Year 12 Information Processes and Technology

Year 12 Information Processes and Technology students have been studying a topic called Transaction Processing Systems since the middle of term 2. This option topic is one that we haven’t studied at St Andrews College for quite a few years but after looking at data from past HSC years, Mr Robson set me the challenge of offering the unit in 2021. I looked at the syllabus and my first reaction was “This is a unit about how shopping works”. It seemed like it would be easy enough to deliver and students would learn things they didn’t already know. After all, if transaction processing systems are information systems that “collect, store, modify and retrieve records of transactions” all my students should know what this means for them .

As the unit evolved, year 12 learned the characteristics of a transaction processing system. They created diagrammatic representations of reservation systems, point of sale systems and library loan systems. They explored the difference between batch processing and real time (On-Line) transaction processing. They investigated the different backup and recovery methods that can be used. They looked into the operation of hardware and software and most importantly assessed the impact of transaction processing systems.

Once all this was done, they had to put the information into an information system in the form of a website that could be used as a study guide. This meant that they had to unpack the content that they had studied and organise it in a way that was useful to them.

One of the key concepts in the Information Processes and Technology course is the Systems Development Life Cycle. There are five stages mentioned in this process:

• Understanding the Problem
• Planning
• Designing 
• Implementing
• Testing, Evaluating and Maintaining

To create the study guide, Year 12 worked through this process. When I gave them the task they brainstormed what it meant and ultimately what the purpose of the study guide was. Then they accessed the syllabus pages and made some choices about what the site might look like. This involved storyboarding both the page layout and the navigation between the pages. Once their storyboard was approved they set about researching the content that would be included on each page, finding videos and images to use and checking that they had all the necessary information.

Over a number of lessons, students populated their sites.In addition to creating the content they were encouraged to be studying for their upcoming HSC exams. After all, they were creating a study guide so what better way to study than to use the information system.

The big test has come over the last couple of weeks for them as I have been testing and evaluating their sites for them.Some of them had a big list of gaps in the content that should have been there so there has been a mad scramble to fill in these gaps and make sure that they had a useful study guide.

Each student was given free choice with regards to layout and colour scheme. Take a look at some of their choices in the images below. These screenshots were taken at the beginning of process so the websites are much further developed now.

Mrs Anzellotti
Teacher of Information Processes and Technology