Contents

Introduction

Part 1 Curriculum content

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Types and components of computer systems Input and output devices Storage devices and media Computer networks Data types The effects of using ICT The ways in which ICT is used Systems analysis and design 1 11 28 34 45 53 65 85

Part 2 Practical tests

9 Communication 95 102 128 157 160 166 210 234 267 000 10 Document production 11 Data manipulation 12 Integration 13 Output data 14 Data analysis 15 Website authoring 16 Presentation authoring Glossary Index

Introduction
What the book covers
This book covers the material needed for the three papers for the Cambridge IGCSE in Information and Communication Technology. The CD includes additional material which supplements the material in the student book. 1 Types and components of computer systems 2 Input and output devices 3 Storage devices and media 4 Computer networks 5 Data types 6 The effects of using ICT 7 The ways in which ICT is used 8 Systems analysis and design

How you will be assessed

The assessment for the IGCSE consists of the following three papers: Paper 1 This is a written paper of two hours duration which tests the content of sections 18 of the curriculum content. The questions are all compulsory and many of them consist of multiple choice or short answer questions. There are others which require longer answers. The marks for paper 1 are 40% of the total. Paper 2 This is a practical test that tests the knowledge, skills and understanding of sections 916 of the curriculum. The marks for paper 2 are 30% of the total. Paper 3 This is a practical test that tests the knowledge, skills and understanding of sections 916 of the curriculum. The marks for paper 3 are 30% of the total

Assessment criteria for the practical tests

The assessment criteria for the practical tests are set out in the following eight sections: 9 Communication 10 Document production 11 Data manipulation 12 Integration 13 Output data 14 Data analysis 15 Website authoring 16 Presentation authoring When your work is marked you will have to meet a series of learning outcomes in each of the sections outlined above. The learning outcomes for each section are outlined in detail in the syllabus, which can be downloaded from University of Cambridge International Examinations website.

Sections for the content of the curriculum

The content is divided into the following eight interrelated sections:

Communication
The key concepts covered in this chapter are:

This is the first topic in the practical section and in it you will be using certain useful features of email which you may not have used before. You will also be finding out how to organize your emails so that they can easily be found in the future. Another important aspect of communicating information is to be able to find relevant information on the Internet quickly by the construction of searches. The activities here will instruct you in how to do this.

 Sending and receiving documents and other files    

electronically Managing contact lists effectively Locating specified information from a given web site URL Finding specified information using a search engine Downloading and saving information as specified

Communicating with other ICT users using email

Communication by email has taken from over the use of letters as the way people in businesses communicate with each other.

What is an email?
An email is an electronic message sent from one communication device (computer, telephone, mobile phone, or PDA) to another. All web browser software has email facilities. There are many email facilities but those shown here are the main timesaving ones. Search: Search allows you to find an email using keywords in the title or you can search for all the emails from or to a certain email address. Reply: This allows you to read an email and then write the reply without having to enter the recipients email address. As the recipient is sent both the original email and your reply they can save time because they know what your email is about. Forward: If you are sent an email that you think others should see, you can forward it to them. An email, for example sent to you by your boss, could be forwarded to everyone who works with you in a team. Address book: In the address book are the names and email addresses of all the people to whom you are likely to send email. Instead of having to type in the address when writing an email, you just click on the email address or addresses in the address book.
Using the advanced features of email, you can create groups. The screenshot shows an address book. Rather than type in the email address of the recipients and maybe make mistakes, you can simply click on their address. Notice the facility to create groups.

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Activity 9.1
Creating and sending an email to a group In this activity you will learn the following skills:
 Manage contact details using an address book  Create and use groups

For this activity you are required to produce a distribution list so that the same email can be sent to a group of people. You will need to find out how to do this yourself. Send the same email to four of your friends and check that they all received it.

Maintaining, storing and deleting emails Rather than keep all the emails together it is better to be organized and set up folders. The way this is done depends on the email package you are using. When sending emails you can organize them in a similar way. For example, you could keep your personal emails in a separate folder to school/college-related work. It is important to remember to back up emails, as people tend to forget to do this. Emails often need to be referred to in the future. To help with this task it is important to delete emails that are no longer needed. This will make finding remaining emails easier. It is also important in networks because you only have a limited amount of storage for your emails. It is also necessary to delete any spam emails (i.e., unwanted advertising emails) which have been captured by the spam filter. In doing this you need to see if any important emails have become trapped in the spam filter.

