On the whole, I’ve made a lot of progress so far. At first I found it hard to keep up with all of the work, and keep track of how much I’ve learnt. Thankfully, I’ve managed to pull it together, but I’m sure there’s more I can do to improve my progression. I’ll talk about the step’s I’ve taken so far at the end, but first, here’s a breakdown of my new skills so far
Security Systems:
I have learnt all kinds of types of attacks on companies and workstations themselves. Varying from the “Ping of Death”, to Spoofing to Social Engineering. As well as the threats, I have learnt the preventions, from something as simple as having secure locks on doors or installing CCTV to Virus checkers and Firewalls.
Key Skills:
We have addressed MS Word and Excel, and have begun our first assignment, researching 20 holidays and compiling them into a database (As well as other parts of the assignment involving the database) Having a certificate in ECDL, however, Key Skills sadly gives me very little to learn. I know that it will be harder as time progresses, and I am prepared to learn new skills, soon. Hopefully on my next blog post I will have more to say about this.
Website Production and Management:
Much like programming, I was eager to start this part of the course. We started with HTML. Opening a simple notepad document, and being a naturally quick learner, I easily grasped basic tag functionality. Moving on to Dreamweaver, we began to tackle bigger pages, and links between them. And lately, we have started to learn JavaScript. I am confident in the basic principles of HTML and JavaScript, as well as able to comprehend Dreamweaver effectively.
Networking:
At first a bit wary, I approached this subject quietly. Since starting the course, I have learnt more in this lesson than any other. From topologies, to the OSI model to subnet masking, I have a deeper grasp on networks than ever before. There is still a lot to learn and remember, however, and I’m far from able to say I understand everything in my notes 100%.
Software Design and Development:
I have always loved logical thinking, and combined with creative thought, the result irresistible. Before starting, I understood the basics of programming in it’s concept and in lower level functionality. But since the start of the course, I have learnt how to apply alot to Visual Basic. Such as run-time editing, design-time editing (involving text and images), altering variables and constants, adjusting the layout of a windows form and more complex items such as file dialogs.
Advanced Databases:
Similar to key skills, in the sense that I know much of the things we are being taught, already. However, we have just started to actually use some database software, and creating relationships within databases is something I have improved upon
Communications and employability skills for IT:
I have learnt, from this subject, how to analyse myself, my skills, and my qualities. I have gained a small amount of confidence, thanks to putting my analytic mind into some kind of order.
Computer systems:
I have learnt a great deal about computers physical parts, and the buses that interconnect them all. I have also learnt about the history of processors, and their gradual improvement.
I have always been disorganised, but hopefully for not much longer! I have devised an in-depth timetable for every day of the week. The timetable includes revision time, homework time, the all-important relax time and of course the hours of the college week. I have had it for 3 days now, and it’s improved my life a considerable amount, I know what I’m doing and when I’m doing it, and for once in my life, time isn’t getting away from me easily! I have started to write up all of my assignments on a calendar, so in my next blog entry, I’ll be sure to say it’s coming along.
It’s my birthday on the 5th December (17 at last) which means getting a job will be a whole lot easier. If I can get a job that forces me to be sociable, I might be able to overcome my fear of people, and my general inability to converse.
