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Introducing computing and IT
Introducing computing and IT

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Conclusion

This course introduced several aspects of our increasingly digital lives. You learned about the ever more significant role that digital technologies are playing in our information society, in areas ranging from entertainment to public services. Along with the opportunities available in the online world, you were also introduced to some of the potential problems and how to avoid them.

You looked at a case study about online information on childhood vaccination. Finding information online via web searches turned out to be a truly delicate matter. Depending on your search terms you may be more likely to find myths than facts or vice versa.

Finally, you went on to look at how data is stored on both hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid-state drives (SSDs). You studied the differences from a digital forensics point of view. You examined what it means for data to be written to and deleted from an HDD and if and how ‘deleted’ information can be retrieved again. You then considered the same questions for SSDs.

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University courses TM111 Introduction to computing and information technology 1 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] and TM112 Introduction to computing and information technology 2.