Page 27 - Blooms Schools Yearbook 2019

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Blooms Academy
MATHEMATICS & ICT

DEPARTMENT

INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY; SOME
OF THE CHANGES IT HAS BROUGHT OUR WORLD

ICT has developed at a very fast rate throughout the years. It has changed the way we live and
work and our social lives.

Thirty years ago the idea of having a “computer for everyone” was considered very unlikely, if not
an absurd idea due to their sizes, little general knowledge of operating them and how exuberant
their prices were. Hardly anyone had a computer and if they did, they were considered well off
and technically sophisticated. Having a computer was considered a luxury and not a necessity like
it is today. Life was very different; communication between people was much slower. There were
no Instant messages as you would have to telephone the person on their home telephone or send a
letter. If you wanted to research something you would have to go to a library as there were no
search engines. There were many things that you couldn't do or that were slower because of a lack
of ICT. For example we are all used to shopping on line these days but twenty years ago this wasn't
available as computers were expensive and there were few shopping web sites. The internet was
not sophisticated as it is today and it could not process financial transactions.
Things however, started to change in the 1980's when some companies who had a dream that
computers could be part of our everyday life, started to embrace technology. It was IBM who first
introduced computer intended for home usage, called “IBM PC (Personal Computer)”. It is true
that before IBM, several companies had already attempted to release a personal computer, but
none of them had the popularity of IBM PC. Since that time, computer technology started to grow
speedily. In the late 1980's the next generation of computers was released by Intel. Different kinds
of technology then started to bloom in society and soon enough everyone had a computer. The
computers had programmes on them allowing the owner to do various things on them .One of the
most popular programmes then and still used today is Microsoft. This programme allowed people
to type up words on their computer and save it meaning that no one had to carry around pages and
pages of hand written work.

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