AS/A Level Applied ICT Stephen Royle

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1  Assessment objective 1.

The first assessment objective I have chosen is 6h - Catering for disabilities. The resource I have decided to review is http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/.

This is a large website is from a company called ‘AbilityNet’. In their own words: ‘AbilityNet is a national charity helping disabled adults and children use computers and the internet by adapting and adjusting their technology.’

Criteria / Review
Is the author or web source a reliable source? / I am convinced of the reliability of this resource because of the comprehensive nature of the information and the eternal references and the charity registration information.
Is the source current or out-of-date for your purpose? / This site is regularly updated. There are posts on the blog from within a couple of weeks and there is information on the homepage asking for responses by 27th Feb.
Is the target audience appropriate. i.e. is it aimed at teachers or students? / The target audience I believe is adults with an interest computers with disabilities (e.g. employers) or users with disabilities themselves. The language and the layout of the site is still suitable for 6th form students, however.
Is the information covered fact or opinion? / I suspect that the majority of the site is fact, although there are certain areas, such as the blog which has free text entry and could obviously contain opinions.
Does the resource update other sources or add new information? / I used this resource as a very good source of new information on this subject. There is a wealth of resources on this website which go into far greater depth and breadth than is required by this small section of the syllabus.
Are the main points clearly presented? / This is a very clearly designed website, which presumably is because they know that many of their target audience have some form of disability. Navigation is clear with standard hyperlink menus on the left hand side and across the top of the page.
Do you find the text easy to read? / The text is easy to read and there are also some accessibility options for users with visual impairments, allowing, for example, high contrast text.
Are any diagrams clearly presented? / The website has so many resources that I did not check them all, but those I saw were very clear and were in pdf format to allow clear printing.
Are there any audio visual aids? / In a way, there is some audio content aimed at the intended audience of the website in the form of a monthly downloadable podcast in various formats. It is also possible to download the transcript
Is the information detailed enough to answer any likely exam questions (use the 2008 June papers as guidance)? / I would say yes. This website gives a comprehensive overview of the ways in which ICT can be made more accessible to disabled users and also the types of online services that are available. If you take the example of question 6c from summer 2008 paper 3, a number of the answers can be found in the following resource on the website: http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/content/factsheets/pdfs/Keyboard and Mouse Alternatives.pdf, and that is only one of a large number of free resources available on the website.

2  Assessment objective 2

The second assessment objective I have chosen is 3d - Working patterns. The resource I have decided to review is http://www.cmb.org.uk/.

Here is how the website describes itself: ‘This website was part of the Creating More Balance (CMB) Project which was managed by Sheffield Information Link and funded by ESF Objective One from January 2003 to December 2006. This website is now jointly managed by Rotherham and Doncaster Early Years Teams, and Sheffield Information.’

Criteria / Review
Is the author or web source a reliable source? / The website is professional in its design and has links to so many local and government organisations that I am convinced it is genuine.
Is the source current or out-of-date for your purpose? / Though the description above states that the project itself has ended, I believe the information is kept reasonably up to date. IN the ‘News’ section the most recent update I could see was from October 2008. Most of the information the students would need would be things like a definition of ‘Compressed hours’ which would not particularly change over time anyway, for example.
Is the target audience appropriate. i.e. is it aimed at teachers or students? / Of course this is a website designed for interested parties, i.e. local government organisations from different areas, businesses wishing to comply with regulations or introduce some of the ideas shown on the website or individuals who are perhaps trying to encourage their employers to introduce new working practises. It is fairly easy to navigate and it would not take long for a teacher to identify key areas for students to look at, or indeed for able students to find relevant information themselves.
Is the information covered fact or opinion? / The majority of this website is concerned with facts that have arisen as outcomes from the project. There is very little, if any, opinion offered.
Does the resource update other sources or add new information? / This website can be used in addition to the information provided in the course textbook to increase the depth of knowledge or to support the information in the book with case studies for example.
Are the main points clearly presented? / Yes, to me this seems to be a well designed website and the information contained within it in the form of downloadable factsheets for example is very clear.
Do you find the text easy to read? / The text on the websites and the factsheets is in a very clear font.
Are any diagrams clearly presented? / I did not find any diagrams in this resource.
Are there any audio visual aids? / I did not find any in this resource
Is the information detailed enough to answer any likely exam questions (use the 2008 June papers as guidance)? / If we take the example of question 2a from summer 2008 paper 1, one of the possible answers is that the staff may be able to job share. This website has a whole factsheet explaining job sharing to employers (there is a simple registration process to download these – make sure you check your ‘junk’ box as Hotmail put my registration details in there!). There is certainly enough detail here for one aspect of the answer.

3  References

AbilityNet website - http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/

Keyboard and mouse alternatives - http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/content/factsheets/pdfs/Keyboard and Mouse Alternatives.pdf

Creating more balance website - http://www.cmb.org.uk/

Job sharing factsheet (registration required) - http://www.cmb.org.uk/UserFiles/File/job-sharing.pdf

AS and A Level Applied ICT, Cambridge University Press, 9780521717649

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