Global Digital Divide

The Digital Divide

The digital divide has an impact on everyone in the world. Economic prosperity has a large part to determining the prevalence of modern technology. The digital divide means that cities have excellent access to ICT and rural areas do not have good access to ICT. A subsistence economy will be more concerned in survival than ICT. A prosperous developed economy can both afford to devote energy and resources to fund the research and development needed to create digital technology. The developed world has its primary motive for the use of ICT is economic.

It is usually seen as more productive to automate a process by using ICT than hiring expensive staff, it is often reversed in developing nations. One computer in West Africa might cost six years salary, even if the computer is affordable the resulting unemployment might not be.

Economic prosperity also has an underlying effect on a number of factors that increase the divide and a poor economy often has poor technology infrastructure, which makes it harder to put digital technology that would improve its situation. Rich nations can bypass obstacles, for example, crossing mountains or ravines with electricity lines but poorer countries might have this as a low priority. A member of the reindeer herding people of northern Europe called Mr. Magga, speaking at the world summit on the information society said that people are sick and starving, they are fighting each day to survive. It’s the situation in many indigenous communities. He said, “it’s not a question of whether we use a computer or not, because there are no computers. It is not a question of seeing a television, because there isn’t one. Now we are knocking at the door of the information society and the question is, will we get in.”

Economic factors alone do not determine the extent of the digital divide. A very large factor in taking up ICT in less developed countries nations is the state of the technological infrastructure. There has to be a stable amount of electricity, if not, it’s not easy to use the digital technologies that are so reliant on it. A UN publication called Africa Renewal, says that no African country outside Egypt and south Africa does more than 20 per cent of the population have direct access to electricity, 2 per cent of Africa’s rural population have access to mains electricity. Large companies regularly suffer with black outs.

The digital divide

The digital divide

The digital divide has an impact on everyone in the world. Economic prosperity has a large part to determining the prevalence of modern technology. The digital divide means that cities have excellent access to ICT and rural areas do not have good access to ICT. A subsistence economy will be more concerned in survival than ICT. A prosperous developed economy can both afford to devote energy and resources to fund the research and development needed to create digital technology. The developed world has its primary motive for the use of ICT is economic.

It is usually seen as more productive to automate a process by using ICT than hiring expensive staff, it is often reversed in developing nations. One computer in West Africa might cost six years salary, even if the computer is affordable the resulting unemployment might not be.

Economic prosperity also has an underlying effect on a number of factors that increase the divide and a poor economy often has poor technology infrastructure, which makes it harder to put digital technology that would improve its situation. Rich nations can

Entertainment

Online Entertainment

Now entertainment isn’t just on your TV, it’s on your computer too. You can listen to radio, watch videos, listen to music, play games and chat to people on the internet. You can have video chats or ring people up on the internet now too.

Websites which use a few of these are www.youtube.com which you can which videos that other people put on, www.2dplay.com to play games and msn messenger which you can chat to friends on.

Advantages to online entertainment

You can watch videos anytime.
You can play a variety of games when you want, except in school or work.
Chat to friends wherever they are in the world.

The disadvantages are that you could get bad language or get bullied in games or if you use a chatroom. Posts you post on websites can be seen by anyone who accesses the website and there’s a lack of age restriction.

My 5 online services

i have decided on the online services which im going to study further, they are:

Entertainment
Download services
Business
Education
Government

Downloading Services

We download Music and Videos all the time. We download music so we can listen to it anywhere we go with mp3 players or iPod players. It’s easier to download the song or video than buying the CD or video or DVD. Downloading videos helps us because we can watch our favourite shows anytime and if we miss a show we can download that episode.



If we didn’t download Software we wouldn’t be able to safely go online or download things. We wouldn’t be able to do any of the things we do now, for example, download anything.



Now Books are made and transferred to computer, so many people can read their favourite book or just have a read of a book of their choice.



We download music because it’s easier to get the songs we want at any time and it’s cheaper than getting the CD.We can get videos from the internet of films or TV shows which we like and can’t get in the store or not being out any more like an old series.Getting books online can be easier than going to the store because there could be a book you can’t get from anywhere near you.We download software to protect our computers and if we don’t download them we might get it out of date.



I think downloading does fulfill its service because it helps everyone, getting up to date software which gives us the means to safely go on the internet. Music and videos get us our favourite music and our favourite shows or movie. You can get any book online by downloading now too.



Disadvantages to downloading services

You can get the wrong song or video. You might get a corrupt song or video and you might not have the right program to view the file. You could get viruses, worms or Trojans from files you download from the internet, if you get a one of the three you could lose your things or lose control over your computer.





This is showing you an update to the web.

sources
the picture is from http://www.powerprogrammer.co.uk/helpfile/first_principles.htm

VLE (Virtual Learning Environment)

VLE (Virtual Learning Environment)

A VLE is short for Virtual learning Environment and originally created for distance education, VLE’s are now most often used to supplement the face to face classroom, commonly known as Blended Learning.

What are they?

A VLE is a software system designed to help teaching and learning in an educational setting.


What would be the advantages of having one in school?

A VLE will normally work over the Internet and it comes with a collection of tools which are:
Assessment (particularly of types that can be marked automatically, such as multiple choice), communication, uploading of content, return of students' work, peer assessment, administration of student groups, collecting and organizing student grades, questionnaires, tracking tools, etc.
They have new features too which are wikis, blogs, RSS and 3D virtual learning spaces.


