How the Internet Connects together at Calmore Junior School

Last Thursday I taught my first session on how the Internet works with
two Year 5 classes at Calmore Junior School. Staff and pupils really
made me feel welcome which was appreciated as it was my first session
at the school.

I started of by outlining how the Internet works for my family by
showing the pathways various devices that we use such as a Windows PC
and an IPad connect through routers to the websites we use. I used a
dashed line to denote wireless and a solid line to show wired
connections. I labelled my home router and Internet Service provider
router. Pupils split up into groups of two or three and using the 14
sticker sheet created their own pathway. All but one group managed to
do this successfully, although I did remind a few about the structure.

Each group chose a Country from another sticker sheet before arranging
them on the floor at the front of the classroom. Next time I do this I
might go for a geographical arrangement. As I talked about fibre optic
cables under the sea I connected up routers in different countries
using string. We then looked at how the Internet has redundancy in
that traffic can be routed along different paths if a connection
fails. This went well, although brighter coloured string would make it
more it more visually pleasing.