Unit 8. Information Highway (Requirements)

1. Unit 8. Information Highway (Requirements) Oral/Reading Practice: 1) Describe various uses of a computer 2) Talk about the developments in computer science 3) Explain technical terms 4) Paraphrase difficult language relating to computers • Activity 1. My Computer • Activity 2. The Long Reach of the Computer • Activity 3. Cyberspace • Activity 4. Writing

2. Boom in email puts paper use up by 40pc1 • By Robert Uhlig • THE use of email has increased paper consumption in offices by 40 per cent, a study shows. That does not include the vast amount of paper used to print information from the internet. • Richard Harper, the director of the University of Surrey's digital world research centre, found that the amount of paper used in offices increased noticeably with the introduction of each new communications2 technology: fax, email or the latest development, instant messaging3. • He and Abigail Sellen, senior research scientist at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, found that “mopying4”-making a document and copying it many times - had become common.

3. Boom in email puts paper use up by 40pc1(continued) • “Office workers5 create the document on their screen, then print it out and file it,” Prof Harper said. “But when they need to refer to6 it again, they print it out again instead of looking at the filed copy and make 20 or more copies and distribute them to7 colleagues.” • The researchers found that most people preferred working with paper to using computer screens. Many forms of communication or information retrieval8 began as electronic tasks on a screen, but most ended up on paper. • “If you really want to get to grips with a document, you need paper,” Prof Harper said. “Organisations pursue paperlessness for the wrong reasons. They may want to get rid of paper simply because it is a symbol of the old-fashioned past rather than an ineffective technology.” (The End)

4. Notes: 1. boom 繁荣；pc=per cent 2. communications (pl.) 通讯系统 3. instant messaging 继电子邮件之后的一项更新的信息传输技术，“即时通讯” 4. mopying 新词，是make和copy的组合词 5. office workers 办公人员 6.refer to 查阅 7. distribute to 分发 8. information retrieval 获取信息 9. end up 结束，告终 10. paperlessness 无纸化

5. Unit 8. Information Highway Open QuestionHow many computer words can you name? hardware, software, hard disk, floppy disk, a lap-top/ notebook computer, a desk-top computer, RAM, program, database, Microsoft, IBM, Windows, DOS, E-mail, Internet, modem (P.404) • Cyber- :prefix computers and information systems e.g. cybercafe网络咖啡馆，网吧, cyberpunk网络黑客=hacker cyberculture网络文化, cybernaut上网者，网络用户， cyberphobia计算机恐惧症，cyberspace网络空间，虚拟空间

6. Activity 1. My Computer Text 1.Personal Progress? (P.395 ) Section One(Paragraph 1) Q1. What couldn't the writer do ten years ago? (She couldn't even type well at that time.) Q2. Could she type fast at first? How did she do it? (Para.1… tap away at the keyboard with two index fingers…) Q3. Who is “a pen and paper person”? (Para.1) Q4. How do you understand “artificial intelligence”? (Para.1 “the development of computers”) Q5. What did the writer sincerely believe ten years ago? (Para.1 “I could live happily without advanced technology because…”)

7. Text 1. P.395 Personal Progress? Section Two(Paragraph 2) Main Idea: This part is about the writer’s computer skills

8. Activity 3. Cyberspace Text 2.Cyberspace for Kids?(P.414 ) Paragraphs 1-5: Q1. What does the word ‘cyberspace’ mean? (the new ‘world’ of information created by the worldwide Internet..) Q2. What is being left to gather dust? (Para.1 Expensive computing equipment.) Q3. What, now, are parents’ attitudes to the belief that computers enable a child to zoom ahead? (They become doubtful about that./ Doubts are creeping in.) Q4. What’s the basis for Mark’s complaint about the Internet and his waste of time? (Most websites are aimed at adults.) Q5. How do parents summarize the problem experienced by 11-13 year olds? (The Internet is just not user-friendly for children.)

