Entertainment in the Information Age

In this blog I will be talking about entertainment in the information age and how it has changed over the last few years. Entertainment has changed in lots of different areas, such as gaming, cinema, music, Mpegs, TV, Radio, E-books and digital cameras.

Gaming

Gaming has changed a vast amount in the information age.  Many years ago, video games were just some 2d shapes in small screens with a simple moving stick and buttons as a controller.  Some video games were just in big arcade machines that you had to put money into to play it.  Examples of this would be Pac-man, asteroids and space invader.  As gaming evolved, more companies started to create games, their own consoles and with these new developments came new genres such as racing, arcade, sport and sci-fi.  Over time video games got better and better to what we have today, with big consoles such as Xbox, PlayStation, Wii and PC.  It is estimated that in today’s world, the video game industry makes more money than Hollywood.

Video games used to be seen as anti-social because only one person would be able to play by them self, and they still are by some people,  but today they are being more widely developed for multiplayer.  This is so you can connect, play with and talk to your friends over the internet using your console.  Titles such as Call of Duty are mainly a multiplayer game where people all over the world can connect to each other and play.  There are also more multiplayer features that can bring a whole family together, to have fun together.  Some of the big companies, over the last few years, have released motion capture gaming.  This can be for fitness, fun or to play a game more realistically.  Consoles such as the Wii and kinect for xbox are mainly used for motion capture gaming and are more family friendly because the games are so simple to play because all you need is movement and to press a few buttons.  An example of this would be Mario Kart or Mario and Sonic at the Olympic games.  These kind of games bring the family together because the whole family can understand what to do and have fun.

Video games are also spreading to our mobile phones and portable devices.  Games on the mobile are fun to play to pass the time but they are never going to be as good as a console game because it is not the phones primary function.

Advantages of Video Games

• Fun to play
• Keeps people occupied
• For all ages
• Aids towards developing new technology

Disadvantages of video games

• Too much is bad for your health
• Expensive to buy consoles and games
• People can get addicted to games and they play for hours on end without breaks which is bad for their health and mental health

In my opinion, I think video games are really fun.  I have an Xbox where I can play the games I am interested in, but we also have a family Wii where we can all play together and have fun if friends come over.

Music

Music has always played a part in people’s lives for centuries.  Over the years there have been more and more genres that evolve and mix with other genres to create music for everybody’s taste.  Some people like classical, some like electronic and some like heavy metal.  What you like to listen to is down to you.

In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph and tested it with the first song ever recorded, which was ‘Mary had a little lamb’.  The recordings played on such a device generally consist of wavy lines that are scratched, engraved, or grooved onto a rotating cylinder or disc. As the cylinder or disc rotates, a needle or other similar object on the device traces the wavy lines and vibrates, reproducing sound waves.  For years music was recorded onto large plastic disks called records and they were played on a gramophone.  The records then shrunk down to smaller records and then got replaced by cassette tapes. Compact Cassettes consist of two miniature spools, between which a magnetically coated plastic tape is passed and wound. These spools and their attendant parts are held inside a protective plastic case. Four tracks were available on the tape, two on each side.  To change the songs you had to turn the tape over.  The next replacement was the Compact Disk (CD).  The CD is an optical disc used to store digital data. They can hold up to 80 minutes of uncompressed audio or 700MB of data.  These are still used today to buy from shops, but are becoming less popular because of the invention of the MP3 players and download services such as iTunes or Spotifty.  People download their MP3 songs from the internet or rip songs from their CD onto their computers and then plug in their mp3 players and iPods.  They put the music onto the mp3 player or iPod and then they can take thousands of songs with them anywhere.  This can then be played using headphones or by being plugged into some speakers or a speaker dock.

Advantages of Music

• Technology is changing all the time to make it easier for us to play our music
•  We can take music anywhere
• Everyone can find something they like from the vast selection of artists, albums and genres

Disadvantages of music

• You can go deaf if you play music too loud through ear phones
• Music is shared illegally by giving your friends the CD to put on their computers or sending them the mp3 files

In my experience, music is really useful to have on CD’s, computers and iPods.  It is really easy to transfer music from one to the other and to find the songs you want.  Music for me has only ever been on CD’s and when I was growing up, mp3 players because I was not born when people used records.

Movies

Movies used to only be shown at the cinema where light would be projected through some moving film with pictures on it to create a moving image.  The projector would also play sound through the speakers that it detected on the film.  Today we have digital cinemas where instead of movie film, we have digital movies stored on DVD’s, the internet or hard drives.  The cinema downloads the movie from its source and then shows it on the computer which is connected to the high tech projector which shines it’s beam of light onto the massive screen at the front of the cinema.  Some recent developments over the last couple of years are 3D.  This is when we see the image on the screen with a third dimension to it.  This gives us the impression that things in the movie are jumping out of the screen.  For this to happen, the movie is filmed with 2 cameras and is projected with a special 3d projector.  This projector shows 2 images on the screen that looks blurry without special 3d glasses which we wear during the movie.  These glasses bring the 2 images together to create the 3d effect.  Other developments in movies is the usage of CGI technology.  This means Computer-generated imagery.  This is done on computers by special designers that can create characters, objects and scenes with special software, to create moving animations which later become the movie.  Famous CGI titles include Avatar, Finding Nemo, Monster’s Inc. and Toy Story.

Movies used to be watched at home on something similar to cassette tapes, called HVS.  This is short for Video Home System.  These video tapes could be bought from the shops, and on them would be the movies that people had seen at the cinema.  These tapes were played on VHS Players which were connected to your television.  When the CD was invented, people worked on making a CD for movies.  This was called the DVD.  This stands for Digital Video Disk.  This is played on DVD players which is also connected to the television.  DVD’s give higher definition than video tapes and they store more features like commentaries and deleted scenes.  Another more recent development is the Blu-Ray disk.  This is very similar to a DVD but it provides much higher definition and high definition sound.  It is played by a Blu-ray player.  The Blu-Ray disk is much easier for the player to read because the data is closer to the surface and the Blu-Ray player reads the data more accurately and faster.  This is what creates the higher definition.

Advantages of Movies

• Easy to view in the comfort of your own home
• Technology is making it look even better all the time
• Great entertainment

Disadvantages of Movies

• People can pirate movies and sell them illegally
• 3D glasses can make your eyes hurt after a long time
• DVD and Blu-Ray players are expensive

In my experience, DVD and blu-ray are much better than video tapes and digital cinemas are much better than normal cinemas.  This is because of the higher definition and the greater overall quality.  Also, DVD’s and Blu-Ray disks are much smaller and easier to store than the big chunky cassettes.  

Education in the Information Age

In this blog I will be talking about education and how much technology is involved in it in our every day lives.

Registration and Student databases

In most schools today, the children are registered using special record keeping software.  This would be used at the beginning of every lesson by the teacher.  The teacher has a specific list of names for specific lessons and they mark the child either present or absent with specific symbols, such as a / for present or a N to say they are absent.  This would then be saved to the school database and would go against the students records.  This is a more environmentally friendly way of registering because there is no paper required and it saves the time of the office staff because they don’t have to enter it to their computers.  This software is also a database for the students history and saves their grades, achievements and conducts.  This can be viewed at any time by teachers so they can see how they are getting on with their school work. 

Advantages of registration and student database

• It saves paper which is good for the environment
• It is easily accessible by the teachers and office staff
• It is reliable and easy to use

Disadvantages of registration and student database

• The information is confidential and private so it has to be very secure
• If mistakes are made then it is not easy to rectify it because only certain people have access to change things for security reasons
• It is expensive to have a computer in every classroom to do the register

In my opinion, this is a very good use of technology in education and it makes it much easier to store the information.  In the future this will probably be implemented into every school and it will be improved to be even easier to use.

Interactive whiteboards and computers

In most schools, teachers have stopped using whiteboards and now use interactive whiteboards.  This is a whiteboard that is connected to the classroom computer and what ever is shown on the computer will be projected onto the screen for the whole class to see.  This is extremely useful as it is useful for many different teaching methods.  It can be used to show educational youtube videos or it could be used to show an example of someone’s good work.  Teachers can also teach a whole lesson by going through a PowerPoint on the board instead of reading through a boring text book.  Another feature of the white board is that it is interactive.  This means that the teacher can get some students to come up and work something out, drag something around the board and have fun in the classroom on a big screen for everyone to see.  The big advantage of the whiteboard is that it is connected to the computer so what ever you can show on the computer, you can show to a whole class on the interactive whiteboard.  Sometimes the teachers will want to show the class a DVD and normally they would have had to drag a small television into the classroom and try and get the class to gather around its small screen.  However, with an interactive whiteboard, you can put a DVD into the computer and it will be displayed on the massive whiteboard by the projector.  This means that the whole class can see it from their desks.

Advantages of interactive whiteboards

• Makes it easier to teach
• Children would prefer learning from the interactive whiteboard rather than a book or a normal whiteboard
• They are impressive and parents are more likely to send their children to a school with good teaching technology such as this

Disadvantages of interactive whiteboards

• Some older teachers might not find it easy to use the technology
• It is very expensive technology and some schools might not be able to afford it
• If there is no power then it makes it hard for the teacher to teach without a whiteboard

In my opinion, Interactive whiteboards are the best way to teach.  They are able to display so much content for the students to see and it makes it easier for the teachers to prepare lessons because they can use powerpoints.

Virtual Learning Environment

A virtual learning environment is a set of teaching and learning tools designed to enhance a student's learning experience by including computers and the Internet in the learning process.  An example of a Virtual Learning Environment is something called Frog.  To access from all you need is your usual school login and then you can access lots of useful content.  The virtual learning environment is run on school servers and is accessible through the school computers and also over the internet while you are at home.  One of the things that the VLE is used for is the individual student timetables.  A student can log on and see what lessons they have every day and they can check the times of those lessons.  Another useful feature of the VLE is that students can access their school drives from home so they can finish their work and then re-upload it back to school.  Another feature is that the teachers can set homework or lesson work while they are not there and the students can just log on and find all the information and the work that the teacher has set for them.  The students can also upload it to the teachers to mark and they can notify the teacher of the works completion.  One of the useful features for teachers is that they can book the computer suites in advance for future lessons.  This is all saved on the school servers so everyone will be able to see who has booked which rooms and when.

Advantages of VLE

• Easy to login and use because they are made especially for students.
• Makes homework easier because students are able to download their school work at home in just a few clicks and they can submit it to their teachers easily
• Each student has their own personal login which makes it easier to display their drives and timetables
• You can access it any time, anywhere

Disadvantages of VLE

• People that do not have a computer at home will not be able to use it
• If someone’s internet goes down then they can’t submit their homework or complete school work from home

In my opinion virtual learning environments, such as Frog, are going to be the future of accessing documents anywhere.  It is an extremely useful way to manage your work by uploading and downloading work from your school accounts and then sending it to the teacher to be marked.  It will save on paper which is better for the environment because work is being done more on computers now.  It also makes things more reliable because there cant be any excuses for not handing the work in on time and teachers wont be able to lose the students work and grades by accident.