Digital Communication Tools

Chapter 1: Digital Communication Tools in Our Lives

Additional Activities

Computer History

Objective

Materials

Procedure

1. Work with a partner. Use a search engine to find Web sites about the development of the personal computer.
2. Select two or three inventors, designers, or programmers of early computers.
3. Note when the person you selected was born, what he or she studied in college, and what achievements make him or her notable.
4. With your partner, create a timeline spanning 25, 50, or 75 years. Create entries on the timeline representing significant firsts in computer history. Add the birth date of your selected individual.
5. Share your timeline with the rest of the class.

Extension

Family History

Objective

Materials

Procedure

1. Interview your parents or other relatives to help you identify major milestones in your life so far. If you have a baby book, scrapbooks, or photo albums from your childhood, search through them for photographic evidence of the milestones.
2. Create a timeline chart that includes your milestones. Include relevant photographs. Use removable tape to secure photos to a separate sheet of paper. Add labels and captions to your chart to identify the photos.
3. Use a search engine to find a copy of a pedigree chart. Interview parents or other relatives to obtain the names and information called for on the chart. Include yourself, your parents, and grandparents. Add other names if you can. If possible, add small photos of each person next to his or her name.
4. Scan the timeline pages and pedigree chart into a word processing document.
5. Save the scanned files on a CD or USB drive for sharing with your family.

Extension

Storage Capacity Test

Objective

Materials

Procedure

1. Work with a partner to create a table in a word processing document or on paper. Enter the types of storage media you will be working with in the left column and leave the right column blank for listing the items you can store on them.
2. Locate the Sample Files folder on your computer that your teacher may have provided for you, or create a folder of sample text, image, video, and sound files. Be sure to use only copyright-free material. One safe resource for image, video, and sound files is the Library of Congress American Memory site at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem.
3. Insert the floppy disk into the A: drive. Copy a text file onto the disk. Copy an image file onto the disk. If the disk is full, stop. If it is not full, try copying a sound file or video file onto it. If there is not enough room for either of those, try adding another copy of the text file. Be sure to rename the file so it does not overwrite the file you already put there. When the disk is full and you cannot copy anything else to it, record its contents on your table.
4. Follow the same procedure with the USB drive. To save time, estimate how many files you will be able to store by calculating the size of each file and comparing it to the size of the storage device. For example, if the USB drive can hold 128 MB, and each video file is 20 MB, then you can put 6 copies on the drive. Most text files are smaller than 1 MB, and sound and image files range between those two sizes.
5. To avoid wasting resources that are not reusable, instead of actually saving files on recordable CDs or DVDs, calculate the maximum number of each of your sample files that could be saved on each. CDs hold 700 MB and DVDs hold 4.7 GB. Record this number in your table.
6. Find the cost for each type of storage medium and determine which is the best buy. Consider factors such as reusability, durability, and security, as well as cost.

Extension