THE

INFORMATION
AGE
LESSON OBJECTIVES:

At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:

 Define Information Age

 Discuss the history of the Information age; and
 Understand the factors that need to be considered in checking website sources.
What is information?

 “Knowledge communicated or obtained concerning a

specific fact or circumstance.” – Webster’s
Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary
 Facts provided or learned about something or
someone.
 INFORMATION AGE
 A period starting in the last quarter of the 20th century.
 Information became effortlessly accessible through publications and through the
management of information by computers and computer networks. (vocabulary.com)
 The Information Age is also called as Digital Age and the New Media Age
 The information Age is the true new age, based upon the interconnection of
computers via telecommunications, with this information system operating on both a
real-time and as-needed basis. Furthermore, the primary factors driving this new
age forward are convenience and user-friendliness which, in turn, will create user-
dependence. (James R. Messenger, Theory of Information Age, 1982)
TIMELINE OF THE INFORMATION AGE
TIMELINE OF THE INFORMATION AGE
TIMELINE OF THE INFORMATION AGE
 Human cost of information overload.

INFORMATION
ANXIETY
It is produced by that ever-widening gap
between what we understand and what we
think we should understand. It is the black hole
between data and knowledge, and what
happens when information doesn’t tell us what
want or what we need to know? (Richard Saul
Wurman, Information Anxiety)
 1. 2. Newer is
Information equated
THE TRUTHS must with truer.
OF compete.
INFORMATION
AGE 4. The
3. Selection media sells
is a what the
viewpoint. culture
buys.
 6. You are
5. The early
what you eat
word gets
THE TRUTHS the perm.
and so is
your brain.
OF
INFORMATION
AGE 7. Anything
in great 8. Ideas are
demand will seen
be controversial
counterfeite .
d.
 9. Undead 10. Media
informatio presence
THE TRUTHS n walks creates the
OF ever on. story.
INFORMATION
AGE 11. The 12. The
medium whole
selects the truth is
message. pursuit.
COMPUTER

Computers are among the most A computer is an electronic device that

important contributions of advances in stores and processes data (information).
the Information Age to society. It runs on a program that contains the
exact, step-by-step directions to solve a
problem. (UShistory.or, 2017)
TYPES OF COMPUTER

1. PERSONAL COMPUTER
(PC)
 Single-user instrument.
 Known as microcomputers
since they were a computer
but built on a smaller scale
than the enormous systems
operated by most businesses.
TYPES OF
COMPUTER
2. DESKTOP COMPUTER
 A personal computer that is not
designed for portability.
 WORKSTATION: Desktop Computer
that has a more powerful processor,
additional memory, and enhanced
capabilities for performing a special
group of tasks such as 3D graphics or
game development.
TYPES OF COMPUTER

3. LAPTOPS
 Portable computers that
integrate the essentials of a
desktop computer in a
battery-operated/powered
package.
 They are commonly called
notebooks.
TYPES OF COMPUTER

4. Personal Digital
Assistants (PDAs)
 Tightly integrated computers
that usually have no
keyboards but rely on a touch
screen for user input.
 Typically, smaller than a
paperback, lightweight, and
battery-powered.
 A personal digital assistant
(PDA), also known as a
handheld PC.
TYPES OF COMPUTER

• 5. Server

 Computer that has been

improved to provide network
services to other computers.
 Usually boast powerful
processors, tons of memory,
and large hard drives.
TYPES OF COMPUTER

• 6. Mainframes

 Huge computer systems that

can fill an entire room
 Used by large firms that process
millions of transactions every
day.
 The term “mainframe” has been
replaced by enterprise server.
Although some supercomputers
are single computer systems,
most compromise multiple,
high-performance, parallel
computers working as single
system.
TYPES OF COMPUTER

7. Wearable Computers
 Materials that are usually
integrated into cellphones,
watches, and other small
objects or places.
 Perform common computer
applications such as
databases, e-mails,
multimedia, and schedules.
  Claude E. Shannon – Father of
THE WORLD WIDE Information Theory
 Internet - World Wide system, of
WEB (Internet) interconnected networks that facilitate data
transmission among innumerable
computers.
 • The Internet contains a vast collection
How to Check the of highly valuable information, but it may
also contain unreliable, biased information
Reliability of Web that mislead people. The following
guidelines can help us check the reliability of
Sources web sources that we gather. It is
noteworthy to consider and apply the
following guidelines to avoid misinformation.
How to Check • 1. Who is the author of the article/site?

the Reliability  How to find out?

• Look for an “About” or “more about the author” link
of Web Sources at the top, bottom, or sidebar of the webpage.
Some pages will have a corporate author rather
than single person as an author. If no information
about the author(s) of the page is provided, be
suspicious.
How to Check 2. Who published the site?

the Reliability  How to find out?

 Look at the domain name of the website that will tell
of Web Sources you who is hosting the site. For instance, the Lee
College Library website is:
http://www.lee.edu/library. The domain name is
“lee.edu.” This tells you that the library website is
hosted by Lee College
 Search the domain name at http://www.whoisc.sc/.
The site provides information about owners of
registered domain names. What is the organization’s
main purpose? Check the organization’s main
website if it has one. Is it educational? Commercial?
Is it reputable organization?
How to Check 2. Who published the site?

the Reliability  Do not ignore suffix on the domain name (the three-
letter part that comes after the “.”). The suffix is
of Web Sources usually (but not always) descriptive of what type of
entity hosts the website. Keep in mind that it is
possible for sites to obtain suffixes that are
misleading. Here are some examples:
• .edu = educational
• .com = commercial
• .mil = military
• .gov = government
• .org = nonprofit
How to Check 3. What is the main purpose of the site? Why did
the author write it and why did the publisher
the Reliability post it?

of Web Sources  To sell a product?

 As a personal hobby?
 As public service?
 To further scholarship on a topic?
 To provide general information on a topic?
 To persuade you of a particular point of view?
How to Check 4. Who is the intended audience?

the Reliability  Scholars or the general public?

 Which age group is it written for?
of Web Sources  Is it aimed at people from a particular geographic
area?
 Is it aimed at members of a particular professions or
with specific training?
How to Check the Reliability of Web Sources

5. What is the quality of information

provided on the website?

 Timeliness: When was the website

first published? Is it regularly
updated? Check for the dates at the
bottom of each page on the site.
 Does the author cite sources? Just as
in print sources, web sources that cite
their sources are considered more
reliable.
 What type of other sites does the
website link to? Are they reputable
sites?
 What types of sites link to website you
are evaluating? Is the website being
cited by others?
APPLICATIONS OF COMPUTERS IN SCIENCE
AND RESEARCH
• One of the significant applications
of computers for science and
research is evident in the field of
bioinformatics.
• What is Bioinformatics?

• Application of information
technology to store, organize and
analyze the vast amount of
biological data which is available
in the form of sequences and
structures of proteins – building
blocks of organisms and nucleic
acids – the information carrier
APPLICATIONS OF COMPUTERS IN
SCIENCE AND RESEARCH
 RATIONAL DRUG DISCOVERY

• From the pharmaceutical industry’s point of view, bioinformatics is the key to rational drug
discovery. It reduces the number of trials in the screening of drug compounds and in identifying
potential drug targets for a particular disease using high-power computing workstations and
software like Insight. This profound application of bioinformatics in genome sequence has led to
a new area in pharmacology – hypothesized from the genome sequence has led to new area in
pharmacology – Pharmacogenomics, where potential targets for drug development are requires a
lot of calculations, has become faster due to the advances in computer processors and its
architecture.
APPLICATIONS OF COMPUTERS IN SCIENCE
AND RESEARCH
 PLANT BIOTECHNOLOGY
• In plant biotechnology,
bioinformatics is found to be
useful in the areas of
identifying diseases
resistance genes and
designing plants with high
nutrition value.