What’s IT all about?
The IT elementary school has been open for business for just over a year now and I feel remiss in not explaining what IT , or Information Technology, means.
Part of the problem that IT elements is trying to address is the lack of awareness of the basics of computing and IT in the wider population, not helped by the jargon, confusion and barriers to entry/access that the industry seems to thrive on!
To become fully engaged in what technology can offer, both in our day-to-day lives and as possible career opportunities, we need some clear unambiguous definitions. So here goes.
Information Technology ‘101’ – the Information Age
Information Technology is a relatively new term, synonymous in my mind with the Information Age (or New Media Age or Digital Age) and the Digital Revolution. They all mean roughly the same thing or at least they overlap in time and together massively influence our lives, for good or bad. These movement(s) started in the mid- to late-C20th, a progression from the industrial age to the computer age, and its still going on today. Not that coal, steel, manufacturing & production lines, nor for that matter farming, building (clicks-and-mortar has not altogether replaced bricks-and-mortar), roads & railways, have disappeared; but now there is a new disruptive kid on the block.
Here is my list of what the Information Age means to me, in broad-brush strokes of course, think more evolution than revolution:
- The ‘old money’ of C19th and early C20th industrialists shifting to the power players in Silicon Valley; Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg vying for richest person on the planet (and by the way copying the generous philanthropy of previous hard engineering & finance magnates); Apple, Google and Amazon making more money than whole countries!
- The abundance of Personal Computers, laptops & Smart Devices in homes, schools and offices, where once only hugely expensive mainframe computers provided data processing power to governments, universities and large organisations. There are now more mobile phones and mobile devices than people on the planet to use them.
- The rise of the service sector, globalization, home working, on-demand streamed entertainment, social media, eLearning and eGovernment etc. No aspect of our work or social lives is untouched.
- The internet and world wide web of course. Internet access is being seriously considered as a basic need and utility like water, heating and lighting; see home-working above. Broadband speeds affect house prices in the way that access to a railway line once did*
(*Ed. it still does)
Looking Back to the Future
Of course Technology isn’t new; pens, typewriters, lawn movers and the humble abacus, even bread-making are all examples of human craft and ingenuity and the next big thing at the time. Programmable computers were conceived by Charles Babbage over 150 years ago, although his design for a mechanical Analytical Engine wasn’t fully realised in his lifetime. He had problems with cost/funding and the quality & reliability of his early prototypes…so no change there 🙂
So putting it all together IT is all about harnessing the power of computers and other technologies to capture, manipulate and present data, in the form of information that is valuable to human users, machines, industrial & scientific processes. Quite a wide brief.
To put this evolution into some personal perspective, I started my career in the late 1980’s in a Data Processing Department, renamed soon after to Information Systems and then Business Systems before settling on IT. Most of my early work was designing and coding database applications (i.e. reading, writing & analyzing data) and overnight batch processes that created insurance renewal quotes, and then printed the same to send to Customers. In hindsight I was at the tail-end of the early Information Age, that is before the internet, mobile phones, wi-fi, web 2.0, games consoles, the cloud, online banking (online anything), social media etc.
We’ve come a long way in one generation, so where will we be in another 25 years, when millennials are parents and grandparents? Will I still be excited and passionate about IT (I hope so), will you be working in the IT industry (if you are working, yes probably)…maybe it won’t even be called Information Technology in 2040, I don’t know but I’m looking forward to finding out.
The IT elementary school
A reminder, this is what IT elements are and this is how the IT elementary school works:
(1) Dip into the table of IT elements, select an icon/tile and read any of the topics that interest you; follow links to other elements or your own wider reading…
(2) Look in the glossary for some other simple definitions.
(3) Search the website; I may have written a blog post about it.
(4) Ask me a question. If you don’t find what you want or have any special requests, including any new content, bespoke material or more in-depth eLearning modules.
(c) 2016 IT elementary school