Managing contact lists effectively

There are a number of email facilities that help save time when sending emails to more than one person and these are outlined below. Groups Groups are lists of people and their email addresses. They are used when an email needs to be distributed to people in a particular group. For example, if you were working as part of a team and needed to send each member the same email, then you would set up a group. Every time you needed to send the members of the group email, you could then just send the one email to the group thus saving time. Using cc (carbon copy) cc means carbon copy and it is used when you want to send an email to one person but you also want others to see the email you are sending. To do this you enter the email address of the main person you are sending it to and in the box marked cc you enter all the email addresses, separated by commas, of all the people you wish to receive a copy. Using bcc (blind carbon copy) bcc means blind carbon copy and this is useful when you want to send an email to one person and others but you do not want the others to see each others email addresses. For example, a form teacher may send an email to a student about their bullying and send copies of the same email to the students and parents of the children who had been bullied. It makes sense not to allow the person doing the bullying to see the email addresses of all the people sent copies. Creating and managing an address book An address book is part of an email package and it is here you can enter all your contacts details such as names, addresses, telephone numbers, and email addresses. Setting this up takes a little time but once it is set up it is easy to send emails because you only have to click on the name, and the email address is automatically entered. You can also set the address up so that everyone who sends you an email has their address automatically added to your address book.

Spam is a nuisance because you have to waste time checking to see if files you want are trapped in the filter and then delete the rest.

Sending other files electronically There are a number of different ways of sending files from one place to another by using computers. The most popular way is by attaching a file to an email and then sending the two together. File attachments You can attach files to emails. For example, you could attach a file containing a photograph of yourself obtained from a digital camera, a piece of clip art, a picture that you have scanned in, a long document, etc. Basically, if you can store it as a file, then you can attach it to email. You can attach more than one file to email, so if you had six photographs to send, then you could attach them and send them. Before you attach a file you must first prepare an email message to send, explaining the purpose of your email, and also giving some information about the files that you are sending (what their

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9 COM M U NI C ATION purpose is, what file format they are in, etc.). Once the email message has been completed, you click on the file attachment button and select the file you want to send. A box will appear to allow you to select the drive, folder, and eventually the file that you want to send. If you want to send more than one file, you can select a group of files and attach them. Usually, if there are lots of files to send, the files will be compressed to reduce the time taken to send them. Planning a structure for storing email messages Emails are no different than other files. You need to create a folder structure to store them. This makes them easier to find and also to copy or delete them.

Activity 9.3
Practising the use of email facilities In this activity you will practise the following skills:
 Create new messages  Use groups  Use file attachments

Practise the use of some of the techniques covered in this chapter. Although all email software is slightly different, it all includes the facilities covered here. You should check that you can create an address book and set up groups. Also try attaching files so that you can send them to yourself at your home email address. Attaching your files at school/college and sending them to your home email address is a good way of backing up your work.

Sending and receiving documents and other files electronically

Email software is very similar so do not worry if the email you use does not look exactly like this. All the principles of emails are the same. The email software being used here is a free email that you can set up from Google called Gmail.
A folder structure has been set up here for incoming/saved emails and emails youve sent. KEY WORDS

You will have to take your teachers advice on which email software you will be using for your course.

Email (sometimes called electronic mail) is a system for sending messages from one user to another using the Internet. File attachment a file sent at the same time as an email. It is an easy way of sending files such as word-processed documents, photographs, spreadsheets, etc.

Activity 9.4
Setting up a Gmail account In this activity you will learn the following skills:
 Locate specified information from a given website URL

If you want your screens to look exactly the same as those shown here you will need to set up a Gmail account. This is easy and free. 1 Log onto the Internet and enter the URL (i.e., web address) www.google.com. The home page will appear similar to this:

Activity 9.2
Creating a planned structure for emails In this activity you will practise the following skills:
 Store email messages using a planned structure  Store files using a planned structure

When you go onto the email package to view your email you will see that there is the option to create folders. For this activity you have to plan a suitable folder structure to hold emails. It is important to note that you can create folders within folders (called subfolders). Create this structure using the email software you use. Use the help facility provided by the software if you cannot work out how this is done. When you have created your structure you should move your existing emails into their appropriate folders. Click on the Gmail link.

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Activity 9.5
2 The opening Gmail screen is seen, where you can create a new email account. Click on the "Create an account" button.

Creating email In this activity you will learn the following skills:
 Send and receive documents and other files electronically

3 You now have to follow the instructions and enter the required information on the screen form that appears.

1 Access your email account. If you are using Gmail or other types of email you may be asked to supply some details first such as Username and Password. You may not be asked for these as you may have provided these when you first logged onto the Internet.

2 Once logged in the opening email screen appears.

To create an email click on Compose mail (this is called Write mail in some email packages). 3 You now see the new message window where you write your email.

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There are some important parts here:

The email address of the person you are sending the email to is entered here.

Revision Tip
Make sure you understand the terms email address, subject line, and body text as these will be used in the instructions given to you on the exam paper.

