Computer study guide 5

Computer Studies for Grade 5

© Parametric Systems 2012 | All rights reserved

Introduction This guide book for Grade­5 provides the students with an overall perspective of modern ICT environment.

Our emphasis is to develop this course based on FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) for educational purpose.

This is the reason why we have chosen Linux over Windows as our operating system platform in this study guide but at the same time it is to be mentioned that the students using Windows operating system at their home can also practice with the open source software which is also available in Windows version.

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Contents

Chapter Title

Page No.

1

Application of computers in daily life

4

2

Information organization using files and folders

16

3

Word processing ­ 2

39

4

Computer programming using Scratch­1

63

5

Introduction to Internet and Browsing

92

6

Educational software ­ 3

101

Resources

118

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Chapter 1 Application of Computers In daily life

4

Introduction Computers are one of those devices which have become an integral part of our every day life. They are found in various shapes and sizes for different applications. For example High­performance servers, Desktop computers, Laptops, Tablets, Smart phones, etc.

Most of our every day activities are based on computer applications.

Server

Desktop PC

Laptop

Smart phone Tablet

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General purpose applications Some of the common applications of computers in our daily life include the following tasks: ➔ Writing letters ➔ Doing Calculations and Math ➔ Storing and Editing Photographs and images ➔ Playing Games ➔ Communicating with friends and family members ➔ Watching movies ➔ Researching material for school or college projects

Specific applications Specific applications of computers in various fields like business and finance, health care, education, government, science, retail, engineering and air lines travel are discussed in this section. These are the major areas where computers are utilized in the modern world.

In addition to these, there are some other areas also which are not discussed here but where computers are used to perform tasks commonly, like hotel and restaurant management, movie making, advertisement, journalism , arts and design.

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Business and Finance Computers have penetrated in all areas of business including banks, stock exchange, corporate organizations, small and medium enterprises etc.

In banks they are used for: ➔ Account Transactions with Teller

➔ ATM (Automated Teller machine) usage (For deposit/withdrawal of Cash and Cheques)

➔ On­line (Internet based) accounts transaction management ➔ Annual Reports Generation (Account Statement, Balance sheet etc.) ➔ Utility bills payment

In Office

ATM

In other business organizations and offices they are used for: ➔ MIS Applications ➔ E­mail based communications & General correspondence ➔ Employee record management (Payroll systems) ➔ Document Management

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Health Care Computers are employed in the field of Medicine and health care to help doctors in the following areas: ➔ Patient record management ➔ Medical Diagnostics (Scans, X­ray, Imaging)

➔ Computerized surgery ➔ Monitoring of patients (BP, Heart rate monitoring etc.) ➔ Laboratory data analysis ➔ Pharmaceutical data management

Medical Imaging and Diagnostics

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Education Computers play a vital role in primary, secondary and higher level education in areas such as : ➔ Management of student information (Contact information, Grades, Reports, time tables etc.) ➔ Learning Management Systems / E­learning systems ➔ E­books development ➔ Video Conferencing and virtual classrooms ➔ School Library management systems

Computers in classroom

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Government Computers are employed at all levels of government departments in a country to generally manage the following tasks: ➔ Tax management and collection ➔ Utilities and services management like billing and payments ➔ Management of voting and electoral systems ➔ Land department management ➔ Miscellaneous administrative tasks for Police and Armed Forces ➔ e­governance for ministerial offices ➔ Passport and Immigration Control/Management

Computers in Police Department

10

Science Computer applications in the field of scientific research and development include: ➔ Astronomy and Astrophysics ➔ Atomic research ➔ Molecular Biology ➔ Viruses and Immunology (Medical Research) ➔ Chemistry and Physics ➔ Robotics

Robotics

Computers in Scientific research

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Retail Computers are utilized in retail sales business at various levels, for example: ➔ At POS (Point of sale) terminals ➔ For supply chain management (including management of inventory and warehouse) ➔ For analytical sales report generation ➔ For Accounts management ➔ For CRM (Customer relationship management)

POS (Point of Sale) terminal including computerized cash register and bar code scanner

12

Engineering and Industries In Engineering and Industrial design or manufacturing , computers play a pivotal role to perform a number of tasks, some of which are listed below: ➔ In CAD (Computer Aided Design) for Engineering, Industrial and Architectural Designing ➔ Analysis of Engineering Models (Civil and Mechanical) ➔ Manufacturing CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing) ➔ Engineering Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) ➔ Engineering Projects management ➔ Assembly line manufacturing Robots

3D Model of Cranks and Pistons

Architectural Model in CAD software

13

Airline Reservation Systems In Airlines and Railways, the reservation system is computerized to a large extent and offers facilities for: ➔ On­line booking and e­tickets generation ➔ Itinerary management ➔ On­line check­in ➔ Hard copies / printing of tickets and boarding passes

Web application for airline reservation system

14

Key Points Computers are available in a number of sizes and shapes Computers are used to manage business Computers are used for e­governance Computers are used in education Computers have miscellaneous uses in Arts, Science and Engineering

Exercises 1. Laptop is a not a type of computer (True/False) 2. We can use computers for doing ___________ and Math.

3. Computers are used for Itinerary management in (Business, Government, Airlines).

4. ERP is the abbreviation of _______________________________.

5. Atomic research is a type of (Engineering, Scientific, Retail) use of computers.

6. Computers can also to be used for managing hotel reservations (True/False).

7. Computer Aided Design can be used for ____________, _______________ and ____________ designing 8. Payroll systems are used to manage tax information (True/False).

