What Teachers need to know about technology Hardware
From Wikitechbook--the students-developed, technology textbook
Welcome to our technology hardware page. This page is here to help teachers understand and develop skills through hardware. A teacher needs to first and foremost understand the hardware they are using.
Main Points of Hardware
Some main points to remember when dealing with hardware in the classroom include saving often, knowing where to find technical assistance, understanding your hardware, and remembering to always have a back up plan. Technology changes everday and it always affects the teacher in his or her classroom, so it is important to understand the different uses of this technology for ones' particular field of study. In a school setting, principals will expect the teacher, to be comfortable with the use of technology. We, as teachers, cannot always count on technology so we must remember to have a back up plan, this means that one must save often. Based on a blog written on Squido.com, most people do not realize it, but online data storage is indispendsable to any computer user, so remember to back up online too.
Types of Hardware
So lets dive into the intriuging subject of hardware. First off, one needs to know the various components of a system. There are two main areas concerning the topic of hardware. Those areas are the internal system and the peripherals. The internal system is the "heart" and "brain" of a computer; everything needed to make the system run is here. At the center of the internal system is the Motherboard. The motherboard is the "body" of this unit. The motherboard connects the CPU (central processing unit) which does most of the calculations with the chipset which are where the various forms of SIM and DIM Ram are located. Ram is the main memory where one's OS (operating system) is stored. The motherboard is also connected to sound and graphics cards which inhance the users' experience. One must remember that sound cards and graphics cards are not only a huge source of power usage, but also make the CPU work extremely hard, thus producing tremendous amounts of heat and at times lag on one's computer. Then there are an array of other media devices connected to the motherboard, such as DVD/CD players, BluRay players, mass media storage devices, etc.
The second area of hardware for a computer are the peripherals. Peripherals are components that enter media such as mouses, keyboards, scanners, voice recognition systems and pointing devices. These forms of peripherals are called input devices, because they are the interface between the user and the computer. The other form of peripherals are ouput devices such as printers, webcams, speakers, headsets, and monitors. These output devices help the computer communicate with the user and create a much more interactive experience for the user.
Other components of computers are mass storage devices, external hard drives, modems, and servers. This hardware helps connect computers and their users with others on systerms such as LANs, WANs, or the world internet. They can also help users backup and store their data on other forms of media.
References
Related Resources
Quiz-yourself Questions
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What part of a computer do you type on? (a) keyboard (b) mouse (c) monitor (d) Floppy Disc (e) Printer
- In the picture above of hardware components, what is number 2? (a) ram (b) graphics card (c) central processing unit (d) sound card
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Which one of the following catagories includes a mouse, keyboard, and scanner? (a) communications device (b) input device (c) domestic device (d) storage media (e) output device
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While at her home computer Susan discovers that her system (Windows XP) cannot open a word document that you created in the school computer lab with a system using Windows Vista. What is the problem?
- Which one of the following is hardware, not software? (a) motherboard (b) windows 95 (c) operating system (d) Mac OS 10 (e) spreadsheet
Quiz Answers
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(a) keyboard
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(c) central processing unit
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(b) input device
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The problem that this user is experiencing is that her older system(Windows XP) cannot read the new format of Word in Windows Vista. To rectify this problem for future use the user can save the World document as a Word 1997-2003 document.
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(a) motherboard
Developers of this page
Contributors from SBU: Christa, Travis, and Amanda (fall '08) Nathaniel (Jan '09), Matthew and Daniel (Spring 2009), Amber and Linda (Sp '09).
All Editors and Writers (first names only):
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