Учебник Computer_Science А.Л. Иванова, А.А. Гареев

LESSON 7. IT’S ALL IN A DAY’S WORK

PART 1. IT JOB MARKET

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Typical IT company office

VOCABULARY

1. Complete these definitions with jobs from the box.

1)A _________________________ designs and develops IT devices.

2)A _________________________ writes computer programs.

3)A _________________________ edits and deletes posts made by contributors to a blog.

4)A _________________________ uses page layout software to prepare electronic files for publication.

5)A _________________________ manages the hardware and software that

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comprise a network.

6)A _________________________ designs and maintains websites.

7)A _________________________ works with companies to build secure computer systems.

8)A _________________________ helps end-users with their computer problems in person by email or over the phone [4].

LISTENING

2. Listen to four people on a training course introducing themselves and talking about their jobs. Which job from above does each person do?

Speaker 1 ____________________

Speaker 2 ____________________

Speaker 3 ____________________

Speaker 4 ____________________

SPEAKING

3. Work in pairs. Which of these adjectives do you know? Find the translation of those you don’t know.

well-paid badly-paid temporary permanent full-time part-time stressful demanding challenging rewarding repetitive lonely glamorous dull

4. Look at the jobs Cisco, the world’s leading network infrastructure company, offers. In groups describe each job using the adjectives from exercise 1. Take turns to give your opinion.

What do you think of …’s job?

•IT Network and Voice Engineer (is responsible for infrastructure maintenance and changes to growing voice and data networks, diagnoses

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problems and administer the corporate network, including voice infrastructure, routers, switches, and access points.)

•Security Network Consulting Engineer (is responsible for delivering professional services engagements sold by the sales team; engagements could include staff augmentation, subscription services, incident response, custom coding and internal projects.)

•Technical Solutions Architect (utilizes their knowledge and experience across multiple product areas including Enterprise Networking, Security, Data Center, Collaboration, and Cloud to drive customer IT vision and investment; also has in-depth knowledge of industry technologies to amplify and complete solutions across the IT spectrum; is responsible for consulting with Cisco, customer, and partner leaders to establish multi-technology architectural designs and operational models to meet customer requirements.)

•Software Engineer (solves unique and difficult technical problems in network security, is ready when given creative freedom, and is not afraid to dive into new realm (technical or otherwise) and learn something new without consideration of development or test boundaries.)

•User Experience Designer (needs to be a craftsperson when designing and a showman when presenting them to stakeholders to get buy-in.) [5]

5.Choose which kind of work you would and wouldn’t like to do. Explain why.

READING

6. Discuss these questions with a partner. Then read the text below and check your answers.

-What kind of work does an IT Support Technician do?

-What is a help desk?

Interview with Diana Mayo, IT Support Technician

I’m an IT Support Technician. I work for a large chain which sells building materials to the public and to tradespeople. Almost every business these days, large or small, needs support technicians.

When I left college, I got a job through an agency working for a company which provided online support to local businesses and individuals. I was on their help desk. That meant taking calls and providing advice on all sorts of problems. It’s a job where you need not just technical skills but also good ‘soft skills’. That means people-handling skills. You need to be able to understand how the caller

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feels as well as trying to solve their IT problems. You have to keep calm when you’re under pressure. People may be pretty frustrated by the time they phone you, and they expect you to fix their problem right away. It’s a demanding job because you have to cope sometimes with angry people, get all the information you need to help them with their problem, work out how to solve it technically, and then explain in a clear, simple way what they can do to put things right.

A help desk is a good place to start. You learn to think quickly and how to handle people but I wouldn’t advise doing it for long. It’s not the best paid job. In my present job I get to work with people face-to-face. The work is more interesting. It’s not all trouble-shooting. I also get to install software, maintain servers, and advise on the best choice of new hardware. The money is better too. I find the best way to find information on problems is to use the Internet. Most of the manufacturers have sites which provide information. There are also newsgroups for sharing information.

I’m planning to get Microsoft certification. My company is prepared to pay for the courses and the exams. It’s good for them as it means I can do more and it’s good for my future.

7.Read the text again and answer the questions.

11)How did Diana find her first job?

12)What makes working on a help desk difficult?

13)What words does Diana use to describe how callers to the help desk feel? 14)What are the good points about working on a help desk?

15)Why is it not a good idea to work on a help desk for long? 16)What are the attractions of Diana’s new job?

17)What information sources does Diana use in her work? 18)How will Microsoft certification help Diana?

8.Find an expression in the text which means:

9)People-handling skills

10)Problem-solving 11)Working directly with people 12)Dealing with telephone calls

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PART 2. APPLYING FOR A JOB IN IT

Career fair

READING

1. Read the letter of application below. Complete the letter with for, since, ago or until. Consult the Grammar section after the text.

Dear Mr Scott,

I am writing to apply for the position of Senior Programmer, which was advertised on 28th March in The Times.

I graduated in May 2002 and did a work placement with British Gas as part of my degree. Before taking my present job I worked for a year with NCR. I

commercial use, and (3)...................... January I have been writing programs in C for use in large retail chains. These have been very successful and we have won several new contracts in the UK and Europe on the strength of my team’s success.

Two years (4)…………… I spent three months in Spain testing our programs and also made several visits to Italy, so I have a basic knowledge of Spanish

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and Italian. I now feel ready for more responsibility and more challenging work, and would welcome the opportunity to learn about a new industry.

I enclose my curriculum vitae. I will be available for an interview at any time. I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely, Sarah Brown [4]

GRAMMAR

for, since, ago, until

We use for to refer to a period of time. I've lived in Liverpool for five years. We use since to refer to a point in time. I’ve been unemployed since May 2005.

