Discussion, group-work, and quiz questions
1. What is the productivity concept that unifies the following: (1) MS Word style sheets; (2) Excel formulas; (3) JavaScript programs.
2. Use the terms flowchart, pseudocode, JavaScript, and HTML to contrast the concepts of web-page formatting, algorithm design, and source code.
3. Describe how a business might use spreadsheet software to make its development of a business plan more efficient.
4. What is the role of information technology in creating and executing business plans?
5. What software could you use to create a detailed business plan, and how?
6. Explain the notion of a named style, giving examples from MS Word and HTML.
7. What are the differences and similarities among a heading, a page header, and a slide footer?
8. Compare IF as used in Excel and in JavaScript.
9. Describe the languages presented in the following topics in this course: Hardware; Spreadsheets; Database; Networked Computing; Web Design; Problem Solving and Programming.
10. Contrast HTML to JavaScript.
11. How is JavaScript used, with reference to HTML?
12. For topic
__, see your group-work submission.
(a) What were the main concepts presented in the course that this group work
exercised or reinforced for you?
(b) Discuss briefly any errors in your group work for this topic.
(c) Critique the group-work submission that appears just after yours on the
Discussion Board. (If yours is last, critique the first submission.)
13. Referring
to chapter __ of Parsons-Oja,
(a) What are the main IT concepts presented?
(b) What are the main concepts presented in the topic of this course for which
the chapter was assigned?
(c) Compare and contrast the textbook presentation with what was presented in
the classroom and the slides.
1. What is IT for?
2. What would you like to use it for?
3. How does it use you?
4. What is computing?
5. What is information?
6. Which definition of information technology do you think is best?
7. How do a user avoid repetitious tasks like formatting text the same way over and over?
8. What will you do in 5 years when you have to learn an app that doesn’t exist today?
9. Are these instances of information technology? (a) laser pen; (b) cell phone
10. What is digital input, output of (a) inkjet printing process; (b) cell phone; (c) display of a film on a computer
1.
(Group work) Download or register for an application
suite among the following: Ajax Write (and others in
2.
(HTML Group Work) Using SharPoint, FrontPage, or
Windows Notepad as a text editor, create from scratch a web page in HTML that
uses material about your business or organization. The web page should contain:
a) a comment at the top of the HTML file (but invisible in the web page display), that gives your name, the date, the course number, and the homework number;
b) a title, to appear in the blue bar at the top of the Internet Explorer window;
c) multi-paragraph text, some of which is bold or italicized and some of which uses headings styles such as <h1>, <h2> (see HTML Reference handout);
d) a hyperlink (e.g., to a web site related in some way to your organization or business);
e) a picture (your logo), scaled to about 1 or 2 inches high as displayed on your monitor (or about 100 x 100 pixels);
f) a horizontal rule;
g) a background color;
h) an HTML table coded from scratch containing some info from the MS Word table that you created for HW 2.
i) a bulleted or numbered list;
j) a definion and uses of the <h1> style;
k)
a table of contents using internal hyperlinks.
To retrieve example files posted on
Discussion Board: open the example message, right-click on the .htm file
name, save the file at your user account space, open it in MS Office Sharepoint
Designer.
Code your work in the Code view of Sharepoint. To be sure that your HTML file appears as you intend, use Design View. Double-click on your HTML file in its directory to show it in a browser.
3.
Why are MS Word named styles used, rather than just formatting
blocks of text with the Font and Paragraph dialogs?
4.
What are some file formats supported by the
word-processing application you use?
5.
Compare bitmap and vector formats for pictorial data.
6.
For the same simple drawing, would a .GIF file or a
.BMP file be larger, and why? (GIF can be exported from PowerPoint, whereas
Paint generates .BMP.)
7.
What features are possible with a table that are not
possible with simpler formatting methods like tabs?
8.
Describe how you might format a long word-processing
document in such a way that the font of the subheadings can easily be changed
later.
9.
In web-page construction software, such as FrontPage,
what are the HTML view and Preview modes used for?
