This strand is about what users can do with information once it has been collected. Users can transform, develop or display information in various ways to understand it better and communicate it more effectively to others. They can observe, describe and try to explain what happens as a result of introducing specific changes in the information or its processing. The use of ICT increases the efficiency with which data can be processed – automated processing allows large quantities of data to be handled very rapidly.
Modelling allows someone to define or use a representation of a situation or process and to observe how the model works and what happens when something changes. Modelling activities carried out with pencil and paper alone are slow. Speculative modelling (i.e. 'what happens if...?') is greatly enhanced, speeded up and made more dynamic and exciting if suitable ICT is available. For example, data collected from a science experiment can be stored in a spreadsheet, presented graphically, and the model explored by changing the values of the independent variables to test hypotheses.
The same principles of developing ideas underpin the sequencing of information as sets of instructions to exercise control or achieve desired physical effects. For example, using the menu shown on a TV screen to programme a video recorder, a viewer can define instructions that are activated in the correct sequence when they are triggered; similarly, users can develop a program to control the movement and actions of a robot at a car-manufacturing plant, develop simple games for their own and others' use, or create a macro in a spreadsheet or the HTML behind a web page.
Developing ideas has three substrands in the ICT Framework, which are:
