Arificial Intelligence, Simulation and Modelling

Intellegence systems process informaton in a knowledgebase.  Daemons are a form of atificial intellegence wich stay dormant until a certain condition until a certain condition occurs and it initiates itself.  An agent is a data base which finds our search and brings back the results for you such as Google. 
Expert systems such as medical diagnisis machines help to identify health problems.  there is an online diagnosis machine that students could look at called Web MD Click here for webMD .  input to processing to out put like the impulses reciveing and sending a responce.  Neutral networks can be taught such as voice recognition software. 

Models and simulations
A model is something like a weather map and the simulation takes the information and creates the simulation of the weather like the cold and warm fronts.  games and simulations like lemonade stand and second life. 
Real life examples are things such as financial models where information is fed into the computer and it works out the amounts of money for things such as loans. 
Artificial intellegence also includes robots as they are programmed with intellegence wich allows them to do a range of things including dancing, interacting with the world around it, telling the difference between objects and many other actions as you can see in the video below. 

How you could teach artificial intelligence
students could look at at the history of artificial intellegence.  students could look at simulations. 
Evaluation criteria studnts may wish to develop thier own criteria for a knowledge base. 
students could also look at some web sites and games such as lemonade stand a game that i played at school where an expert system is used and you buy the ingredients for your lemonade stand and you change the quantities such as haveing more ice on sunny day and the compter give you results for how many cups of lemonade you sold.
Lemonade Stand game

Digital Media

What is Digital Media?
It is a Digital method to store and conve digitized information to the public.
Digital media comes in many forms. including digital newspapers, inteactive telivisions and gaming devices. 
My group did a presentation on Digital media Click here to view presentation. 
For the topic of Digital Media the 7-10 Information Software Technology syllabus states that students will examine and analyse different digital media producats and thier uses in different contexts.  They will also produce a digital media product that will include two different data types.
An examples of assesment task you could do with a 7-8 class is you could use a simple animation software you could use a free online animation software like  pencil 2D animation software.  Using this software students could do a simple morphing animation that includes text. click here to view examples of animations
An example of another practial task that could be conducted inside the classroom is a simple photshop tutorial where the students create an invertation for an event such as a school formal.  A Prezi peresintation about the cababilities of photoshop was crteated which included instructions on using photoshop. Click here for photoshop prezi .
It is important to keep in mind that some students may already know how to use a program or may be a faster learner, but we as teachers should not discourage a students eagerness and creativness.  We should always have extra tasks up our sleeves that students may go on with. 

Digital media has had a monumental effect upon society the scope of this effect can bee seen in this video even though it came out in 2009.

Core Topic: Issues

In the lecture we learnt about the cultural disadvantage that students have out in the country in regard to internet access and in particular in aboriginal communities where they may have no internet access.  there are also disadvantages for people with disabilities who are not able to use the highly interactive gaming devices such as the wii. As teachers we should be aware of students who may be at a disadvantage in areas of the ICT subject and think of alternate activities or more inclusive activities that they can participate in.
When thinking of computing we do not often think about the industrial health issues that can be caused by using the computer. Students should be aware that they should have good lighting, the monitor at eye level, good posture, and a chair at the correct hight.

Multimedia Authoring and Hardware

In the presentation by my peers on Multimedia Authoring and Hardware we did an activity on the effectiveness of multimedia.  in this activity we have to look at two different chosen types of advertising multimedia and asses which one we found to be a better advertisement.  This task was good as you learned to not only identify the differences between the two advertisements but you also had to back up your views with reasoning .  You had to think why you thought a particular advertisement was more effective. 

Core Topic: Hardware

The lecture this week was interesting as we were shown a few funny sights that i did not know existed such as uncyclopeadia http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page which is a sight designed to be a joke with non factual information that may appear to some students to be accurate and use in assignments.  We also looked at the instant power that the digital world brings to some people such as the KONY 2012 organisation as well as to the music world where a video may be watched by thousands or millions because it is an interesting video though the music may not necessarily be the sole art form that are causing  an artist or bands success.  We should get students to think about the impact that media can have both positive and negative.