Activities 1. Write a short essay about the usage of computers in your school 2. Discuss the usage of computers in design (Architecture, Arts and Advertising Graphics).

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Chapter 2 Information organization using files and folders

16

Introduction to Files and Folders Whatever information we store in a computer is stored in the form of a file. Therefore we can say that a file is the basic unit of information organization in a computer.

Whenever we create a document containing text or a graphic image, it always exists in form of a file.

These files may have various formats. By format we mean the way the information is organized within a file. For example a text file stores information about the characters, spacing , paragraphs etc. whereas the image file contains information about colour of each individual element making up the entire image. In computer terminology we call these elements, pixels (picture elements) .

As we know that at the hardware level, computers store information in form of bits (binary digits) therefore we can also say that whether it is a text file containing characters or a graphic file containing image made up of pixels, all the information at the machine level is stored in bits and at the user level it is stored in form of a file.

Text File

Data at hardware level Image file Data at user level

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To organize computer files we group them into folders. This concept can be understood in terms of how papers are organized in an office file or folder. We can say that each individual sheet of paper is equivalent to a single computer file and they are collected together in an office file or folder which is similar to a computer folder and serves the same exact purpose.

Folders can be created according to the type of file formats or based on their usage. For example all text files can be grouped into documents folder whereas image files can be grouped into picture folder.

Folders can be created in an hierarchical fashion. This means that there can be many sub folders within a main folder. For instance in the home folder of a computer user there can be several folders for storing Documents, Pictures, Downloads and Media (Audio and Video) files.

Pictures

Documents

Home

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The concept of files and folders is essentially the same in computers running different operating systems like Windows, Linux or OS X. We would be discussing about operating systems in a later course but once the user has mastered the concept of managing files and folders in one kind of operating environment it will not be difficult to perform the same task in another type of system.

As this course is based on open source technologies, we would be discussing the concept of files and folders on a Linux based operating system. Those users working in a Windows or Mac OS X operating system environment can perform the same tasks with slight variations in their respective systems.

Files and Folders in Ubuntu Linux To study a particular file system in this course book, we have chosen the Ubuntu Linux operating system to illustrate major concepts regarding files and folder operations. It would be important to know that similar concepts are applicable in Windows and OS X operating systems as well.

Every thing in Ubuntu Linux is treated as files, whether its a document or an external USB drive, the operating system views it as a file. This concept is common in all types of Linux operating system distributions.

A typical layout of Ubuntu Linux file system showing top­level files and folders is displayed below:

These folders are commonly available in almost all Linux distributions.

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Some important folders and their usage is shown in the table below:

Normally a user does not interacts with these folders as they require administrative (root level) access but it is good to know the overall structure of the file system so the user know where each type of program or data is located which is important for the operation of the system.

Mainly the user works within his or her own /home folder in the file system which contains all the Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Audio and Video files etc.

20

Home Folder in Ubuntu Linux The /home folder in Ubuntu Linux is the default folder when the user first logs in to the system. It normally contains the following sub­folders: ➔ ➔ ➔ ➔ ➔ ➔

Documents Downloads Desktop Pictures Music Videos

Documents folder is mainly used to store text based files but can be used to store all other kinds of documents as well.

Downloads is the folder where all the content downloaded from Internet is stored by default.

Desktop folder contains files or folders copied on the desktop of the user.

Pictures folder contains images and other related graphic files created by the user.

Music folder is used for storing audio files Videos is used to store files like movies and video clips In addition to the above mentioned folders, the /home folder contains some hidden files used to control system environment and configuration.

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File naming system and file types in Ubuntu Linux Generally when a file is created in a computer system, it has be named first. The name of a file comprises of two parts. One is the actual name to be assigned to the file and the other is file name extension which identifies the type of file.

Normally when a file is created using some application program, the program assigns the extension automatically based on the content of the file but the name is to be assigned by the user. A filename extension is the part of the filename following an embedded period.

A file name in Linux generally can comprise of: ➔ ➔ ➔ ➔

Uppercase letters (A–Z) Lowercase letters (a–z) Numbers (0–9) Underscore (_)

Some of the commonly used file extensions in Ubuntu Linux file system are:

A filename that begins with a period is called a hidden filename (or a hidden file or sometimes an invisible file) .

Linux file system names are case­sensitive, which means opensis.pdf and OpenSIS.pdf are treated as two distinct file names.

22

Creating new file and folder To create a new file on Ubuntu Linux desktop, right click the mouse button and select the Create New Document option as shown in figure:

This option would create an empty document on the desktop. It can be edited with a text editor like Gedit.

To create a new folder, just select the Create New Folder option to create an untitled folder which can be renamed later on by selecting the file or folder and right­clicking mouse button and selecting rename, as shown in figure below:

23

Copying moving and renaming files and folders Using Drag and Drop We can copy any file or folder by selecting it and using drag and drop. If we press the CTRL key, while dragging and dropping, a copy of the file or folder would be created in the destination folder, otherwise the object would be moved from the source.

For instance in the following figure we can drag and drop the Sample folder and sample.txt file into our home folder from the desktop as indicated.

Copying and Pasting Another method for copying files or folders is to select a particular file and right click, then select copy (CTRL­C) option from the menu as shown in figure.

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After that go to the /home or any other folder where you want to copy the file and select Edit menu from tool bar to get the Paste (CTRL­V) option to copy the file, as shown belwo:

25

If it is required to move a file from one location to another, we use cut (CTRL­X) instead of copy.