10. Name two kinds of information that must be specified to create a hyperlink, and tell what a hyperlink is used for.
11. What
is an HTML tag? Give examples.
12. Circle
the event handler in the HTML code below [see examples].
13. Circle
the line of the HTML code below that puts words into the blue bar at the top of
a displayed web page. [code]
14. What
is an HTML comment?
15. Distinguish
the <head> tag from <h1> in HTML.
16. What
are attributes of an effective slide presentation?
17. How
can a word-processor document be formatted to communicate well?
18. What
are some features of your word-processing or presentation app that enable
flexibility?
19. Compare MS Office with OpenOffice, Star Office, or some other office suite. To do this, you may have to download and install the other office suite.
20. Why
are there:
(a) word-processor programs
(b) standard user interfaces
(c) changes in standard user interfaces
(d) alternatives to MS Office
(e) languages like HTML
(f) named styles
1.
Why is an HTML file readable on Notepad?
2.
What formatting feature is needed when generating a
table of contents in MS Word?
3. What do PowerPoint Master Page and Microsoft Word Page Header View have in common?
4.
What method for spacing is considered better than
pressing the Enter key twice?
5.
How are all the slides in a presentation given a common
format?
6.
What does “export” mean, in a desktop application?
1. An MS Word named style is like the PowerPoint Master Slide View in that (a) it is stored on disk; (b) it is stored in the processor; (c) it is hardware; (d) it offers global control of format; (e) none of these
2. Which of the following is considered a graphical file format? (a) .xls; (b) .ppt; (c) .gif; (d) .exe; (e) all are graphical file formats
3. An internal hyperlink is different from an external one in that (a) it references a location in the same file that contains the hyperlink; (b) it is in the HTML file; (c) it is on the server; (d) it is on the user’s computer
4. The screen image in a Windows system may be saved to the Clipboard using (a) Paint; (b) Copy; (c) PrtScr; (d) NumLock; (e) none of these
5. The MS Office 2007 interface has (a) a menu named “File”; (b) keyboard shortcuts for every command; (c) customizable menus everywhere; (d) a context-sensitive Ribbon with command groups; (e) none of these
6. Which of the following is not an office suite? (a) Windows; (b) MS Office; (c) Google Docs; (d) Open Office; (e) all are office suites
7. Automatic generation of tables of contents requires (a) user knowledge of the subject matter; (b) artificial intelligence; (c) use of named styles for chapter headings; (d) special formatting of footers; (e) none of these
8. Named styles (a) are particular to MS Word; (b) are particular to HTML; (c) are available only in PowerPoint; (d) are common to word processing and HTML; (e) are an oxymoron
9. In an HTML file, the <body> information (a) is not visible; (b) is shown in the title bar; (c) contains definitions; (d) is shown in the browser window; (e) none of these
10. In web pages, images are normally (a) embedded in an HTML file; (b) stored in separate files from the HTML file; (c) inaccessible; (d) stored in PDF files; (e) none of these
11. Tables (a) have no special formatting; (b) are supported by Word but not HTML; (c) are supported by HTML but not by Word; (d) are supported by Word and HTML; (e) none of these
12. Vertical spacing is considered best provided by (a) the space-after attribute; (b) pressing the space bar; (c) pressing Enter twice; (d) features only available to experts; (e) none of these
13. Give examples of how Excel provides spreadsheet calculation features, visual presentation features, and database features.
14. What common formatting features are shared by word-processing and spreadsheet software?
15. Describe two statistical functions available in a spreadsheet application.
16. How would you find out the monthly payment due for a 30-year mortgage on a house costing $350,000 at 4.7% interest?
17. Explain why relative references are sometimes used in spreadsheets, and why at other times absolute references must be used.
18. Provide an example of the use of VLOOKUP.
19. If you had a piece of numeric data on one worksheet of a spreadsheet file, and wanted to put it into a different worksheet as well, how would you do that?
