Information and Communications Technology GCSE is a two-year course that covers a wide range of factual and practical material within this modern and exciting subject area. The subject covers a wide range of material including technical ICT skills and material drawn from a range of other subject areas. Subject content will range from basic communication to web site design and computer programming with modern software tools. Project work accounts for 60% of the total marks and much of the course is taken up with practical work. Given the broad terms of the project work there is scope for individual choice of topics and software and the opportunity to work at relatively advanced levels.
A good ICT student will be:
The syllabus to be followed is OCR 1994 GCSE Information and Communications Technology. The Short Course option is not available.
The course content divides into two main areas, theory and practice as follows:
Computer Systems, Communications Technology and Information Management. This includes topics such as: hardware and software, major input, output and storage devices, networks, communications, data types, legal issues and health and safety.
Word Processing, Desk Top Publishing, Multimedia Presentations, Graphics, Spreadsheets, Data Logging and Control, Internet. There will be two pieces of course work based on this unit, one covering communication and the other covering Data Handling, Measurement, Monitoring or Control.
Actual software covered in this part of the course will include: MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access), MS Publisher, MS FrontPage, Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Studio Suite (Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash).
Course work from this unit is worth 30% of the total marks for the GCSE, divided into two pieces of work worth 15% each. One of the pieces of course work will involve creating electronic documents for communicating information. The other piece of coursework will involve either creating a database or spreadsheet and manipulating it in some way, or creating a device to monitor or control a process. Titles for the course work may be supplied by the candidates or by the teacher. Pupils can choose the method of implementation of their ideas from the range of software covered.
Computer Technology, Legal, Economic and Political Issues, Information Systems and Networks.
Problem Solving (Analysis, Design, Development, Testing, Implementation, Documentation and Evaluation).
Course work from this unit is worth 30% of the total marks for the GCSE. Candidates will complete a course work project that includes the techniques for problem solving covered in the theory section. A typical problem would involve a candidate in identifying a real-world problem and providing a solution using ICT, for example a software system to help run a club or a small business. The solutions would involve using software such as a database, spreadsheet or programming tool and techniques such as interviews, examination of documents and existing records and design tools such as flowcharts. The choice of software is down to individual candidates so there is some scope for using programming languages.
Candidates should be aware that the course work requirements are considerable and the course should only be undertaken by those with sufficient interest, energy and enthusiasm to complete it to a high standard.
A modern home computer or personal laptop will be very useful for studying GCSE ICT, although having something very powerful or expensive will not necessarily result in higher marks - it's what you do with it that counts! You should have software of the 'Office' type, preferably the same as that used at school and with a minimum of word processor, spreadsheet, presentation graphics and database. Additional software used on the course will include a DTP package (MS Publisher), a web design program (MS Frontpage), a graphics program (Adobe Photoshop Elements) and the Adobe-Macromedia Suite (Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash). If you want to do programming later in the course you may need to invest in a programming language such as Visual Basic or Delphi, although you can get cut-down versions of these free of charge. You will not need to bring a laptop to lessons as the computer rooms are fully equipped, although if you have one you may find it an advantage to have everything on a single machine - you can use a laptop in lessons in practically the same way as a school computer.