File and folder renaming In order to rename a file or a folder, select that item and right­click mouse to get the file options from which select Rename to change the name of the respective file or folder.

Deletion of files and folders To delete a file or a folder select it and right­click with the mouse and select the option Move to Trash to put the file in the trash bin, as shown in the figure:

To recover files and folders from the Trash bin, go to Places/Home Folder and select Trash from the left pane to display the contents of Trash as shown in the figure:

26

Here you can select an item and restore it to its original location by clicking on the Restore Selected Item button.

If you want to permanently delete the contents of the Trash bin, click on the Empty Trash button.

Another way of deleting files and folders is to select the item and press the DEL key on the keyboard to move the item to the Trash bin.

27

Viewing options for files and folders Normally the files and folders are displayed as icons , as shown in the figure:

To get a list view, select View/List option from main menu to display the following:

28

Similarly we can also choose View/Compact to display the compact view.

To show hidden files in the home folder we can select View/Show Hidden Files to display the hidden folders and files (Names preceded with '.'), as shown below:

29

To change the display of the side bar, we select View/Side bar as shown in the figure:

We can switch to Tree view in sidebar, as shown below:

30

Searching for files and folders To search for a file or folder in our computer we can click on the search option as shown in the Files Manager below:

In the above example we searched for files with names containing the string “ubuntu”.

The search options can further be defined using the location and file types using the same window.

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Another way of searching files and folders is to run the gnome­search­tool which displays the window:

After selecting the name of file and location, we can further refine our search options by selecting Select more options button, as shown in figure:

Here we can choose additional criteria to narrow down our search.

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Compressing files and folders File compression tools are an essential part of files management, as they enable us to reduce the size and combine many data files together in to a single package, which we can easily transmit from one location to another.

To create a compressed file or folder , we first select the files or folders we want to include in the archive and then go to Edit/Compress option of the main menu as shown in the figure:

This would invoke the following window:

Here we can choose the type of archive/compressed file we would like to create e.g. zip, tar, tar.gz etc. and we can also password protect our compressed file by selecting other options.

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File and folder properties To check and edit the general properties of a file or folder, select the particular object and choose File/Properties from the File manager's menu, as shown in the figure below:

This would display the following window for the selected file:

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This shows you the basic details about the file such as its type, location, size etc. If you select the permissions tab, it displays the following:

Here it shows the details about File access permissions, which means what level of access a particular computer user has on the file.

Here the permissions are displayed at 3 levels ➔ Owner ➔ Group ➔ Others The permissions that can be assigned are Read and Write and Read only. Additionally we can specify if the file is executable or not by checking Allow executing file as program option.

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We can also specify the program which would be used to open this type of file, as shown in the figure by selecting the Open With tab.

To check further details about this file or document, we select the Document tab, as shown in figure:

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Key Points Files are the basic unit of information organization in a computer Files are grouped in to folders for organization In an operating system we have options for creating, copying, moving, deleting, renaming and compressing files Using file properties we can assign access rights to a file for users

Exercises 1. Where is the /Documents folder located in the Linux file system ?

2. Hardware devices are treated as files in Linux (True/False).

3. What is the name of the top level folder in Linux file system ?

4. What type of files are located in the /bin folder ?

5. What type of files are located in the /var folder ?

6. File and Folder names are case­sensitive in Linux (True/False) 7. To paste a file or folder the keyboard shortcut is Ctrl­V (True/False) 8. The name of hidden file is preceded with the ______ character.

9.When a file is moved from its source, its deleted from its source (True/False) 10. When a user first logs in, he/she goes to the _________ folder.

11. Ctrl­C is the keyboard shortcut to cut a file from its location (True/False) 12. zip, tar and tar.gz are extensions for the ______________ file type.

Activities Lab Exercise 1 Create a sub­folder within the /home folder.

Create a plain text file using Gedit within the new folder.

After saving the file copy and paste the folder in the /Documents folder.

Move the copied folder along with the file to trash bin.

Remove the folder from the Trash bin to permanently delete it.

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Activities Lab Exercise 2 Search for all the PDF files within your /home folder.

Copy all these files into the folder created in previous exercise.

Compress all the files within this folder to a zip file.

Copy the zipped file to your /Desktop and extract it.

Move the zipped file and the extracted contents to Trash bin and empty it.

Activities Lab Exercise 3 Create a sub­folder within the /home folder by the name of Owner.

Create a text file (ownerfile.txt) within the sub­folder Change the properties of the created file to Read­only for Others user group.

Login as a different user.

Try to change the contents of the text file

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Chapter 3 Word Processing - 2

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Formatting Paragraphs As your text is composed mainly of paragraphs, in Libre office, we get basic paragraph formatting options available from the Formatting tool bar. These options are shown below:

Numbering from Left to right, these options along with keyboard shortcuts are:

1.

Align Left

Ctrl­L

2.

Align Center

Ctrl­E

3.

Align Right

Ctrl­R

4.

Justified

Ctrl­J

5.

Left­to­Right

Ctrl­Shift­A

6.

Right­to_left

Ctrl­Shift­D

7.

Numbering (ON/OFF)

F12

8.

Bullets (ON/OFF)

Shift­F12

9.

Decrease Indent

10. Increase Indent

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For detailed paragraph formatting options, go to Format>Paragraph from the menu to display the following dialog box:

In the Indents & Spacing tab, we can control the paragraph indents, inter­paragraph spacing and inter­linear spacing.

The picture on the right displays the preview of the results.

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To control paragraph alignment, we choose the Alignment tab, as shown in the figure:

Here we can define the overall text justification of the paragraph and also the direction of text.

