Department of ICT Skills

ICT at Greenhead

The college regards Information Technology as very important for all students and is therefore determined to make IT facilities widely available both for individual use and for teaching/learning.

There are 4 IT rooms close together on the ground floor of the main building containing a total of eighty-six computers. These act as both teaching rooms and open access areas for students’ own work, with the use of laser and colour printers and scanners, as appropriate in each room. Supervisor and technicians, as well as teaching staff, are available at all reasonable times to provide help and support.

We run Windows XP and use Office 2007 as our main software package along with other packages that offer useful tools for students to use. We have also greatly increased students' access to the network by adding more computer rooms.

Many departments now have their own computer facilities enabling students to exploit new teaching and learning strategies, such as Interactive Whiteboards, the Internet/Intranet and CD ROMs, in lesson time and during private study.

The college has a link to the Internet which can handle a large number of simultaneous users. We also have an Intranet onto which departments publish their own material. All students have access to e-mail facilities on the college's mail server.

ICT courses offered

OCR/Text Production examinations in Word Processing, Mailmerge, Legal and Medical Word Processing, Audio Transcription and Document Presentation at Levels 1, 2 and 3 are held throughout the year.

Awards and Certificates

Students gain an 'Award' in Text Processing (Business Professional) and can then go on to obtain a 'Certificate' at each of the 3 levels.

We attempt to offer as large a number of choices as possible for students to undertake, as each student has different subject demands or career aspirations. Students are free to choose the direction their IT skills take.

Resources available

Greenhead College Computer Network

This links computers in Open Access areas (G8 & C10), the IT rooms (G9, G10 and G4), the ICT and Computer Studies rooms, the library and all the PC computers in departmental resource areas. All applications run on Windows XP operating system. Laser printers are available in all rooms, with access to colour printing when required. The software available on the network includes Microsoft Office 2007 and many subject based programes.

Access to the Network

The network necessitates the use of a user name and password by each student. All students will be issued with these during the compulsory IT Induction session at the beginning of term in September. During this session you will be shown the essentials of logging on and off, loading software, saving/deleting files and the important aspects of printing on a network. You will also receive information on the many IT courses you can undertake during your time at the college.

Room G8 usually operates on an open access basis from 8.00 - 6.00 each day. The other rooms are open from 8.00 - 5.00 and are available to individual students if they are not being used for teaching. The number of computers linked to the college network is increasing each year. Also more departmental resource areas are up and running with computers having network connections.

Greenhead College INTRANET

We have established an expanding Intranet Web Server within the college to be accessed from any computer linked to our network. This uses the same technology as the Internet but is internal to the college. Departments use it to provide students with current information publishing pages of course material etc., and to provide links to the WWW to enable and enhance effective AS/A-Level studies. A lot of the time on the Internet is spent searching through masses of irrelevant information to try and locate what you want: using our Intranet we hope to save much of this valuable student time. 

Students access the Internet/Intranet through a separate user name and password to log on to the web server. In doing so each student is allocated their own e-mail address. It is expected that more and more staff and students will communicate with each other through the e-mail system. Students are also able to access the college Intranet and their e-mail from home, through the use of their user name and password and the www.greenhead.ac.uk site.

The WWW

We have a permanently open link to the Internet allowing a large number of simultaneous links.

Many departments are now actively using this resource as a research tool. Students are expected to use it in the production of essays and other coursework.

We do not restrict in any way the amount of time students can be on line, but we do limit recreational use to outside the normal college day.

As there are problems with some of the content of Internet material the college has the facility, to filter sites visited by students. We are aware of the dangers of unrestricted access to the Internet and place filters in such a way as to control what students use. For example, access to the various 'chat lines' are not allowed and all 'adult' sites are blocked.

Last year's results

OCR Exam Results - 2009
	Entries	Distinction	Pass	Fail
Level 1
Text Processing	100	65	32	3
Word Processing	94	63	23	8
Business Presentations	38	37	1	0
Mailmerge	41	21	15	5
Legal	18	14	3	1
Audio Transcription	8	6	1	1
Level 2
Text Processing	36	24	9	3
Word Processing	33	11	17	5
Audio Transcription	17	8	7	2
Mailmerge	9	2	5	2
Business Presentation	19	14	3	2
Document Presentation	8	4	2	2
Level 3
Text Processing	14	2	6	6
Word Processing	9	4	2	3
Audio Transcription	5	1	3	1
Document Presentation	5	3	2	0
Total OCR	454	279	131	44