Transcript Document
91070 – APPLICATIONS
Application Software Definition
91070 EN5 Application software refers to software that will help the user perform specific tasks including,
but not limited to,
word processing, communication, keeping a budget, presentation, and managing data.
Other Apps
• Not limited to the standard office applications • Other applications common to your course might include – Programming IDE – Graphics Suite – 3d Modelling – Audio editors
Achieved Criteria
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Identify and describe
key features of the application AS those key features relate to the management of information.
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To demonstrate understanding, use of student voice is essential.
• Screen shots of the student’s own work is important, with labelling for further explanation.
Identify AND Describe
• Reasons for non-achievement (from the NZQA Report): – provided lists of key features of application software or operating systems with no related descriptions – provided brief definitions of application software or lists of outcomes that might be produced using the software
without related descriptions of the key features of the application
Identify but did Describe (NZQA Exemplar)
Identify and Describe
• Many of our students begun with a short description of application software:
“Application software is computer software that is designed to help users perform tasks on computers. Application software is what the user interacts with and can’t function without an operating system, which in turn, cannot function without computer hardware. Some applications are things like Word, Powerpoint, Chrome and Photoshop. Without apps, you wouldn’t be able to do much on your computer”.
Identify & Describe
Key Feature is identified and also described in relation to how they used it to manage information. “A query in access is where you basically ask the table a question like “show me all people aged 16 and over”, and it will show you all the records that match your criteria. You can use this to find information about the records in your database.” “For the Game Maker program, sprites and objects are used together. The sprite feature allows you to make an image and the object feature allows you to make a character you can control, using the sprite”.
Identify & Describe
In addition, screenshots and explanations of key features were added
Identify & Describe (NZQA Exemplar)
Merit Criteria
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Demonstrate in-depth understanding of basic concepts of information management
software to manage information. (EN2) • From the NZQA Report: key features to the application’s purpose examples or annotated screen captures involves: – explaining… the purposes of common application – explained the purpose of a range of software applications and related their descriptions of the – explained how they utilised the key features of application software to enhance, create or edit their own outcomes by providing descriptive
Explaining the Purpose
“ For my first project, I used two main applications, one of them being Microsoft Access… it has some key features that would help me to create and sort my data effectively. Some of the features of access are Queries, Tables, Sorts and Filters. I used the queries function on access to ask questions about my data and it would return the data that was most appropriate to what I had asked. I used sorts to sort through my data to find the most popular answers to my survey questions to decide what kind of game I was going to make …” “I used forms to view my data one entry at a time and set it out in a way that was neat and easily viewed. I used filters to find who would be most appropriate to be my stakeholders by only showing people who had chosen options that I was going to use for my game and to create lists that only contained my stakeholders so that I could use it easily for my mail merge and would have to deselect the people I had surveyed that weren’t my stakeholders .”
Explaining the Purpose
“…during project two and three I used styles and section breaks, I used styles so that I could have the same heading and sub heading formatting without having to change the font, colour and size every time I wanted to make a heading, I used section breaks so that I could start a new page when I was writing about a different topic. Using section breaks instead of pressing enter until I got to the bottom of the page helped me because I meant that I could add something to the top part of the document and it didn’t make the text on the next page move down the page. For project three I also used tabs when I was listing information so that I could have sub ideas and have them all line up instead of using spaces where they would be out of line.”
Explaining the Purpose
I made three different styles for my survey document . The three different styles included variations between the size, colour and shading. To distinguish the different styles I named the according to what I was going to be using them for eg “subheadings”. These heading styles helped me to make my survey by demonstrating formatting skills we had learnt in class (contrast, repetition, alignment, proximity).
Explaining the Purpose
In addition, screenshots and explanations of key features were added
Explaining the Purpose (From NZQA Exemplar)
Excellence Criteria
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Demonstrate comprehensive understanding of basic concepts of information management
involves: – explaining how application software and operating system software interact to manage information – justifying the selection of application software to perform a task to manage information
Excellence Criteria
From the NZQA Report: • explained a range of examples which demonstrated how the operating system and the application software interacted whilst they were creating an outcome or performing a task • justified why they chose a software application to perform a task or complete project, linking the justification to the key features of the application • justified the selection of a software application to perform a task by comparing their choice with alternative options, linking the justification to the key features available in each application
Justifying a Selection
One student combined the features, purpose and justification into a cohesive document.
Other students introduced each application with a justification of why they chose that application and why it was the best application for the task. Personal experience was drawn upon instead writing something like: – most of our students attempted this criteria, but the students who earned achieved or merit did not attempt to justify the use of the application in relation to their task,
“I chose to use word because I know it and it is easy for me to use”. “I found this program easy to follow for it had all the right sorts of effects etc. that I needed to make my game. If I were to use another program such as Scratch, it would not have all the right sorts of features that the game maker program has .” These are not sufficient justification statements.
