ICT MATERIALS

AS /A2 ICT

USEFUL WEBSITES

Links updated April 2005

• Have a rummage through RICHARDS THINGS. This offers WORKSHEETS and other resources which you may find useful.

• The KJS School in ESSEX has some great materials. They are generally of a very high quality. Remember that at this level you should be 'reading around' the topics and taking some responsibility for your own learning development. Recommended.

• One of the best sites for help is the King George V School in HONG KONG. This offers a range of high quality materials, and covers the Edexcel syllabus. Follow the link to 'AS' materials on Basic Concepts, System Life Cycle, Networks and Algorithms. This is mentioned elsewhere on the site.

• For Past Papers, go to the PSIONICA site. This covers materials on a range of topics from the various areas of the course: ICT1, ICT2, ICT4 and ICT5.

• Not content with producing an excellent GEOGRAPHY site, KESGRAVE School in Suffolk has also produced an excellent ICT site. Head for the striking home page and you can link through to KS3, KS4 and KS5 materials. There's also a bookshop and a High achievers page, plus links to ICT news headlines which are helpful when teaching about the role of ICT in society.  The AS level area offers a range of materials, and a recent addition is a range of student work which gives some good ideas for projects, and also the promise of some revision materials soon. Recommended.

There are materials for AS / A2 Computing, Module Checklists, and Lesson planners. There are also some examples of student work, which can provide some useful ideas on how to put together a project.

• Another useful set of links and materials is available from COLCHESTER 6th FORM COLLEGE. Click on the AS Timeline, and you can download some excellent materials for THEORY TOPICS, PRACTICAL TOPICS and HOMEWORKS. Recommended. Go to the site and look at the materials available for teachers.
• Head over to BILLERICAY SCHOOL in Essex and get a hold of their POWERPOINTS for all aspects of ICT 1 and 2.
• The BRINKSTER site has some useful resources.
• S KEARNEY has some useful examples on NORMALISATION, which is important for databases. There are a whole range of examples for databases on a range of topics.
• Some great stuff at the all new FAT MAX.  Max has finally moved from GEOCITIES. FAT MAX is certainly recommended by a lot of other people, and here too the materials are RECOMMENDED for anyone coming up to exams.
• There are some good lessons and resource materials from KNGS site. Also has some materials produced by pupils. Look out for some of the POWERPOINT materials produced by KES students soon: they've been hard at work producing USER GUIDES for particular features and areas of the syllabus too, and some REVISION GUIDES. Look out for these soon.
• Some useful details and examples of the main EXCEL FUNCTIONS available at the PADGATE COMMUNITY HIGH SCHOOL area of the WGFL: has details on REFERENCES, CELL RANGES, LOOKUP TABLES, AVERAGES, IF functions, CONDITIONAL FORMATTING and COUNTIF, plus how to use MODELS, and SPREADSHEET DESIGN. These would be useful resources for Lower 6th students to browse through while considering the format of their coursework (see lower down the page...)
• There's an 'A' LEVEL ICT NETWORK for those of you doing the EDEXCEL syllabus. It's 'run by teachers, for teachers', and has a range of useful information.

Part of the 'A' level course involves being up to date with various pieces of legislation. One of the places that you'll need to get to visit is the site of the DATA PROJECTION AGENCY. This is the place to find out about the role of the newly appointed INFORMATION COMMISSIONER (who is apparently 'Responsible for Data Protection and Freedom of Information'. There are details on various pieces of legislation:

DATA PROTECTION ACT (1998) (DP)

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (2000) (FOI)

• A related issue is one of SOFTWARE THEFT. The Federation against Software Theft (FAST) has a useful website. There was also a recent article posted on the BBC SITE which has the title: "Why is it OK to nick software ?" - this is one of those areas where you need to keep an eye on the papers, or websites for up to date articles. The BBC article has a chance for people to comment on the situation and there are some interesting comments which could be used to trigger class debate.

Apparently £11bn a year of Business software is pirated, costing over 100 000 jobs in America in 2001. Apparently 26% of business software used in the UK is illegal. There is also the question of music copying, file sharing systems such as Napster and CD rewriters.

There are moves to start to 'get tough' on people who don't respect copyright. I would imagine a raid on any random address in the UK would find plenty of recidivists.

• The SHSG site hasn't been updated in a while, but if you explore the links, some of them are still active and lead to interesting and time-saving materials. These include some teaching materials, and adaptable POWERPOINTs.

• Try the Government's DATA PROTECTION site. This site includes a series of guidance notes.

• The COMPUTER MISUSE ACT of 1990.

If you are going to do well at AS and A2 you need proper DEFINITIONS OF KEY ICT TERMS. For this you'll need a decent ICT GLOSSARY, and one is provided by MATISSE here. Recommended.

The BBC can only suggest that Key Stage 5 pupils take a look at their GCSE materials, but they do offer some replies to questions posted at their SOS TEACHER area. Some of these may be relevant to a task, or you could post your own. There's also a fairly sparsely populated FORUM.

There's a very useful and relevant article on the BBC Technology site which is related to SECURITY. The article was produced in April 2004 and featured the results of a survey which said that more than 70% of people would reveal their computer password in exchange for a bar of chocolate, and some gave their password without even getting their chocolate... The article is a great resource as it also has some e-mails from people who talk about their strategies. Read the article HERE.

If you want to take your students to a revision day, I recommend the experiences offered by MASTERCLASS ICT. These feature Barbara Wilson: the AQA Chief Examiner, so you can hear exactly what the top people are expecting to see in your scripts.

SYLLABUS AREAS

As this section of the site develops, labels below will become hyperlinks to resource pages

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