Technology Learning Adventure

October 13, 2011

As forwarned in the syllabus there is a “learning adventure” forthcoming. It will be based on each of the student technology lectures that have recently been completed. Below is an outline of things that were presented and taught by your peers/TA/the instructor. If you don’t have notes of any part/topic listed below you may talk with the associated student presenter, TA, or the instructor, or the Internet might also be a great resource.

Topics and associated questions:

1. Computer: hard drive, RAM, ROM, CPU, OS, motherboard, etc.
2. What is an intranet? How do you set up a network?
3. What is a network? How does it work? What is a client, etc.?
4. What and how does GPS work?
5. How do cell phones work? Data transfer, voice transfer, cell zones, etc.?
6. How is music compressed? What’s the difference between aiff, wav, wp3, midi?
7. What is offset printing? What is lithographic printing? What is DPI and how does it impact the quality of a print? What are common DPI’s used in printing? What is a digipress?
8. What’s the difference between RGB, HDMI, sVideo, etc. cords?
9. What is and how does blue tooth and infrared work?
10. What is DTV? How are videos and TV compressed?
11. What is whitespace? How does it impact us? Where did it come from etc.?
12. How do digital cameras work? What are the primary camera components? What’s the deal with megapixels? What are the basic principals of composition? What are the different photo formats and how do they compare (i.e., jpg, png, gif, tiff, raw)?
13. What is a web browser? How does it work?
14. How do search engines work?
15. How do you optimize a website?
16. What is and how does cloud computing work?
17. What is a bit torrent and how does it work?
18. What is and how does firewire work? How does it compare with USB?
19. What is nano technology?
20. What is rss and how does it work?
21. How does the Internet work? (Geoff’s first lecture).
22. What are the basic principles and elements of design?