What kind of things would you like to see on a VLE in school?

A VLE should have games which are educational and fun, so when you complete your work, you can play a game to have fun and reinforce the work.

Source I have taken information from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_learning_environment

Online Education

Educational games, I rank this first because everyone loves games and you don’t necessarily think your learning while playing them, you might not get the information you need if you don’t play the right game. The second rank, I think is learning objects because they help you improve on your learning. I think education websites comes third, they help you revise and give you information on a variety of subjects, for example, SAM learning. Virtual classrooms come fourth, they can be useful because you just need internet access to use it, but you can’t ask the teacher any questions and can’t socialize with your class which you need. Last are simulations because they can only be used for certain subjects and you can’t ask any questions about what’s happening.



This is a screenshot of SAM learning showing a variety of subjects. SAM learning helps every year with tasks to do.



Educational games sometimes have characters from video games to help you learn with your favourite character like Rayman in this screenshot.


sources

http://www.rayman-fanpage.de/allgames/g2/games2.htm
http://learningat.ke7.org.uk/links/samlearning/samlearning.htm

A learning object

Flash or Quicktime movies can be useful because you can watch them when you’re not busy doing anything and watch them in your spare time. It can improve your learning, if you’re studying the subject already.

virtual classroom

They were really useful and it’s a good thing to have in case anyone not being in the lesson, for example, ill or away. The disadvantages will be that you won’t socialize with your teacher or anyone else from your class.

NetFrog simulation

The simulation of a dissection of a frog is very useful if you can’t do it yourself and it helps you practice on how you dissect a frog.

The website is: http://frog.edschool.virginia.edu/

science museum website

The science museum is for learning and thats what it does. the website teaches us all the past of the modern computer and how the internet was made. it tells us that online education can be easily accessed.

The website is http://www.makingthemodernworld.org.uk

actual weather

thursday:rain
friday: rain
saturday: sunny
sunday: sunny
monday: sunny

Live weather reports

Thursday – mostly light rain, 18 degrees Celsius, southerly wind (13 mph), visibility will be moderate.

Friday – mostly sunny intervals, 16 degrees Celsius, 6 mph, visibility will be poor.

Saturday - mostly sunny intervals, 19 degrees Celsius, west north westerly wind (9mph), visibility will be good.

Sunday – mostly light showers, 19 degrees Celsius, east north easterly wind (3 mph), visibility will be good.

Monday – mostly light showers, 19 degrees Celsius, east north easterly wind (5 mph), visibility will be good

source
I used BBC weather

Comparing a car and a train to get to london

From Northampton to Tottenham court road in London, going by car takes 1 hour 35 minutes and the distance is 66.7 miles and I used AA route planner.

If I go by train it will take 58 minutes if I went on the 11/9/08 at 6:43 and I would have to walk the rest of the way because I couldn’t find a way by train to Tottenham court road by train. And I used national rail enquiries.

source
I used Google maps and the railway main website

How modern communications help with disaster

Having modern technology like mobile phones helped people in the tsunami of south East Asia in 2004. People lost were able to use the mobile phones to text or get to a computer to get in contact with relatives or the news to make them known to their relatives, so they don’t worry and they don’t think the worst. There were blogs and messaging websites enabling people to locate their lost family if they were found. The World Wide Web helped everyone linked to the tsunami get help, let family members know there ok and the organizations included in the accident helped people find their family. Communities were made through the web to get people together again after the incident.
The modern communications were used instead of the older ones because the modern technology was easily accusable and the older ones were knocked out. The services effectiveness was very effective through all the people involved and the people who went missing had mobile phones on them during the incident and that was the only way they could get in contact with people.

Digital divide

Newsgroups

It’s an old way of communicating with others. Even though it’s old it’s still good for opinions and news about subjects. When I searched for digital divide on Google groups, this useful website came up as one of the results.

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/comp.internet.net-happenings/browse_thread/thread/d1dc1cd15e4618f8/616e272a3c2c1225?hl=en&lnk=st&q=Digital+Divide#616e272a3c2c1225

Differences between instant messaging, online messaging and chatrooms

The main differences between the three is that instant messaging and chatrooms you get to chat in real time and everyone in the chat has to be online but when emailing the people don’t have to be online and is not in real time. Emails get spoofs and spamming, but instant messaging like msn cant get spoofed or spammed. Chatrooms can be dangerous because you don’t know whom you are chatting too, so the safer option is to use instant messaging like msn. There is online messaging which can be sent as SMS to mobile phones or you can have chatrooms using SMS from a mobile phone.

summary image

source

http://www.oprius.com/tools.htm

Summary

Email Summary

Emails are a big part of life now and they have many uses. People use emails for sending, receiving, attaching documents to emails, making groups, sending to a group of people. Using an email gives you a list of messages in your mailbox, which shows the senders name, the subject of the email, date and time. Viewing individual emails helps people check their emails easier and you can attach and receive documents with email.

Spoofing is using a program which uses another person’s email name.
Spamming is when someone uses your email for a junk mail campaign and it is an easy way to flood someone’s inbox.
Viruses are a harmful piece of code which attaches itself to files or programs and can be replicated when you open the data.
Worms are a particular virus that is capable of replicating and burrowing in the computer by itself without using any files.
Trojan is another virus in a piece of code. Once you have the virus, it can do serious damage in your computers user system and it’s possible to take control over your computer.

Online services

This is where i will record my research on online services which are blogs, email, news groups and instant messaging.