20. Explain two ways to use spreadsheet data directly within a word-processor file.
21. Describe
the IF function (
22. What is a parameter? Give an example in the context of spreadsheets.
23. Distinguish absolute and relative references.
24. What is a range used for in spreadsheets?
25. How would you display the largest sales figure in a row of such figures in a spreadsheet?
26. How would you make sure that the column headers in a spreadsheet stayed on the screen even when the user scrolled the data?
27. How would you make sure that your spreadsheet data fits all on the same page when it is printed?
28. Give two reasons why it is is considered better to write formulas for sums, averages, and so forth, in spreadsheets, rather than type in all the numbers?
29. Suppose you paste a selection from an Excel spreadsheet into a Word document, and the spreadsheet grid is too wide for the page, and no column could be narrowed by eliminating space. How would you fit the data without completely reformatting it?
30. Why are formulas used in spreadsheets, when entering the numbers might be just as convenient?
31. What would you look for if you saw “#NAME?” as the contents of a spreadsheet cell?
32. How would you format a cell so that a whole sentence could be displayed in it, on multiple lines?
33. How would you cause the heading, “Budget for 2006,” to appear centered above two columns of a spreadsheet?
34. How would you cause negative numbers to appear formatted with parentheses instead of minus signs?
35. What are the items in a journal?
36. What items to a journal and a budget have in common?
37. What items in a budget could be obtained from a journal using cell references?
38. What is an advantage of using named cells in a spreadsheet?
Write formulas to calculate:
39. Monthly payment required on a thirty-year loan of $550,000, at 7% annual interest
40. Sums of
each row and each column of a grid of numbers representing each of three
products sold in each of four quarters:
159 250
195 690
346 883
790 686
276 292
337 192
41. Median value of a list of values displayed horizontally: 100, 40, 0, 30, 300
42. Number
of non-empty cells in a range (e.g., for attendance at meetings:)
Jan. 2 Jan
9 Jan. 16 Jan. 23 Attendance
x x 2
43. Use a lookup table and formula to apply the labels “vapor”, “liquid”, or “ice” to the following observed water-temperature values (in ºF): 100, 40, 0, 30, 300.
44. Why are
there:
(a) spreadsheet software
(b) spreadsheet formulas
1. How would you make sure that the value for ten dollars appears exactly as “$10.00” in a spreadsheet?
2. What does “#####” in a cell mean? How do you fix it?
3. Write a spreadsheet formula that displays the average of the values in cells B3, B4, and B5.
4. How is an MS Word named style like a formula in Excel?
5. What does “B5:C8” specify in Excel?
6. If the formula “=B2+C2” is copied from cell D2 to D3, what will the new formula be?
7. If the formula “=F6+E$5” is copied to the cell below the cell containing the formula, what will the new formula be?
8. What does “=budget!C6” refer to?
9. What kind of chart would be appropriate for the expense categories of a business?
10. What kind of chart would be appropriate for displaying spending on education for the years 2001-2005?
1. B3:G3 is a (a) value; (b) format; (c) range; (d) formula; (e) none of these
2. A well-designed budget spreadsheet may well contain a cell (a) that references a value computed in the non-budget part of the spreadsheet; (b) that contains a range as its value; (c) that literally contains a number that could be computed from another number in the budget; (d) that references another cell that references the current cell
3. To solve a loan amortization problem with a spreadsheet, it is sufficent to use (a) the SUM function; (b) a range; (c) an expression that uses the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; (d) the PMT function; (e) none of these is sufficient
4. An Excel filter corresponds to (a) a query; (b) a script; (c) a formula referencing a cell; (d) a JavaScript program; (e) an HTML file
5. Which of the following may not be in the cell of a spreadsheet? (a) a function definition; (b) a formula; (c) a function call; (d) a literal numeric value; (e) a label
6. Absolute and relative references are found in (a) PowerPoint slides and Word files; (b) logic gates and assembler code; (c) hyperlinks and spreadsheet formulas; (d) pivot tables and filters; (e) all of these
1. What is a database table?
2. What is required for an efficient search of a database?
3. What is database filtering?
4. What is a way in MS Excel to find the correlation among values of fields in a database table?
5. Distinguish a pivot table from a database relation or table.
6. What do columns in a database table represent?
7. What do rows represent in a database table?
8. In a pivot table, where do the independent variables go? The dependent variables?
9. What is a database query?
10. Contrast selection queries with projection queries.
11. Give
a case where a database table may represent a relationship between two
entities.
