Welcome to the IT Learning Resources & Practice Tasks Page
Click on the link below for the IT Course Leaflet to gain information on entry requirements, course content, facilities and enrichment opportunities.
Welcome to the resources to help prepare you for your further study of Level 3 IT at Riverside College. We are very much looking forward to seeing you at enrolment and for you to start the course with us in September.
The Year 1 units include:
- Computer Systems
- Computer Networks
- Website Production
- Computer Game Platforms
- Database Design
- IT Project Management
In these preparation resources, you will be completing some tasks to provide you with a wider understanding of the topics that you will study with us.
Trips: As soon as we are able to we will resume our many trips with IT and Computing students including Bury Arcade Club where you can experience different retro and modern games and also the Liverpool John Moores Open Day. These trips are a great opportunity to catch up with old friends and make many new ones.
If you have any questions please speak to the school liaison team by emailing firstname.lastname@example.org
Unit 2 – Computer Systems
At some stage most IT professionals will have to set up and customise a computer system or systems. To do so effectively they will need to understand the components that make up computer systems. The operating system interacts with the hardware and software components in order to make a functioning machine.
In this unit you will consider a range of hardware and come to understand the technical specifications of components. You will also look at different Operating System and Utility software to meet different needs.
A large part of this unit will involve practical work in installing hardware components and software, configuring systems to meet specific requirements and testing to ensure a fully functioning system is produced.
Define the keywords below and write a short sentence for each using that specific word.
Discuss the following hardware components. You need to discuss why these are used within computer systems, providing images can help support your answer.
- Graphics Card
Name a minimum of 6 internal and 6 external components. You can use internet resources to help you.
You need to name the component and briefly discuss the key features of each component.
- Name a minimum of 6 INTERNAL components
- What are these devices?
- Name a minimum of 6 EXTERNAL components
- What are these devices?
Unit 9 – Computer Networks
“A computer network is a set of computers connected together for the purpose of sharing resources. The most common resource shared today is connection to the Internet. Other shared resources can include a printer or a file server.”
The above computer network definition is typical and offers a fairly dry definition of something we all take for granted and that will impact upon aspects of your learning and future work lives. As computing/IT learners it is paramount that you understand computer networks and the hardware and software technologies that facilitate it.
In preparation for your learning, we would like you to undertake the following tasks to provide you with a wider understanding of computer networking. There are links at the foot of this document which you may find useful, you are of-course encouraged to research further to aid your understanding.
Find suitable definitions online for the network types below (include links to your sources):
A network topology is?
Find suitable definitions online (include links to your sources) and provide examples of use for the below network topology examples:
Find suitable definitions online (include links to your sources) for the below components:
Unit 18 – Database Systems
Tesco Clubcard (commonly referred to and branded as Clubcard) is the loyalty card of British supermarket chain Tesco. The Clubcard scheme operates in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, and several other countries, and as of 2017, it has over 17 million users in the United Kingdom.
In 1993, Terry Leahy asked the Tesco marketing team to investigate the potential of loyalty cards. In the past, Tesco had run Green Shield Stamps as a promotional tool which rewarded people for visits and spend but gained no customer information. The initial team, led by Grant Harrison, researched programmes across the world and developed a proposal that showed that a loyalty card could be very effective. The key change since the days of Green Shield Stamps was the ability to track individual customer behaviour cost-effectively using a magnetic stripe card.
In 1994, Harrison attended a conference where Clive Humby from marketing firm Dunnhumby was speaking. Dunnhumby was already working with clients such as Cable & Wireless and BMW, and Harrison approached them to help with the loyalty card project. Successful trials throughout 1994 led to the Tesco board asking Harrison and Humby to present to the annual Board strategy session.
The first response from the board came from Tesco’s then chairman Lord MacLaurin, who said, “What scares me about this is that you know more about my customers after three months than I know after 30 years.”
1)What data/information do you think is stored about Tesco customers that could be used to improve the way they operate their business?
2)How do you think Tesco store the data they collect via the Clubcards?
3)What is the difference between data and information?
4)How do you think Tesco process that collected data and turns it into meaningful information?
5)How do you think databases/websites have helped Tesco support customers during the Covid-19 lockdown?
Unit 28 – Website Production
When designing and creating a website you can add as much detail and extras to the website as you like as long as you complete everything that the assignment has asked for first. This means that you can really personalise your work and show off your talents so that you can use your work in the future for evidence of your skills.
The best way to learn how to write in HTML and CSS is to have a go. Below are a few links to online tutorials that will start you off at the very beginning.
The software that we use in college to create your website is called ‘Brackets’, you can download it for free from http://brackets.io/.
- Create a new document in Brackets Called MyWebsite.html. It is very important that you save your document with .html otherwise if will not be a webpage.
- To open the webpage, find where you saved it using File Explorer and double click the file. It should open as a webpage.
- To make it easier to see what you are creating, split your screen and have brackets open on one side and your webpage on the other. Save the file in brackets as you go along and refresh the webpage to see the changes.
If you have any questions regarding these exercises or the unit please contact me at email@example.com