9. Text 2.(continued)(P.414 ) Q6. In what way are computers like other discarded toys if children don’t know how to use them? (If they don’t know how to use the computer, they will play for a while and then get rid of it, like new play things.) Q7. How does Jack Flook benefit from running Kidsahead? (By training children to develop basic computing and computer.) Q8. What is Greta Howell’s profession and where is she employed? (Greta Howell is a teacher at Harewell Comprehensive.) Q9. How does Ms Howell give computer students a goal when they can browse the Internet? (To have a topic in mind and then do an on-line search to find what they want.) Q10. Who are the two adults who are commenting on the topic? (Jake Flook and Greta Howell.) Q11. What is the main theme of the reading? (Problems and solutions of children’s surfing the Internet.)

10. Text 2.(continued)(P.414 ) Paragraphs 6-16: Q12. There are problems for kids to use computers for getting information, because __________. (Some sites in cyberspace are pornographic.) Q13. What are Surfwatch, NetNanny and Cypersitter? (a. computer brands, b. software packages, c. information centers) Q14. What are their functions? (To block out undesirable sites for children and prevent pornography from being downloaded.) Q15. If help is needed when one comes to pornographic sites, he/she should telephone______. ( a. 080 6842 2277 b. 010 6857 8657 c. 071 6845 9692.) Q16. What is “Internet in a box”? What are its special features? (Para. 9. ①A software package for kids launched in the US to help them to use computers. ②It has more icons and graphs to guide children.)

11. Text 2.(continued)(P.414 ) Q17. What are the advantages for the whole family to browse the net together? (Para. 11. ①shared pleasure ②supervise what the kids download) Q18. What is the writer’s conclusion about children using cyberspace? (With care and guidance, the Internet can be wonderful for kids.)

12. Net porn seen by nine out of ten children ① • BY Martin Bentham, Social Affairs Correspondent(Filed: 25/11/2001) • NINE out of 10 children aged between eight and 16 have viewed pornography on the internet, according to research to be published tomorrow. • The research, by academics at the London School of Economics, also found that about half of those in the age group had been approached by strangers in "chatrooms", sometimes with a view to an under-age relationship. • In most cases, the sex sites were accessed unintentionally when a child, often in the process of doing homework, used a seemingly innocent sounding word to search for information or pictures. • Among the examples uncovered was an incident in which an 11-year-old girl was trying to find photographs of Adolf Hitler for a school project. She logged into a website labelled "Adolf Hitler pictures", but found herself faced with child pornography on a site carrying the rubric "gaysexfreepics".

13. Net porn seen by nine out of ten children ② • In another case, two brothers, aged 10 and 12, found homosexual images instead of the pictures of the pop band Boyzone that they were seeking. • Further cases involved a family with an eight-year-old boy and a girl of 10, in which the elder child found pictures of topless women after attempting to log on to a website about the Spice Girls. • A 13-year-old girl researching the White House found herself looking at a porn magazine site, while a 15-year-old girl researching "money" found a prostitution website. • Sonia Livingstone, a professor of social pyschology at the LSE, who conducted the research, said that such experiences were common. "From my research, nearly all - 90 per cent - of the children had seen some kind of pornographic content. The numbers engaging in chat with people they had never met was about half.

14. Net porn seen by nine out of ten children③ • "I observed one long flirtation between a 15-year-old girl and a man of 32 that seemed to be the kind of communication that could easily go wrong." • Prof Livingstone emphasised, however, that there was a danger of overreacting to the hazards of the internet. Although some children deliberately sought pornography, most young people swiftly shut down sex websites if they came across them. • "The concerns about safety, which are very much at the top of the public agenda, need to be balanced with concerns about computer literacy," said Prof Livingstone. • "What we don't want to do is create an environment that is so sensitive to safety that we don't give children the encouragement and freedom to develop the internet skills that are becoming a prerequisite of everyday life. • Prof Livingstone's research will be published in a report for the Institute of Public Policy Research. It is based on a year-long study of 30 families and responses from pupils and teachers in 10 schools.