12. Referring
to slide 10 (Entity-Relationship Design), design a database to represent three
entities, each entity represented by one table with a primary key. The entities
are: customers, products, transaction detail. Detail is one instance of a
product purchased, possibly along with other products. Describe the
relationships among these entities. Create a small Excel table for each entity.
13. Following
the pattern in the previous question, where the third entity represents a
joining of one instance of each of the other two entities, design three-table
databases for the following:
(a) job applicants being hired for jobs, so that a sheet can be generated with
information about all the new hires for a given period of time;
(b) poems being published in journal issues, so that a sheet can be generated
listing all the poems published for a given journal issue;
(c) attendees signing up for workshops at a research conference, so that a
report can be generated listing all the attendees at a given workshop;
(d) home buyers visiting open houses, so that a list can be generated of all
the home buyers who visited a given house;
(e) customers buying CDs at music stores, so that a sales slip can be
generated;
(f) CD vendors selling shipments of music to music stores, so that a vendor can
list all the shipments made to a certain music store.
14. With
copies of the table in listing.xls, perform filter operations to
(a) select all listings for electric-heated homes in Framingham and Natick with
3 bedrooms or fewer;
(b) show how many homes there are with each number of bathrooms available;
(c) show average cost of Wellesley homes;
(d) show cost of the most expensive listing in Wayland
(e) select all listings for colonial-style homes in Framingham.
15. Create
pivot tables to do the following, with reference to listing.xls:
(a) show the effect of number of bedrooms and bathrooms on maximum cost
(b) show the the average costs of houses, by number of bedrooms and number of
acres of land.
(c) show the numbers of houses that are listed, by town and heating type
(d) show the average costs of houses, by architectural style and town
(e) show the effect of the lot size and number of baths on minimum cost
(f) Find total values of oil-heated listings in Natick under $300,000.
16. What important feature of good database design may listing.xls not appear to have? Give arguments that it hs the feature and arguments that it doesn’t.
17. Why are
there:
(a) database management systems
(b) database design principles
(c) primary keys
1.
To assure that all records are different, database
designers use (a) a sort field; (b) queries; (c) data analysis (d)
searches; (e) a primary key
2. In a pivot table, (a) independent variables are correlated with each other; (b) dependent variables are correlated; (c) the effect of independent variables on dependent ones is shown; (d) the effect of dependent variables on independent ones is shown; (d) none of these
3. A database normally consists of (a) pixels; (b) tables; (c) keys; (d) protocols; (e) none of these
4. A selection query corresponds to (a) a table; (b) a view; (c) a logical assertion; (d) a set of records; (e) all of these
5. Which of the following is not associated with database management? (a) query design; (b) table design; (c) global control of formatting; (d) entities and relationhips; (e) all of these are associated
6. In databases, an object or instance correspondes to a (a) record; (b) table; (c) bit; (d) relation; (e) all of these
7. In databases, an entity or class of objects is implemented by a (a) record; (b) table; (c) bit; (d) relation; (e) all of these
8. To display information from a database, we use a (a) format command; (b) named style; (c) master page; (d) query; (e) all of these
9. Non-duplication of data in tables is enforced by use of (a) formulas; (b) primary keys; (c) formats; (d) protocols; (e) all of these