The subject line contains a line on the subject of the email. Important for finding the email at a later date.

Making effective use of the Internet as a source of information

The Internet is the largest store of information in the world and being able to access relevant information quickly is an important skill which you will need to demonstrate in the examination. There are a number of different ways of locating information using the Internet and these are described here.

Cc (Carbon copy) click on here if you want to create a list of email addresses who you want the same email to be sent to.

Bcc (blind carbon copy) click on here to create a list of email addresses who you want the same email sent to. You do not want the other people to be able to see each others email addresses.

Many URLs start this way.

Locating specified information from a given web site URL

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator, which is a complicated way of saying a web site address. One of the ways of accessing a web site is to type the URL (i.e., web site address) into a web browser or search engine. Each page of a web site has its own URL and the URL quoted in books/magazines, etc., will usually take you to the homepage of the web site. You can then search within the web site for the information you need by making use of links and search facilities.

Body text this is the main text of your message.

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Finding specific information using a search engine

Searching for information can be performed using a search engine such as Google or Yahoo. The search results are displayed on the basis of relevance or who has paid the most money to get in the top results. Clicking on a search result takes you to a web site and may take you straight to the information you want or you may go to the home page of the web site. It may then be necessary to perform a search of the content of the web site. This is done by entering key words into a search box.

A key word search on a website.

Complex searches Dont be put off by the name. Complex searches help you save time searching for information, so they are worth knowing about. When you do a simple search, you may be overwhelmed by all the information. Complex searches help you narrow down a search. AND If you type in the search USA AND flag you will get all those documents that contain both words. If you just type in USA Flag you will still get all those documents that contain both words. With most search engines you do not need to type the "and" between the words. AND means: "I want only documents that contain both words." OR If you type in the search USA OR flag then you will get all the documents containing the word USA, all the documents containing the word flag and all those documents that contain both words. OR means: "I want documents that contain either word. I don't care which word". Searching for an exact match If you want an exact match of words (i.e., the words side-by-side and in the same order), then put quotation marks around the words like this: "Recipe for a chocolate chip cookie" NOT Suppose you want to search for information about different pets but you cant stand cats. You can exclude cats like this: Pets NOT cats Searching for a quotation If you know the exact wording of the quotation, you can type it into the search engine. To get the exact match you need to put quotation marks around the words like this: "I have a dream"

An advanced search page notice that you can select the language for the web pages.

Activity 9.6
Fact detective In this activity you will practise the following skills:
 Find specified information using a search engine  Refine searches using more advanced search techniques

How good are you at tracking down information? Here are some things you are going to find out using the Internet and the search engine of your choice. Good luck! 1 The name of the animal with the Latin name Buffo Buffo. 2 The name of the plant that the drug called digitalis comes from. 3 Another name for the bone in the human body called the patella. 4 The name of the country that won the 2010 Football World Cup. 5 The names of the seven Ancient Wonders of the world 6 The date when man first walked on the Moon. 7 The name of the country that produces the most coffee in the world. 8 The four colours in the flag of Mauritius. 9 The name of the fastest animal in the world on land. 10 The name of the country that uses the currency called Ringgit.

Downloading and saving information obtained from web sites

You frequently have to download files from web sites and save them on your own computer. In many cases these files will be in a format called PDF as most computers come with a program capable of displaying these files.

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Activity 9.7
Downloading files from a web site and saving them on a computer In this activity you will learn the following skills:
 Download and save information as specified  Store files using an appropriate planned structure

1 Access the Internet using your web browser and access the following web site by typing in the following URL: http://www.cie.org.uk/qualifications/academic/ middlesec/igcse/subject?assdef_id=969 This will access the home page of the University of Cambridge International Examinations IGCSE in ICT. This page will look similar to this one: Notice that you can just view the file by clicking on open. Click on Save. 3 You will now be able to choose where you want to save the file. Locate your IGCSE ICT folder or where you store your IGCSE ICT files. Notice that the filename is not very meaningful. It is important to use meaningful filenames as it makes them easier to find later.

Delete the file name shown and replace with a filename similar to the following (NB you should change the year to the one you are using):

2 You will notice that there is a current syllabus and two future syllabuses. You will need to look for the syllabus for the year in which you will take the examination. Suppose you wanted the syllabus for 2012, you would click on the following:

Click on to save the file.

4 Now locate the file and click on it to open it. You need to double left click on the correct syllabus for you. Notice the little icon which tells you that the file is in PDF format. The following window appears:

Activity 9.8
Downloading past papers In this activity you will learn the following skills:
 Download and save information as specified  Store files using an appropriate planned structure

For this activity you need to download CIE IGCSE past papers for you to refer to for your revision. As in the previous activity, you should change the names of the files so that they are more meaningful and easily found later.

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