ICT Applications

ICT is used in almost every area of our lives .

This chapter we will be looking at the range of ICT Applications in everyday life
Data handling applications(6.2)
Data handling is basically where data is input and stored on a computer

Why use a computer to handle data?

 For: Searching, editing, backing up, security, sorting, transportation(USB), output(printing)
 Examples of data that could be Stored on the computer
 Survey results
 Address Lists 
 Tuck shop records
 Club and society records
 School reports
 School library records
Survey results

 Surveys are used to see what people want or do, usually by shading circles or
ticking boxes on a sheet of paper. It is read by an OMR.
 The data collected can be sorted, searched, analysed and to find the results.
 Benefits are that, its faster, less errors, fast results, analysis, time/money
savings.
Address Lists 

 These are used to store details about friends, family or business contacts.
 It includes Names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, etc.
 Bad things about it are that its easy to lose, hard to update, hard to search.
 Benefits of electronic address list: groups, easy editing, easy searching,
Backups.
Tuck shop records

 Tuck shop records keep track of Income, Expenditure etc

 Accounts ledger are paper based data handling method and its drawback
is: easy to lose, hard to update, difficult to backup, can be damaged, entry
errors.
 Advantages to spreadsheets is that there are: calculations/formulae,
charts/graphs, easy editing, backups.
Club and society records

 Member details include: Membership number, Names, Addresses, telephone

numbers, email address, expiry date or membership and membership fee paid
(Y/N)
 Database is used to store these and its benefits are:
 Easy to search for members.
 Easy to edit members
 You can backup all members
 You can secure all member information
 You can move databases to different places with ease
 Mail merge: This can be used to link the database with word to produce letters to send
to all members.
School reports

 This includes:
 Student ID, Student name, Tutor group, Subject, Current grade, Effort level,
Behavior level, Effort level, Homework level and Teacher comments.
 Student reports made by hand included problems like: Time consuming,
Spelling errors and Errors in the report.
 School reports are entered in a database and advantages are:
 Can select pre-written comments.
 Easy editing
 Spell checks are automatic without error.
 Report information can be secure in the school database.
 Reports can be re-designed and data stored in reports can be displayed on reports
School library records
 Libraries need to keep track of
 Which books are currently on loan.
 ID number of the borrower.
 Name of the borrower.
 Address of the borrower
 Date the book was borrowed.
 Date the book is due to be returned.

 Book details were recorded on cards which was a drawback because:

 Errors like some things were missed while checking. Cards could get mixed up.
 Takes too much time to organize the cards.
 They take too much space.

 Advantages to using databases to store library records are:

 Its fast to find different data.
 Its accurate on when the books are to be returned.
 Takes up less space
 Cheaper to use than cards.
 END