10. A database table’s columns correspond to (a) records; (b) tables; (c) instances; (d) attributes; (e) all of these
1. What are some significant ways that processor-based systems as used in IT differ from living organisms?
2. Relate
processor,
3. Contrast two or three categories of physical media or devices used in data storage.
4. In what way is the binary system of numerals relevant to information technology?
5. Support or refute: All information processed or communicated by information technology takes a common form.
6. In what way may it be said that bits have no meaning, in themselves?
7. How is it possible for a single processor to execute multiple computer programs concurrently?
8. In what sense does an operating system manage memory?
9. Explain how when you use a program like MS Word, you sometimes are making use of the Windows operating system.
10. What is a file?
11. What is a folder?
12. How many bits are there in a kilobyte?
13. Is a shortcut to a folder itself a folder? Explain why or why not.
14. When we speak of your “Y: drive,” in My Computer, are we speaking of a physical disk drive? Explain.
15. What is a dialog box? A pop-up menu?
16. Distinguish radio buttons from check boxes.
17. In what part of an IT system is the arithmetic logic unit found and what else is found there?
18. Relate the following concepts: bits, characters, 32-bit words, bytes, registers, and megabytes.
19. What is a way that analog information is converted to digital form? Digital to analog?
20. Contrast digital and analog devices, giving one example of each.
21. What are some features of a machine language as opposed to a different kind of language?
22. What are the smallest elements of a color image displayed on a monitor, and how are the colors represented?
23. Where is the program counter and what does it do?
24. Give an example of random access and an example of sequential access.
Are all the files in a folder located in the same part of a disk? Explain.
28.
29. Convert to decimal: 110, 1010101; 1111000; 110011; 111010
30. Convert to binary: 4
31. Does a bit have an inherent meaning? Why/why not?
32. Distinguish an analog device from a digital one.
33. Order the following according to distance from the user’s perception: operating system, application, hardware
34. Order the
following according to distance from the processor control unit: cache, hard
drive,
35. What two kinds of components does a port connect?
36. A device driver provides the interface between what kind of software and what kind of hardware?
37. In Windows and some other user interfaces, what does right-clicking on an object enable the user to do?
38. Distinguish the functions of the Backspace and Delete keys.
39. Relate the following: mouse pointer, cursor, Insertion Point.
40. What does the Clipboard store and in what part of the hardware is the Clipboard located?
41. What steps are recommended, in order, if an application stops responding?
42. How do you make a window disappear while leaving it available in the Task Bar?
43. Since Word documents and web sites contain data, why could it be more risky to open a Word document or to click a Web link than to open a text file?
44. What happens if you double-click a file whose name ends, “.exe”?
Carry out these operations:
45. Check free disk space
46. Rename file
47. Sort directory by date, by file name
48. Control directory view to show file names and dates at left
49. Create
folder, move files to folder,
move folder
50. Create shortcut
51. View print queue
52. Create
folders in your network student account area for files associated with this
course and other projects. Design a file organization for your materials. For
example, you may wish to create folders within the course folder for each
topic, or a folder homeworks and one for the project, etc. Submit a screen shot
of your student account file directory using Word or Paint.
53. Download
the program asm_setup.exe (see
below) and use it to install the program asm.exe in your student
account (see below). Run asm.exe, and use it to step through the program
xy.asm (below, and available in
Blackboard under Course Documents), choosing step mode. To open xy.asm
within asm.exe, use File / Open.
input x
load x
add x
add x
store y
print y
stop
x data 0
y data 0
Test the program for two or more different
input values.
(a) From your observation, what occurs when the fifth line of the program, store y, executes?
(b) Based on your observation, write a formula that accurately describes the
relationship between input and output of program xy.asm. (Your formula could be of the form “Output is n larger than input,” or “Output is
random,” or “Output is same as input.”)
(c) Suggest a name for the program that describes what it does better than the
name xy.asm, and better names for the
data labels x and y.
(d) Using a text editor such as Notepad, copy into your homework file a listing
of xy.asm, the program, and xy.out, the record of your test of the
program. The file xy.out is created when asm.exe runs xy.asm.
(Optional: add a comment with your
answer to (b) and rename the program and variables per (c).)