Justifying A Selection
Eg:
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Game Maker: Game Maker 8 was the most suitable software for my game because:
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Game Maker has an image editor
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This was useful is a sprite I had imported was not quite the image I wanted and I was able to edit it eg. Transform, draw on the image and type on the image.
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It has precise collision checking
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This was very useful to me in particular because I had to detect collisions between my robber and my police sprites. If precise collision checking had not been available, it may have appeared to the player that they lose the game when they did not actually touch the police officer.
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I was able to import resources from various sources such as Ari Feldman’s sprite library and Planet Cute (Lonely Garden
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This was really helpful because instead of creating my own sprites in Game Maker, I was able to use freely distributed sprite from sources such as those above. The websites provided sprites with no copyright on them and are free for the public to use.
Justifying A Selection
“I used illustrator for my third project because it uses vector images instead of Raster images, has tools like the pen tool, and has gradients. Because Illustrator uses vector images instead of Raster images I was able to create images on Illustrator and resize them as big or small as I needed onto my final document without the image becoming pixelated because vector images use coordinates for where the line go instead of colour individual pixels which causes images to go pixelated when they are resized larger. One function of illustrator that I found very useful was the pen tool, the pen tool allowed me to plot two lines and move my mouse to curve the line. I used the pen tool to draw a lot of the objects on my game cover like the girl character, the tree and the snake. I used it because it allowed me to make any shape I wanted and was easier to control that the paintbrush tool. I used the shape tool to create the apple to do this I created a circle and the used the push tool to make it into an apple shape. Another feature of Illustrator I used was the gradient tool. I used this to make object like circles look more 3D and for the background of my game cover because it makes the sky look more realistic than have one solid colour .”
Justifying a Selection with embedded OS Interaction
“Game Maker 8.1 (windows version)
Game Maker is an application both available for Windows and Mac operating systems, but I chose to use the Windows version because I was personally more comfortable as well as experienced with it, and there are also more benefits from using it as there are generally more updates and is slightly more advanced from the Mac version. Also, executable files cannot be saved or run on Mac systems, so the game maker file must be transferred to a windows computer and saved as an executable on a windows version of game maker if it is to be run on a computer without the application software. It honestly sounds like almost more work than it is worth! So, anyway, Game Maker is essentially what the name implies- an application to „create‟ (program) a game to run on your computer. You are essentially, in fact, creating a piece of application software yourself! Though the program has a user-friendly interface, with drag-and drop programming „actions‟, it can compile all the coding from this so you can run and save your game. In other words, you do not have to do any straight-out direct coding yourself (though there is a function to execute pieces of code which can be useful for more complex actions not available via „drag-and-drop‟), which is so much easier to the average user! It is probably, I am sure, much more convenient and efficient for people with much more programming experience to use more complex application software, which almost definitely will require manual coding, because it can be faster if one knows what ones doing, and there is also a lot more freedom as well as far more complex actions being able to be performed. Direct coding also takes up less memory, which is especially important when creating games/apps because they need to run fast and promptly, and with less memory being used up, the game can be more complex, detailed and longer with minimal time lag and in-game errors. BUT alas I am not one of these programming experts, so I used game maker, as it is so much more convenient and efficient for my purposes in creating a small game in little time, with little knowledge! There are basically 4 major parts to game maker: the sprites, the events, the actions and the rooms .”
Justifying a Selection with embedded OS Interaction
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Application Software is important in order for the computer to carry out tasks that the user requires- the operating system runs the application software, as on its own a computer cannot do much. Also, different users have different requirements for application software (for example, accountants would use Microsoft Excel often because the application can do calculations, tables and graphs, but a graphics designer would probably not use it very much if at all because it is not a graphics editing application, and they would use applications for this such as adobe illustrator or adobe Photoshop- and these wouldn't be used by an accountant). Therefore, because not everyone uses the same applications, there are many different applications out there for the different purposes. However, if all of these applications were included as part of the operating system, it would be incredibly large (take up a lot of memory), and very expensive. On the whole it wouldn't be economical because the average user would probably only use a very small proportion of these on a regular basis, and many would be quite similar anyway (e.g. Firefox, safari, Google chrome, internet explorer and opera are all web browsers, and though they all vary slightly from each other, the user would probably only use one or two of them). Plus, there is new application software being released all the time. There are thousands of applications out there already, whether it is word processing (e.g. Microsoft word), graphics editing (e.g. Photoshop), graphics viewing (e.g. preview), presentation (e.g. PowerPoint), gaming (e.g. the Sims), media players (e.g. QuickTime and iTunes) Internet browsing (e.g. Firefox), or even smaller tasks to carry out such as with dictionary or stickies .”