There are several other advanced options like controlling of hyphenation, tabs placement etc. available in this dialog box, but we will not discuss them further in this course.

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Paragraph indenting and spacing can also be controlled through manipulation of indent markers (indicators), as shown in the following figure:

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Finding and Replacing Text Writer has two ways to find text within a document: the Find tool bar for fast searching and the Find & Replace dialog box.

The keyboard shortcut for Find is Ctrl­F.

To use the Find tool bar, click in the box and type your search text, then press Enter to find the next occurrence of that term. Click the Find Next or Find Previous buttons as needed.

To display the Find & Replace dialog box, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl­H or choose Edit > Find & Replace from the menu bar.

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To use the Find & Replace dialog box: 1. Type the text you want to find in the Search for box.

2. To replace the text with different text, type the new text in the Replace with box.

3. You can select various options, such as matching the case, matching whole words only, or doing a search for similar words.

You can choose More Options to fine tune your search, by including regular expressions, styles based search etc.

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Inserting Special Characters A special character is one not found on a standard English keyboard. For example, © 3∕4 æ ç Ł ñ öø ¢ are all special characters.

To insert a special character, Place the cursor in your document where you want the character to appear. Click Insert > Special Character to open the Special Characters dialog box as shown in figure:

Select the characters (from any font or mixture of fonts) you wish to insert, in order; then click OK. The selected characters are shown in the lower left of the dialog box.

As you select each character, it is shown on the lower right, along with the numerical code for that character.

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Creating Numbered and Bulleted lists To produce a numbered or bulleted list, select the paragraphs in the list and click on Numbering (On/Off) or Bullets (On/Off) from the following tool bar:

To get detailed options related to a bulleted list, select the list and choose Format/Bullets and Numbering from the main menu to display the following window:

Here we can select the shape of bullets to be placed.

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Select the Numbering tab to display the numbering styles.

We have the option to choose different type of numbering styles here.

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Basic Page Layouts Libre Office Writer provides several ways for you to control page layouts, which include Page Styles, Frames, Sections, Columns and Tables.

Controlling Page Layouts To define page layouts by selecting various properties , we choose the Format > Page option, as shown in the figure:

This would bring up the following dialog box:

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Here it displays the Default page style as the current style.

To modify page level settings, we select the Page tab to display the following:

In the Paper Format section, you can select the Format type e.g. legal, A4, Letter etc. The Width and the Height properties are modified in relation to the format selected.

We can also select the Orientation of the paper as Portrait or Landscape.

In the Margins section we can specify the appropriate left,right,top and bottom margin settings. These margins can also be set with the help of rulers as shown in the following figure:

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Multi­Column Page Layouts The multi­column page layout can be configured by going into Format>Page>Columns option as shown in the following figure:

This format is more suitable for composing publications like magazines and newsletters.

The options available in this dialog box, enable you to select the number of columns to be used in the layout, spacing between columns etc.

To display Page borders along with columns sub­division, you can select the Borders tab within the page layout dialog box.

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Headers, Footers and Page Numbering Headers are portions of a document that always appear at the top of a page; footers appear at the bottom of a page. Typically, headers display the title or chapter name of a document.

In LibreOffice, headers are specified by page styles; therefore, when inserted, all the pages with the same page style will display the same header.

To insert a Header Select from the main menu Insert > Header > [Page Style].

This header would appear at the top of the page, as shown in figure:

Similarly to insert a Footer, Select from the main menu Insert > Footer > [Page Style].

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This footer would appear at the bottom of the page, as shown in figure:

To insert a page number, either in header or footer of the page, place the cursor at the appropriate location and select Insert > Fields >Page Number from the menu, as shown in figure below:

You can select the inserted page number and modify its properties like Font, Size and Alignment etc.

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Modifying Document background To modify the background of the page (by changing colour or inserting image), we can select Format>Page>Background option to get the following dialog box:

Here we can choose the As option as colour or Graphic to insert the appropriate colour or image as the entire page background.

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Page Borders layout We can select Format>Page>Borders to display the following options:

Here we can choose various border outlines and styles for the selected page.

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Inserting and Modifying Pictures To insert a picture in the document, select from menu Insert>Picture>From File to get the following dialog box:

Here we have the option to choose various picture file formats like jpg, gif and bmp etc.

We can also check on the Preview option to display picture preview in the right hand window pane, as shown in figure.

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After the picture is inserted, we can select the picture and modify its properties from the picture tool bar displayed below:

The properties we can modify are, colours, saturation, brightness and contrast and additionally filters application.

To further adjust the picture alignment, cropping etc., we can select the picture and go to the Picture option from the right­click menu.

57

This would display the following dialog box:

Here we have numerous options within each tab for adjusting the size, alignment, cropping dimensions, borders, hyper linking etc. of the selected picture.

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Printing Documents To print the document we select File>Print (Ctrl­P) to display the following dialog:

Here we select the device to be used for printing. The range of pages to be printed and the no. of copies required for printing. If we select Properties button the following dialog box is displayed:

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Here we choose the paper­size, orientation etc. for the printer.

To set more detailed properties, we go to the Device tab, as shown in the figure below:

Here we specify the printing quality , print density and other related properties for the required output.

After setting all these properties we can send the job for printing from the main dialog box.

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Key Points Paragraph formatting options (alignment, indents, spacing) Search and replace operations for text Bullets and numbering for lists Page Layout options (margins, multi­columns, headers, footers, backgrounds/borders) Picture inserting and modification Printing documents

Exercises 1. Which option is used to align paragraphs as equally distributed from left and right margins ?