54. Describe in
your own words the process of executing a program at the hardware level,
referring to the processor, machine language, bits, registers,
1. What is the basic unit of information storage in a file?
2. Name two operating systems.
3. What is a smaller unit of information than a byte?
4. What feature is found in all instances of information technology?
5. What keypress places the screen image on the Clipboard?
1. In a user PC on the FSC network, the “Y: drive” is (a) a processor; (b) a physical device; (c) a folder on the user computer’s hard drive; (d) located on the server; (e) none of these
2. An
example of analog representation is (a) a file stored on a computer; (b) a
message sent on the Internet; (c) the sound heard from an IPod; (d) a picture
in
3. A bit’s value (a) is 0 to 255; (b) is 0 or 1; (c) fills a register; (d) fills a memory cell; (e) corresponds to a color pixel
4. An operating system provides services for (a) applications; (b) remote sites; (c) hardware; (d) Microsoft Corp.; (e) surgeons
5. Which is not hardware? (a) general-purpose computer; (b) operating system; (c) video game console; (d) printer; (e) all are hardware.
6. The two standard ways to access data from storage include sequential and (a) binary; (b) wireless; (c ) random; (d) arbitrary; (e) reverse.
7. Components
of a CPU include (a)
8. Right-clicking on an object (a) opens or executes it; (b) deletes it; (c) selects it; (d) displays its operations and attributes; (e) none of these
9. Of the following, the smallest is: (a) bit; (b) kilobyte; (c) megabyte; (d) byte; (e) word
10. Which is not an operating system: (a) LINUX; (b) Internet Explorer; (c) Windows; (d) Mac OS; (e) all are operating systems
11. All data is communicated and stored by computers in what form? (a) analog; (b) digital; (c) megabyte; (d) packet; (e) other
12. Which type of language is closest to that used by a processor? (a) query; (b) formula; (c) markup; (d) assembler; (e) transfer-protocol
13. The two
standard ways to access data from storage include sequential and (a) binary;
(b) wireless; (c) random; (d) arbitrary; (e) reverse.
14. Consider
the following eras: (i) Internet-connected computers; (ii) mainframe computers;
(iii) locally-networked PCs. Computing has proceeded from
(a) i to ii to iii; (b) ii to i to iii; (c) iii to ii to i; (d) iii
to i to ii; (e) ii to iii to i
15. The
fastest-accessible of the following is: (a)
16. What is fetched in the fetch-execute cycle? (a) instruction; (b) operand; (c) record; (d) byte; (e) file
17. The kind of
desktop display in our classroom is (a) PDF; (b)
1. Describe what happens, out of your sight, when you enter a query to a web search engine.
2. In using web-based information for an academic research paper, what are some concerns researchers should have?
3. Describe some advantages and inconveniences of networked computing as opposed to the use of standalone workstations.
4. Describe your network account: How you use it and how its data is organized.
5. Distinguish the World Wide Web from the Internet.
6. In what language are web pages communicated to the browser?
7. Name advantages and disadvantages of the use of email attachments.
8. Just after you send an email, where does your message reside, physically?
9. Give two well-known transfer protocols, by initial and name.
10. What are the components of a URL?
11. What is a network server?
12. What is a web server?
13. What does the client communicate to a web server, and what does the server communicate to the client?
14. What are packets and how are they used?
15. What is an IP address?
16. Distinguish a URL from and IP address.
17. Describe some features of E commerce that differ from traditional commerce.
18. What must be assured in electronic transaction processing?
19. What is a nonlinear feature of web pages?
20. What is a browser?
21. Why would a wholesale supplier wish to create an HTML file?
22. What are two ways to invoke a URL?
23. What interaction occurs on the Internet, out of the user’s view, when a URL is invoked by a browser?
24. Upload an HTML file, under the name index.htm, and your picture file, to the FSC server, following instructions on the handout, “How to create and upload HTML files at FSC.” Send instructor a link to that location, via email or Digital Dropbox.
25.
Describe synchronous and asynchronous cases of:
- phone communication
- IM
- email
26.
What are factors that determine bandwidths of different media of
communication?
27.
Where
might middleware be used to support networked computing that you do?