gap as it allows people without a computer and internet at home to be able to do this they wouldn't be able to do on their own.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)