2. To apply bullets in paragraph we can use F12 key (True/False).

3. Which keyboard shortcut is used to invoke Find and Replace dialog box ?

4. ______ is the default orientation of the Page in Page Layout dialog box (Portrait/Landscape) ?

5. Margin spacing and paragraph indents can also be controlled on­screen with the mouse ?

6. Header and Footer settings are available through Page Layout dialog box (True/False) ?

7. Which option is to be selected from the main menu to insert Page Numbers ?

8. Name any three properties of the inserted picture which can be modified.

9.We can crop picture dimensions after insertion (True/False) 10. Which keyboard shortcut is used to invoke printing dialog box ?

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Activities Activity ­1 1.Create a document by typing in 2 or more pages of some text like an essay or a story from your book.

2.Create a heading in any 12 pt. Font/Bold and Underlined 3.Format the text into paragraphs with proper indentation.

4.Use the text font size as 12 pt.

5.Save the document both in ODF and Microsoft Word Doc.

Activities Activity ­2 1. Create a document by combining text and images from various resources on Internet 2. Align the picture with respect to text 3. Take a printout of the document

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Chapter 4 Computer Programming using Scratch-1

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Computer Programs Computer programs are a set of instructions to the computer for performing some useful task.

Computer programming is generally based on 4 major activities: ➔ Writing programs ➔ Executing programs ➔ Debugging programs (removing errors) ➔ Modifying programs There are various programming languages used to write computer programs. All types of computer programs are converted from the language they are written by human beings into the machine language (1's and 0's) that the computer understands.

In this course we use the Scratch programming language to learn about how computer programs are written.

Introduction to Scratch Programming SCRATCH is a new programming language that lets you create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art.

It was developed by Mitchel Resnick at the MIT Media Lab. Scratch projects are made up of objects called Sprites. You can change how a sprite looks by giving it a different costume. You can make a sprite look like a person or a train or a butterfly or anything else. You can use any image as a costume: you can draw an image in the Paint Editor, import an image from your hard disk, or drag in an image from a website You can give instructions to a sprite, telling it to move or play music or react to other sprites. To tell a sprite what to do, you snap together graphic blocks into stacks, called scripts. When you click on a script, Scratch runs the blocks from the top of the script to the bottom .

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Getting started with Scratch In this tutorial we explore the basic concepts of Scratch environment by performing simple programming tasks, so that students gets an idea about the way things are done: Open the Scratch programming environment to get the following screen:

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Motion : Drag a move block into the Scripts area:

Click on the block to move the cat.

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Sound : Drag out a play drum and snap it on to the move block.

Click and listen. Try to change the type of drum sound by selecting from pull­down menu.

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Further Sounds and Animation : Add another move block. Click inside the block and type in a minus sign.

Add another play drum block and choose another drum from the menu.

Drag out a FOREVER block and drop it on top of the stack.

You want the mouth of the FOREVER to wrap around the other blocks.

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To drag a stack, pick it up from the top block.

Click to run. You can click on any block to run a stack.

Drag out this block and snap it on top.

Whenever you click the green flag your script will start.

To stop, click the red stop button. Shown in figure.

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Changing colour : Drag out a change effect block.

Click on it to observe effect.

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The Scratch Interface The scratch interface is the main screen you see when you launch the Scratch programming environment as shown in figure:

To see details about each specific part of the above user interface, please refer to the Scratch Reference Guide at http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Support/Reference_Guide_1.4

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Scripting in Scratch Open the Scratch environment and write the script in the following figure by dragging the blocks from the Blocks palette to the Scripts Area.

Run the script by clicking on any block to generate the figure shown below:

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In the above sequence we interact with elements in three different areas, which are: Stage The Stage is where you see your stories, games, and animations come to life.

Scripts Area Script is the set of step wise instructions that you give to the Sprite to do a particular task. Scripts area is the place where you write the Script for the Sprite. Script is also called a program. Each instruction is also called a command.

Blocks Palette The Blocks Palette contains the basic building blocks of the script/program. These blocks may belong to a particular category like motion, sound, pen movement, control, looks etc.

Scratch Programming sequence To write a Scratch program (the Script of detailed instructions for the Sprite) : 1. We have to drag the instructions blocks such as Motion, Sound from the Blocks Palette area and drop them into the Scripts Area.

2. These blocks are pasted one after the other, to create the Script. (The blocks should fit into each other as jig­saw puzzle blocks.)

3. When you double­click on a Script, Scratch runs the program. It carries out the instructions in the blocks, one by one, from the top to the bottom of the Script.

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Try the following script:

Insert a sound block after the third block and run the script.

Experiment with the direction of the Sprite.

New Sprites New sprites can be added to the stage by using the following options:

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Deleting a Sprite To delete a Sprite, select the Scissors button on the Tool bar and click on the Sprite.

Changing the costumes of a Sprite Step1: Click on Costumes, to display the list of Costumes of the selected Sprite.

Step 2: Click on Paint, to paint a new Costume in Paint editor or click on Import to select a Costume from the available list.

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Step 3: Open a folder to select a Costume of your choice.

Step 4: Costumes inside the selected folder are displayed. Select the required Costume.

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Step 5: The selected Costume will be added to the existing Costume list.

Step 6: To change the Costume you can use Switch to Costume Looks block (select the Costume from the drop down list) or the Next Costume commands.

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Write the Scripts shown below to experiment with costumes and dialogs.

