Lesson video

- Hello, my name's Ben.

And welcome to lesson four of this computing systems and networks unit with Oak Academy.

This lesson is all about working together.

For certain parts of this lesson, you will need access to a Google account.

If you need help with that, please ask your parent or carer now.

You will also need somewhere quiet, free of distractions, and a pen and a piece of paper will also be useful.

So when you're ready, let's begin.

Let's look at the objectives for this lesson.

So today you will explain how sharing information online lets people in different places work together.

You will recognise that connected digital devices allow us to access shared files stored online.

You'll recognise how information can be sent on the internet.

And finally, you'll explain that the internet allows different media to be shared.

We'll begin with a short recap of the previous lesson.

There are three questions on this slide, all of which we covered in the previous lesson.

So I'd like you to have a look at the questions and see if you can answer them.

The first question is what factors are important for successful communication? The second question, what are small parcels of digital information called? And finally, the third question is why do we use addresses? So pause the video now and complete those sections on your handout.

Here are the answers to those questions.

So first of all, what factors are important for successful communication? Well, first of all, you need to have a message to share.

You need something to communicate.

Next, you need to have a speaker and a listener.

And the speaker and the listener need to take turns, so you're not both speaking or communicating over each other.

Finally, it's useful to use the same language when you're communicating.

And in computing terms, we call that a protocol.

So the next question, what are small parcels of digital information called? They're called packets.

So a large message is split into lots of small packets to make it easier to just tribute around the internet.

And finally, why do we use addresses? Well, just like in the real world, when you're sending a letter, you need to send it to the right place.

So the address on a computer message is exactly the same as an address on a letter.

And when we use addresses in computing, we call them IP addresses.

Each computer, every computer on a network has a unique IP address.

We're now going to look at a scenario where communication will be really important.

Imagine there are two people who live a long way apart, so we've got one person up here in the north somewhere, and another person down here in the south.

So two people who live a long way apart want to write a book together.

What are the different ways in which they could work together? Pause the video and note down any ideas you have.

Here are some of the ways they might work together, or might communicate together.

So we have a telephone in the top left.

They could talk to each other over the phone.

In the middle, we have traditional postal mail so they could write letters to each other, exchanging ideas.

Maybe they want to meet in person in which case they could get in the car and drive to each other or meet somewhere in the middle or do something similar on the train.

And finally, if they both have computers and they're both on a network connected to the internet, they may want to communicate with each other online.

On your handout, write down what you think the pros and cons of these different ways of working together are.

So what are the advantages and disadvantages of each type of way of working together that we have here? Pause the video while you complete that task.

Let's have a look at the advantages and disadvantages of each way of communicating.

So using the telephone first.

First, it's the advantages.

It's two-way, it offers instant communication, and it's relatively inexperienced, and most people have access to a phone, either a mobile or a landline, or sometimes both.

The disadvantages of using the phone is that it's purely voice.

So there's no, you can't swap pictures on a landline in particular, pictures or video.

Okay, next one, postal service, using letters and postcards and things like that.

Again like the phone, it's two-way communication but this time it can include text and images.

But the disadvantages are that it's slow.

So if you post a letter, it'll take at least 24 hours to get where it needs to go.

So then when the recipient reads it, they then want to reply, it's gonna take another 24 hours.

So you can see it's quite a slow process.

Next, if people meet up in person using a car, it's an easy method of transport for people to use.

A lot of people have access to a car.

The disadvantages are that it's quite expensive and journeys can take a long time, especially if you are going through cities or areas where there's lots of traffic.

Next, computers.

So on the internet, that's real time communication and it can involve audio and video and images.

The disadvantage is it's not always as personal as meeting someone in person.

And finally, similar to the car, if you go by train to meet someone, it's a really fast, comfortable way to travel.

Unlike a car, especially if you're the driver, you can work on a train.

Usually you can get the table seat with your laptop and plug it into a socket.

And most trains have wifi now as well.

So you can communicate really well on a train.

The disadvantages are it can be very expensive and sometimes the station you go to is not near your final destination.

So if you wanted to meet up with someone else in person, once you get to the train station, you will need another method of transport to get to your final destination.

For the rest of this lesson, you're going to be you creating your own shared information.

You're going to do this by working on a shared slide show using Google slides.

This is the point in the lesson where you will need to be logged into a Google account.

So if you need help with that, pause the video now, and ask your parent or carers for assistance.

You'll be producing a guide to looking after a zoo animal.

So we've got a picture of the rather wonderful emperor penguin on the right.

That's the animal you are going to be doing a guide about.

And you'll need to update the slides based on the comments in the slides.

In the template slide show, you'll see that there's some comments added.

You can add comments by selecting an object, whether it's a picture or text, right-clicking, and clicking on Add Comment, or just Comment.

Anything you type in here will be linked to the object but not appear in the document.

So if you printed out the slideshow, or if you presented it, you wouldn't see the comment.

So why do we add comments? Pause the video and have a think about why comment might be useful.

Have a look at the comment on this slide.

How could that help? So comments are a way of suggesting a way a document can be improved when you are working on it with other people.

So it can be really useful to add comments and respond to comments when you are working in a document.

Another online tool you can use is the explore tool within Google slides.

Click on the explore tool, which is on the bottom right-hand side of the screen.

You'll see it opens up a side panel where you can search.

Search for emperor penguin and you should get web and images results.

You can review these results and decide what you will use in your presentation.

Use the information you've found using the explore tool to add a description to the slideshow.

Remember to include an attribution for any information you use.

So that's saying where you got that information from.

Pause the video to complete your task.

You can also reply to comments in slides.

In the template, explain what you've done by replying to my comment.

So where you've added some information, leave a comment of your own, explaining where you got it from and what information you've added.

Pause the video to complete your task.

For the rest of this lesson, you can spend some time completing the remaining pages of the slideshow.

Why not add some comments explaining the information or the images you've added? Thank you for taking part in this lesson with Oak National.

If you'd like to share some of your work in slides, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, tagging @OakNational or hashtag #LearnwithOak.