We use ago with the past simple to say when something happened. We put ago after the time period.

I got married five years ago.

We use until to mean up to a certain time. I stayed at high school until I was 18.

2.Answer these questions.

-Which job is Sarah Brown applying for?

-Where did she see the advertisement?

-How long has she been working as a software engineer?

-What type of programs has she written?

-When did she spend three months in Spain?

READING

3. Read the job advertisement for a webmaster at eJupiter.

Vacancies at eJupiter.co.uk Webmaster

We are seeking a Webmaster for eJupiter.co.uk, a company dedicated to e- commerce.

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The successful candidate will manage our website. You will be responsible for making sure the web server runs properly, monitoring the traffic through the site, and designing and updating our web pages.

Experience of using HTML and Java is essential. Experience of Adobe PDF and Photoshop is an advantage. The successful candidate will also have knowledge of web editors - MS FrontPage or equivalent.

Send your CV and covering letter to James Taylor, eJupiter Computers, 37 Oak Street, London SW10 6XY [7]

WRITING

4. Think of your ideal job and write a letter of application for it. If you prefer, look on the Internet for real jobs and practice applying for those. Follow these steps:

Paragraph one (reason for writing):

I am writing to apply for the position of ...

Paragraph two (education and training): I graduated in (date)...

I completed a course in . . .

Paragraph three (work experience): For the past X years I have been ...

Since X I have been … Paragraph four (personal skills):

I spent X months in (country) ..., so l have knowledge of (e.g., foreign languages).

I can ...

Paragraph five (reasons why you are applying for this job):

I now feel ready to ... and would welcome the opportunity to ...

Paragraph six (closing / availability for interview):

I enclose ... I look forward to... I will be available for an interview …

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LESSON 9. IS THERE ANYTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN

HAL 9000, fictional artificial intelligence device from 2001: Space Odyssey movie

PART 1. INNOVATIONS AND TECHNOLOGIES OF THE FUTURE SPEAKING

1. Work in groups. Study these predictions of developments in Information Technology from 1997. Which, if any, have come true? Are the others likely to come true? Give reasons for your decisions and report to the class:

2000 – Electronic newspaper;

2002 – Multiple channels of more than 100 Gigabits per second on single fibre; 2003 – Hydraulic chair for VR;

2005 – Personal wearable health monitor;

2005 – Intranets dominate over Internet;

2006 – Fire fighting robots that can find and rescue people; 2007 – Terabits per second on optical fibres over distance; 2010 – Robotic pets;

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2010 – Robotic devices within blood vessels;

2017 – Inward parts of the body created with 3D printers; 2025 – Artificial brain implants;

2030 – Quantum networks usage.

2.Give each of these inventions a number from 0 to 5 depending on whether it isn’t important for people at all (0) or it is really important for our society (5). Work in pairs and share your opinions with each other. Mention the differences and be ready to report them back.

3.How do you think developments in IT will affect these areas of life in the next ten years?

1.commerce

2.work

3.the relationship between humans and computers.

4.Compare your predictions with others in your group. Try to agree on a ranking from most likely to least likely.

READING

5. Read four texts about the technologies of the future.

1)Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the science of making intelligent machines and programs. The term originated in the 1940s, when Alan Turing said: ‘A machine has artificial intelligence when there is no discernible difference between the conversation generated by the application is robotics. One example is ASIMO, Honda’s intelligent humanoid robot. Soon, engineers will have built different types of android, with the form and capabilities of humans. Another AI application is expert systems – programs containing everything that an ‘expert’ knows about a subject. In a few years, doctors will be using expert systems to diagnose illnesses.

2)Imagine you are about to take a holiday in Europe. You walk out to the garage

and talk to your car. Recognizing your voice, the car’s doors unlock. On the way to the airport, you stop at an ATM. A camera mounted on the bank machine looks you

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in the eye, recognizes the pattern of your iris and allows you to withdraw cash from your account.

When you enter the airport, a hidden camera compares the digitized image of your face to that of suspected criminals. At the immigration checkpoint, you swipe a card and place your hand on a small metal surface. The geometry of your hand matches the code on the card, and the gate opens. You’re on your way.

Does it sound futuristic? Well, the future is here. Biometrics uses computer technology to identify people based on physical characteristics such as fingerprints, facial features, voice, iris and retina patterns.

3)Ubiquitous computing, also known as pervasive computing, is a new approach in which computer functions are integrated into everyday life, often in an invisible way. Ubiquitous devices can be anything from smartphones to tiny sensors in homes, offices and cars, connected to networks, which allow information to be accessed anytime and anywhere – in other words, ubiquitously. In the future people will interact naturally with hundreds of these smart devices (objects containing microchip and memory) every day, each invisibly embedded in our environment and communicating with each other without cables.

4)In the ideal smart home, appliances and electronic devices work in sync to

keep the house secure. For example, when a regular alarm system senses that someone is breaking into the house, it usually alerts the alarm company and then the police. A smart home system would go further, turning on the lights in the home and then sending a text message to the owner’s phone. Motorola Homesight even sends images captured by wireless cameras to phones and PCs.

Smart homes can remember your living patterns, so if you like to listen to some classical music when you come home from work, your house can do that for you automatically. They will also know when the house is empty and make sure all appliances are turned off. All home devices will be interconnected over a home area network where phones, cable services, home cinemas, touch screens, smart mirrors and even the refrigerator will cooperate to make our lives more comfortable [9].

6.Find words in the texts with the following meanings.

1.a microscopic robot, built with nanotechnology (text 1) ______________

2.a robot that resembles a human (text 2) ______________

3.biological identification of a person (text 3) ______________

4.integrated; inserted into (text 4) ______________

5.electrical devices, or machines, used in the home (text 5) ______________

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