Practice Script 1:

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Practice Script 2:

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Green flag block We can add a control block When Green flag clicked to control the execution of our script, as shown in figure.

The script would execute when we click on the top block or the green flag button on the upper right corner. We can stop the execution by clicking on the red button.

Repeat block We can add a repeat control block to enclose the actions in our script we want to perform again and again.

We can specify the number of times this loop is to be repeated in the repeat block.

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When key pressed and forever block We can replace the green flag clicked with the When key pressed block, which enables us to use Spacebar or any other key to start the execution of our script. If we want to continue our script till it is stopped, we can use the forever block as shown in figure.

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Changing the stage background Similar to changing the costumes of the sprite, we can change the background of the stage.

To experiment with this idea we write two scripts. One for changing the background and one for animating the sprite as it moves across the changing backgrounds.

Like costumes, we change the background of the stage by selecting the stage background as shown in figure:

We can either Paint a background or Import it as an image, using the options shown in figure.

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With the stage background selected, we can add a background script, as shown in figure.

Then we select the sprite to be animated, and write another script for the movement of the sprite.

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When we click on the green flag button, both scripts are executed simultaneously to give the overall effect of the background changing as the cat sprite moves and thinks with respect to the changing backgrounds.

Usage of Blocks in Scratch Motion ­ Move the Sprite up, down, right, left, forward,or backward.

Looks ­ Change the looks of a Sprite or the Background with Costumes. Make the Sprite say something using Think or Say bubble.

Sound ­ Play a sound or a musical note. Change the volume of the sound.

Pen ­ Make the Sprite draw as it moves. Change colour, shade, thickness of the pen.

Stamp Sprite’s image on the stage.

Control block ­ Repeat some actions. Use conditional instructions like “when key is pressed”, do something. Include some time gap between actions.

Saving your projects in Scratch To save your project in scratch select File/Save option from the menus to invoke the following dialog box. Here we can give a new file name and select the location of our project file.

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Key Points Scratch is a programming language to teach kids about programming Scratch uses sprites (graphic images) for animation Scripts are written using programming blocks to animate the sprites There are various types of blocks for motion, control, sound, appearance of sprites

Exercises 1. In Scratch , the character which moves on the stage is called a _________ (Sprite, Script, Command) 2. Under what block do you find the instructions to change the Costume of a Sprite? (Motion , Looks , Sound) 3. In Scratch, the Sprite moves on the __________ when you run a program.

(Stage, Canvas, Command) 4. move <10> steps command can be found under the_____________ blocks. (Looks, Sound, Motion) 5. To see the trail of the Sprite when it moves, we use____________ command.(Pen­up, Pen­down, Next­costume) 6. To make the Sprite wait for some seconds, you can use the wait <> seconds

Instruction. It can be found in (Control , Looks, Motion).

7. The Background of the Stage can be changed using the instructions under the ________ block.(Looks, Motion, Pen) 8. There are no instructions under Motion Block when the Stage is selected.

(True/ False) 9. To change the look of the Stage, we should change the Costumes.(True/ False) 10. The pen­down instruction helps you to show the trail of the Sprite.(True/ False)

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Scratch Activities Activity­1: Write the following program in Scratch and save the project:

Change the Costume of the Sprite and again run the program.

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Activity­2: Write the following program in Scratch and save the project:

Add the following to your script: a. Sound of an instrument. b. Make the Sprite call out your name.

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Activity­3: Write the following program in Scratch and save the project:

Modify the following in your script: a. Change ‘pen’ colour to blue. b. Change ‘pen’ size to 10. c. Decrease the number of steps to change the size of the square.

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Activity­4: Write the following program in Scratch and save the project:

Modify the following to your script: a. Track the Sprite’s move using ‘pen down’. b. Change the dialogue inside the ‘think’ box. c. Change the dialogue inside the ‘say’ box.

Activity­5: Draw a Sprite using Paint editor in Scratch. Select different colours, and ‘brush’ tool to draw the picture. Use the ‘stamp’ tool and the ‘eyedropper’ tool. Save the picture to use it as a Sprite or Costume in your programs.

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Activity­6: Make the following scene in Scratch :

a. Write scripts to make each fish move in a different direction (up, down, left and right) b. Write a script to make all the fish move in the same direction together?

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Activity­7: Observe the following scene:

Write the Scripts for a dialogue between the two Sprites. You can use any Sprites of your choice.

Sprite 1: How are you?

Sprite 2: I am fine, thank you. b. Write Script to make the Sprite dance to the beat.

Activity­8: 1. How will you make the Sprite draw concentric circles (circle within a circle with the same center)?

2. Explore where is the ‘stamp’ option in Scratch.

Use it in a program and see what happens.

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Chapter 7 Introduction to Internet and Browsing

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Introduction to Internet This chapter would discuss about the basic concepts of Internet usage and web browsing.

In a subsequent course we would be discussing more about computer networks both at the local and global level.

We can imagine Internet to be a huge network of computers connected together all over the world to provide millions of users access to information which is usually stored on these computers in the form of web pages.

Connecting to Internet Usually when we want our computer to be connected to Internet, we use a device called a modem (short for Modulator Demodulator) , which is to be connected to the telephone line.

We also need an ISP (Internet Service Provider) subscription to connect to the Internet.

An ISP is an organization like a telephone company which offers subscription for users interested in connecting to the Internet through their Computing network.

Sometimes if we have more than one computer at our home or office which we want to connect to Internet we also use a device called a router connected to our modem to share the Internet connection. See the following figure to understand the Internet connectivity

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WWW (World Wide Web) Normally users access Internet through a computer program called a Web browser, which serves the information stored on some remote computer (Server) in the form of a web page.

