COMMUNICATION SOCIAL SCIENCES UNIT (Continuity & Change) Term

Learning Intentions 1. To understand what communication is and why it’s important.

Learning Intentions 2. To know at least 10 forms of communication, past & present.

Learning Intentions 3. To learn how telecommunications have developed into what it is today.

What is communication? How do we communicate? Why is communication important?

The history of communication dates back to the earliest signs of life. Human communication was revolutionized with speech perhaps 200,000 years ago. Symbols were developed about 30,000 years ago, and writing about 7,000.

CAVE PAINTINGS: WHAT DID THEY COMMUNICATE?

The oldest known symbols created with the purpose of communication through time are the cave paintings, a form of rock art. The oldest known cave painting is that of the Chauvet Cave, dating to around 30,000 BC.cave paintingsrock art Chauvet CaveBC

PICTOGRAMS: WHAT DID THEY COMMUNICATE?

Pictograph from 1510 telling a story of coming of missionaries to Hispaniola.missionariesHispaniola

A pictogram is a symbol representing a concept, object, activity, place or event by illustration. They were used by various ancient cultures all over the world since around 9000 BC.symbolconceptobject illustrationcultures

Make your own pictogram about something you did in the weekend.

EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHICS English is based on 26 characters--letters. Letters that are combined into words...and then into sentences...which tell a story. Ancient Egyptian writing uses more than 2,000 hieroglyphic characters. Each hieroglyph represents a common object in ancient Egypt.

CARRIER PIGEONS A carrier pigeon is a homing pigeon used to carry messages.

The Egyptians and the Persians first used carrier pigeons 3,000 years ago.

Carrier pigeons historically carried messages only one way, to their home. They had to be transported manually before another flight.

However by placing their food at one location and their home at another location, pigeons have been trained to fly back and forth up to twice a day. Pigeons could cover a 160 km round trip.

With training, pigeons can carry up to 75g on their backs.

Carrier pigeons were used on the battlefield during World War I. 442 pigeons were used in the area of Verdun.

Some of these pigeons became quite famous among the infantrymen they worked for. One pigeon flew 52 missions before he was wounded. Another was injured in the last week of the war and it seemed impossible for him to reach his destination. Though he lost his foot, the message got through to save a large group of surrounded American infantrymen.

TELEPHONE

On March 10, 1876 Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call.

And what did he say? “Mr Watson, come here, I want to see you.” Mr Watson was his assistant. He heard the call and went to Mr Bell.

“Apparatus for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically.”

THE FIRST COMPUTER “ENIAC” 1946

ENIAC = Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer Designed by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert of the University of Pennsylvania, they called it a “giant brain.” Cost almost $6million USD.

ENIAC contained: 17,468 vacuum tubes, 7,200 crystal diodes, 1,500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors and around 5 million hand-soldered joints. It weighed more than 27 tonnes, was 2.6 m × 0.9 m × 24 m, took up 63 m 2 of space, and consumed 150 kW of power!

The ENIAC could be programmed to perform complex sequences of operations, which could include loops, branches, and subroutines. The task of taking a problem and mapping it onto the machine was complex, and usually took weeks.

A square chip of silicon measuring 8 mm on a side holds the same capacity as the ENIAC, which occupied a large room.

What are the obvious differences between ENIAC and computers today?

What are the pros and cons of the internet and mobile phones?

How do mobile phones work? A mobile phone is actually a very sophisticated radio.

In full-duplex radio, the two transmitters use different frequencies, so both parties can talk at the same time. Cell phones are full- duplex.

In a typical analog cell-phone system in the United States, the cell-phone carrier receives about 800 frequencies to use across the city. The carrier chops up the city into cells. Each cell is typically sized at about 26 square kilometres.

Mobile Phone in What can a mobile phone do?

Inside a Digital Cell Phone Modern digital cell phones can process millions of calculations per second in order to compress and decompress the voice stream.

If you take a basic digital cell phone apart, you find that it contains just a few individual parts: An amazing circuit board containing the brains of the phone An antenna A liquid crystal display (LCD) A keyboard A microphone A speaker A battery The circuit board is the heart of the system.

The microprocessor handles all of the housekeeping chores for the keyboard and display, deals with command and control signalling with the base station and also coordinates the rest of the functions on the board.

You need a SIM card for your mobile phone.