Thinking of ITGS project ideas can be difficult. The internal assessment must be based on a real world client, but clients are unlikely to seek students out. This means students must often try to find a suitable client with a suitable problem that can be solved using IT. Here are some tips on where to look for potential project clients, plus some ITGS project ideas my students have tried in the past. Of course, each ITGS project is different and should be tailored to the needs of the client, but this list should help you understand the type of projects that are suitable:
Local businesses
Small local businesses tend to be a good place to find potential clients. While some small businesses make excellent use of information technology, many are simply unaware of the potential it has to help their business. Others may lack the IT skills or finance to prioritise such projects. My students have created several ITGS projects for local businesses, including:
- A database to keep track of equipment for a gardening company
- A bilingual menu for a local restaurant (DTP project)
- A DTP brochure advertising a specialist watch company’s products
- A website for a local furniture company
- A promotional video for a small landscape gardening company
- A heavily customised database to keep track of client appointments
- A program to keep track of shift times for a small factory
Local groups, clubs, and charities
Even more so than local businesses, local sports clubs, charity groups, and churches are likely to operate on minimal budgets. They may have a variety of problems that need solving, and could make excellent potential ITGS projects. Examples include:
- A website project to promote a local sports team
- A website project for a local church group
- A promotional video for a local clothes donation charity, asking for donations and showing the impacts of donated clothes
- A database for a local church, to keep track of members and their donations
- A spreadsheet to manage the bookings and seat allocations for a very small local theatre group
- A DTP project for a local community group, creating a newsletter and template for future use
ITGS project ideas in school
Your own school can be a great place to find ITGS project clients. This also has the advantage that they will be very accessible for interviews and feedback. However, remember that fellow students cannot be ITGS project clients. Examples of projects my students have conducted with school-based clients include:
- A programming project to create a circuit designer for the physics teacher
- A heavily customised database to create a quiz program for a science teacher
- A PowerPoint based quiz program for the ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher in a local primary school
- A website for parents who wish to car pool for the journey to/from school
- A DTP project to create a welcome guide to students new to the school’s area.
- A DTP project to create a workbook for a school field trip
- A database to manage inventory (tents, rucksacks, etc) for the International Award coordinator
Finally, if you identify a potential ITGS project but it turns out be unsuitable, consider it as a CAS project instead. Projects were multiple products are required, or hardware projects where there is limited content creation, will fall into this category. (But remember that your internal assessment cannot count for ITGS and CAS).
Hello,
I am doing a DTP Project for my Internal Assessment, I am barely hitting 3 minutes of screencast and my teacher says the optimum time to reach is somewhere between 4 to 5 minutes. I do not know what else I can present regarding a PDF file. Do you have any tips on what other info I should present in the screencast?
The main focus of your screencast should be going through the techniques you described in the earlier criterion. If you have enough of those techniques, I’d be surprised if you stopped after 3 minutes.