A Web page contains information in the shape of text, pictures, videos etc. It also contains links to other web pages, generally called hyper­links, by clicking on which we are taken to that respective web page or web document.

This system of information storage in form of web pages interlinked to each other and distributed over a large number of computers all over the world is called the World Wide Web (WWW) or web for short.

Web sites A collection or logical grouping of web pages related to a particular company or an individual is called a web site. These web pages are hyper­linked together and usually reside on a single computer (server) from where they can be accessed.

To access web pages from a particular web­site, we need to know the address of the web site. This address is called a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). For example the URL's for some commonly used web sites are: http://www.google.com http://www.wikipedia.com http://www.youtube.com http://www. microsoft

.com

When we type the URL of a website to reach it, the first web page displayed for that website is called the home page for that website and contains links to other major sections of the website.

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This URL or address is generally made up of 4 parts as explained below: 1. http:// (Hyper text transfer Protocol – The method for transmitting web page information) 2. www World Wide Web hosts this web page/link 3. Name of website (e.g. google, wikipedia) indicating the company or individual to whom this website belongs 4. .com or .org etc. This is the domain or type of web site. For example .com = commercial web site, .org= not for profit organization, .edu = educational website, .gov = government website.

Web browsing As we mentioned earlier, a web browser is a computer program used to fetch web­pages from the web site and display it to the user.

Some of the commonly used web browsers available on different computer platforms are: Browser Name

Platform/OS

Windows, Linux Mozilla Firefox Windows, Linux Google Chrome Windows

Note:We use Google Chrome as the browser to illustrate our examples. Similar concepts apply to other web browsers also.

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Normally the URL of the website is typed in the address bar of the web browser to access the web site. See figure below:

To go forward and backward within web­pages, we use the forward and backward buttons on the browser, as shown in figure:

We can also use the Reload (Blue circular arrow) button for web­page which are not displaying properly.

We can use the Bookmark button or press Ctrl­D to bookmark a web page, as favourite.

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Current web­browsers use the concept of tabs to browse web­pages, which enable new websites to be loaded simultaneously within the same browser session. Click on the new tab button as shown in figure to start a new tab window.

We can control various settings related to our browser by going to Edit/Preferences option from the main menu. Some of the important settings we can control are: 1. Our default home page 2. History settings 3. Default Search Engine setting 4. Default location for Internet downloads

Using Search Engine A search engine is a very important piece of computer software for using Internet.

It basically provides links to millions of web pages stored on numerous servers across the globe by enabling users to enter a keyword and search based on a particular criteria.

One of the most popular search engine of all times is Google. We can type the word related to the search we want to perform in the Google search box and if we want to refine our search we can select advanced settings, as shown in figure.

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Using Wikipedia Another important website for searching information, is the world's largest on­line encyclopedia called Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.com).

The above figure shows main wikipedia portals (collection of websites) available to the users for information search.

The user can visit a particular portal, or directly search through the search box for some particular information.

Users can also contribute content to wikipedia by writing new articles or modifying existing ones which are checked by the wikipedia administration, before posting to the on­line encyclopedia.

Students can copy information in the form of text and images for their school or college assignments and can also modify it according to their requirements.

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Using Youtube www.youtube.com is a video sharing website where you can find videos related to any conceivable topic.

Here students can find video lessons for science, mathematics and, which they can watch to understand the concepts explained to them in a very user friendly and engaging manner.

You can also watch cartoons and movies on this website.

Using How Stuff Works www.howstuffworks.com is an extremely knowledgeable website which explains a lot about how complex systems like machines, human body, solar system, Internet etc. function.

But it is not limited to complex systems only and can be used to demonstrate the workings of every day life objects as well.

Dictionaries There are many on­line dictionary websites, which the students can visit to search for meanings of difficult words both in English and Urdu language.

Some of the important on­line dictionary websites are: 1. www.dictionary.com 2. www.oxforddictionaries.com 3. www.merriam-webster.com 4. dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/platts/

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Key Points Internet is a global network of millions of interconnected computers We can use the services of an ISP to get connected to Internet Web­browser is the main software we use for accessing websites Websites are composed of web­pages and are interconnected through WWW We use Search Engine to search any type of information on Internet There are many useful websites for students like (wikipedia, youtube, howstuffworks)

Exercises 1. What is the ISP acronym for ?

2. For what purpose a Modem is used ?

3. __________ is the device used to share Internet connection between two or more computers 4. WWW is the acronym for ___________________________ 5. __________ page is the first web page of a website 6. The address of a website is also known as its ________ 7. Firefox is the web­browser which can only be used on Windows platform (True/False) 8. To bookmark a website we use the _________ keyboard shortcut 9. Can we change the default download location in our browser ? (Yes/No) 10. .org is the domain suffix for _______________________

Activities 1. Find out any three major search engines besides Google 2. Search about Internet on Wikipedia and write a short essay based on the article.

Ask your teacher about any difficult terms used in the article.

3.Use www.dictionary.com website to search meanings of difficult words from your English book.

4. Use your search engine to find out good educational websites which can assist you in Solving Math problems.

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Chapter 7 Educational Software - 3

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Introduction to KDE educational software In our previous courses we explored some free educational tools like Tux paint, Tux Math and GCompris for involving students in a number of computer based activities to enhance their verbal, mathematical and logical skills.

