Welcome grade 11s! I’m very excited to be teaching this course, as it is one of those courses that moves beyond “How do I do X or Y” into “Why do I do things the way I do them? What impacts do IT and computer-related fields have on me and on the world?” ITGS isn’t just ‘another’ IT course where you learn how to use a certain software suite or play around with programming. ITGS is a course that is designed to make you think about how your life (and the world) is affected by computers every single moment of every single day.

ITGS stands for ‘Information Technology in a Global Society’. Sounds pretty intimidating, right? Well, it is. Our task is no less than to try to understand how the entire world is affected by the fast-moving field of IT. The overriding theme of the course can be summed up in the following diagram:

Here’s a quick list of the things we’ll be discussing, exploring, understanding, questioning, pondering and obsessing over during the course (don’t panic, it’s over 2 years!):

1. Social and Ethical Issues

1.1. Reliability and Integrity

1.2. Security

1.3. Privacy and Anonymity

1.4. Intellectual Property

1.5. Authenticity

1.6. The Digital Divide and Equality of Access

1.7. Surveillance

1.8. Globalization and Cultural Diversity

1.9. Policies

1.10. Standards and Policies

1.11. People and protocols

1.12. People and machines

 

2. Areas of Impact

2.1. Business and Employment

2.2. Education and training

2.3. Environment

2.4. Health

2.5. Home and Leisure

2.6. Politics/Government

 

3. IT systems

3.1. Hardware

3.2. Software

3.3. Networks

3.4. Internet

3.5. Personal and public communications

3.6. Multimedia/digital media

3.7. Databases

3.8. Spreadsheets, modelling and simulations

3.9. Introduction to project management

HL Extension

3.10. IT systems in organizations

3.11. Robotics, artificial intelligence and expert systems

As you can see, there’s a lot of stuff to cover, but we will get through it all! As we progress through the course, this page will provide you with materials and suggestions (as well as assignments). I look forward to working with you for the next two years!

I hope you enjoy the year and good luck.

Mr Gavin

If you need to contact me you please email one of the following addresses.

gavin_johnson@swa-jkt.com

gavin_johnson@jwaonline.com

Essential Documents

Project Guide          Abbreviations        Case Study 2012 Exams   Security Test    Key Terms  Exam key terms