The Internet and Web Development

The internet holds and incomprehensible amount of information which is rapidly growing.
The internet was created in a gradual process of slowly emerging technologies.  For the activity we participated in each group got the name of someone who aided in the formation of the internet our group recived Alan Turing who helped to break the anigma machine code and after the war started to work on one of the first  programs for a stored computer program.



this video raises an interesting point about social media privacy on the internet and how it can be affected by friends. 

Core Topic: Data Handling

Data can be collected from a wide range of sources including digital media, printed work, audio or your own work.  The data must be entered useing the correct format eg. WAV for an audio file. It is important students learn the correct file formats to use when saving thier files because it may lead to a loss in information eg. if a video file is saved as an audio file the visuals would be lost. you could get an image like the one below and get students to learn the file types and do a little quiz with the students.   

The data may be created to be printed as a document, to be tranmitted via the internet or to be displayed on a screen. 

Students should learn the difference between digital and audio waves.  They are stored in binary form using 0's and 1's  as a set of digital values. 

There are 5 main data types including text, numbers, video and animation, audio and graphics. 

we should teach students to be aware of data secturity issues such as viruses and spyware and how the use of firewalls helps to keep data safe.  You could use these exmples to have a discussion on the ethical issues related to the people who create these data safety issues.  They should be taught that hackers and people who comit identity fraud commit illegal offecnces and that it is wrong and there are legal conciquences to these actions. 

Core Topic: Design, Produce and Evaluate

Wholistic marking Vs Rubric marking
A rubric that  is well written means that the children either get then marks or they do not,  if it is clear enough  then students should be able to mark it disregarding bias.  Rubrics make marking easier and the students can know why they go they mark that they recived.  

What was least clear – a post up student instead of what i don’t know.  It is important to allocate marks.  If the rubic is specific it should be clear to the student and they will know what to focus their time on regerding where marks are allocated.  Holistic marking can create problems as students are often unaware of why they received the mark that they got where as with a rubric they can see the specific areas that need improvement.  

Teaching

As teachers of computing subjects you often think that it is your responsibility to know everything about every program but lets face it that is near impossible.  It is important that we are able to adapt and learn as we go.
School is all about preparing students to go out into the workplace.  So students should learn to work in the environments that are used in the workplace.  This means we should try to use more collaborative assignments for students to work on together as collaboration, people skills, project management skills are all the things that future employers will want their workers to have.  
The board of studies IST syllubus 7-10 states that we as teachers need to engage and challenge our students and to maximise thier individual tallents.  we should also promote fair and just values which we can relate to the IST subject. 


I found this interesting video that gives an interesting view point on how we should change to become better teachers.  By incorporating technology and understanding that the children of today are different to past generations as they have grown up with technology and bombardment of information through the stimulation of technology.

Ethical Technology Usage

Week1

Technology can be an exceptionally useful resource in society but there is another side to technology which we usually do not think about.  the fact that it can misused which causes many serious ethical issues.  It is similar to having superpowers they can be used for great and magnificent acts or can be used to degrade and wrong society. 

In our class tutorial we were issued with questions such as what if people could track our whereabouts by the use of the cameras that are all around the city?  How would this make us feel? Is it a good or bad thing? Should any be allowed to access the information?  Are you comfortable with people being able to see your every move? This is an interesting topic because there are many positive and negative points to this argument.  It can bring alot of safety to streets where the cameras are because people will be less inclined to act illegally knowing that they are being watched.  It also can be used by the police as evidence in court as evidence in cases.  If someone was to hack the system and follow you around that would be a violation of your privacy and could be used to stalk and harm you.  I do not think that the videos should be publically available because I believe that people have a right to privacy.

There are many hard issues that emerging technologies drag along with them another example is Global Positioning Systems (GPS) they may be open to hackers who could follow your every move whilst they are a very useful piece of technology. So as a teacher is important that we build up a moral grounding with our students and teach them appropriate and safe use of technology and computers.

This video does a good job of touching on a few topics that could get students to think about some of the positive and negative issues that are associated with technology.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLeDx0T5CSo&noredirect=1