Further in this course we introduce the KDE educational software, which is also based on free and open source philosophy and provides various educational tools for students to learn and enhance their academic knowledge. In this course we cover the following educational software: 1. Kanagram 2. KwordQuiz 3. KBruch 4. KHangMan For more details please visit the http://edu.kde.org website.

Kanagram Kanagram is a word based game which generates anagrams (jumbled words) for students to guess. It is helpful in vocabulary training of students. Its main screen is shown below:

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The user can change the category of the words list by clicking on the type, as shown in figure:

The user can also click the hint button to get a hint about the word, or if the user is unable to guess the word, he/she can click on the reveal word button.

There are several word categories in Kanagram, which include: ➔ ➔ ➔ ➔ ➔ ➔ ➔

Fruits Vegetables Animals People Transportation Inventions Professions

More categories and words can be added to the application by going into settings option, as shown in figure.

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This would display the following dialog box:

Here we can create new vocabularies for the game by clicking on Create New button.

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KWordQuiz This is another useful software to be used by the teacher for creating word or concept related database (also called vocabulary document). This can be used by the student to practice by generating quiz in following forms: 1. Flash cards 2. Multiple Choice questions 3. Question/Answers For example in the following figure a few definitions have been added to the vocabulary document.

To generate a Multiple choice quiz , based on these terms, we can click on the Multiple Choice button, to display the dialog box shown in figure.

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We can select a choice and Click on the Check button to verify our answer.

Similarly if we click on the Question & Answer button, we get the following screen:

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Here we are required to type in an answer matching with the stored definition of the word.

To see the word or term in a Flash card format, click Flash card button to display the following:

In this screen we can confirm if we know or do not know the displayed word by clicking on the right hand side buttons.

Overall this application gives students , the ability to practice various terms and concepts related to a subject in their course.

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KBruch Kbruch is a program to practice calculating with fractions and percentages. Different exercises are provided for this purpose and you can use the learning mode to practice with fractions. The program checks the user's input and gives feedback When the program is first launched, it gives you the options for launching it in Exercise mode or Learning mode, as shown in figure:

The Learning mode just reinforces the concepts of a fraction to the student. In this mode the student views different type of fractions in textual , as well as graphical form and manipulates their values to understand the relation ship between the two parts of the fraction: ➔ Numerator ➔ Denominator

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The Learning mode screen is shown as follows:

As shown in the hint on the right hand side, the rings enclosing the fraction values are the graphical representations of these fractions. You can manipulate them by clicking on spinners to expand the values, so that the graphics are also update in relation to them.

To generate a new set of fractions, we click on the New button.

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The Exercise mode is the actual mode, where you practice the fractional problems. The main screen looks like as follows:

On the top you have buttons to choose the following type of operations on fractions: 1. Arithmetic 2. Comparison 3. Conversion 4. Mixed Number operations 5. Factorization 6. Percentages The default type of operations are Arithmetic. In this type you can choose four type of Arithmetic operations , which are Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

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After answering the question, you can click on the Check button to check the result, or skip to the next question.

We can also control the number of terms and the highest denominator to be used in the questions.

Choosing the Comparison operation, would generate the following screen:

In this problem you can click on the type of operator which is >, < and = to validate the comparison.

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When we select the Conversion option, the following screen is displayed:

Here write the fractional equivalent of the decimal number and click on the check button to validate our answer.

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The Mixed Number operation would be displayed as follows:

Here either we are required to convert a Mixed number fraction to a simple arithmetic operation or vice­versa. In both the cases we click on the Check button to validate our answer.

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Clicking on Factorization button, shows the following screen.

In this exercise we have to select the factors of the number in question by clicking on the button numbers displayed below. Click Check to verify the answer.

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The Percentage problems are displayed in the following format:

Similar to other problems, we input the percentage answer and click on Check to verify the answer or click on the Skip button to go to the next question.

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KHangMan This is a variation of the classical vocabulary game Hangman in which the user has to guess a word of varying lengths.

When you launch the program it shows you the following screen:

On the bottom left corner, it shows you the current category of words from which you have to guess.

Type in the character in the lower right corner and click on the Guess button. If the letter is guessed correctly, it is displayed at the correct position within the word in the lower part of the screen.

If the guess is wrong, it is included in the Misses part and gallows are drawn piece by piece for each wrong guess as shown in figure.

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We can change the categories of the vocabulary by selecting the category option from the main menu, as shown below:

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References and Resources

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Reference books and web resources Some important reference books and web resources for students are as follows:

Chapter 1 Computer Applications (Secondary 1 & 2) by Jonathan chan & Choy Wai Tse Kelly.

Publisher Pearson Educational South Asia Pte. Ltd. Chapter 2 A Practical Guide to Ubuntu Linux by Mark Sobell 3rd. Edition. Prentice Hall Publishers www.ubuntu.com Chapter 3 Libreoffice Writer user's guide www.libreoffice.org Chapter 4 1. Scratch 1.4 : Getting started Guide 2. Scratch 1.4: Reference Guide 3. Computer Masti Book ­ 3 by InOpen Technologies Pvt. Ltd.(India) http://scratch.mit.edu Chapter 5 Computer Applications (Secondary 1 & 2) by Jonathan chan & Choy Wai Tse Kelly.

Publisher Pearson Educational South Asia Pte. Ltd.

Chapter 6 http://edu.kde.org

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Some educational websites

www.edubuntu.com https://schoolforge.net/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/games/ http://interactivesites.weebly.com/ http://www.kidsknowit.com/ http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/ http://www.ixl.com http://www.coolmath.com/ http://www.kidsites.com/

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