Topic 1 - Introduction to Information Technology

“Information Technology (IT) has changed and continues to change the way we live, do business, and interact socially. IT is undergoing rapid changes. New and improved technological advances appear almost daily.” (Grant, Malloy, & Murphy, 2008) .

• The impact of IT in educational institution both in it’s management as well as in teaching and learning is widespread.

• Thus we as educators, as change agents; in keeping up with the world of present generation, as well as for our own professional growth, need to be aware of the latest developments in IT.

History of Computer Generations

 1. Early Contributions before 1940

Have you ever heard of the abacus? As a teacher, you must have been exposed to the intentions of the Education Ministry to implement this method of calculations in schools. The history of the first computer started with the use of the Abacus, as a calculator some 3000 BC ago.  In 1617, John Napier invented Napier Bones. Prior to this, he invented logarithms to simplify mathematical operations. Pascal, a French mathematician invented the first mechanical calculating machine known as Blaise Pascal in 1964 and that was the turning point for the invention of calculators.

2. First Generation(1940-1958)

In the second generation computer, the vacumm tube has been changed to a transistor. As a result of the use of the transistor, the computer has physically become smaller, increased its speed and reduced its energy efficiency while still having great potential.

This change  has  reduced  the cost of  computers.  More  than 17000  IBM computers have been marketed between the years 1959 to 1963. Among the famous computers are IBM 1620 and IBM 1401. In this generation, computers have started using magnetic tapes for storage. The programming languages used are FORTRAN and COBOL.

3.Third Generation (1964-1980)

In the third generation of computers, transistors were replaced with Integrated Circuits or chips. On the other hand, the magnetic coil had fully replaced the perforated card as an external hard disk. As a result of the use of the Integrated Circuits, the following computers were invented:

• In 1971, Dr Ted Hoff invented the Intel microprocessesor
• In 1975,  the  first  local  area  network  yang  pertama  telah  was introduced by Robert
• The first Appel computer  was invented in 1976 by Steve Woziniak and Seve
• In 1977, Apple II was
• Intel invented the computer 8086 in 1978, then it was replaced by 8088 in

4. Fourth Generation (1980-Today)

The fourth generation computer has used the integrated circuits. Intel has introduced the microprocessessor 286 in 1982 and todate, Intel has used Pentium Centrino. In 1984, Macintosh was introduced. In May 1991 Microsoft Incorporated has introduced operating systems known as Windows 3.0, subsequently in early 1992, Microsoft introduce the new version  of  Windows  3.1.  Windows  3.0  and  3.1  graphics  and     DOS.

Instructional control systems of Windows 3.0 dan 3.1 uses the mouse to choose interactive icons. The Windows operational systems have grown and Windows XP which was launched on 25 October 2001 can combine all media in multimedia.

• Education

In the education field, the use of IT can be divided into two categories:

• Management Tool

There are a lot of data that have to be managed in an educational organisation. Among them student data, finance data, human resources data, stock data and others. IT with the application of the database system and Local Area Network can manage data systematically and efficiently. For instance, with the help of this system, an administrator will be able to know the studentÊs disciplinary status quickly.

He only needs to enter the matriculation card number of the student into the computer connected to the network of student database. The same goes for other important information too for example finance, stock and human resources.