Twenty-First Century Challenges: Grades 4-5

What Is a Network?

Download Student Sheet(s) for printout in PDF format.

Read a Letter to Educators about twenty-first century challenges from CyberSmart!

Overview

Students model a network and learn that the Internet consists of many computer networks that are able to communicate with one another.

Objectives

  • Model a computer network
  • Define the Internet and explain that computers must use the same language to communicate
  • Explain that no one person or organization owns the Internet

National Educational Technology Standards for Students © 2007

Source: International Society for Technology in Education
  1. Technology Operations and Concepts
    1. understand and use technology systems.

Home Connection

Download the Home Connection sheet related to this lesson.

Site Preview

No Internet site is used in this lesson.

Materials

  • Activity sheets (2)
  • String (1 piece per student plus 1 extra, cut into 12-foot lengths)

Introduce

  • To elicit prior knowledge, ask: How does the Internet work? Accept all responses, explaining that this lesson will clarify a few basics about the Internet.

Teach 1

  • Distribute Activity Sheet 1, take students and the pieces of string to an open area, and have students read and follow the directions.
  • Make sure students understand that the strings represent connections and that the hub device allows any computer to communicate with any other in the network.
  • Guide students to understand that since all computers in the network are connected through the hub, each computer can reach the Internet through the one computer designated to do so. OPTIONAL: Tell students that this computer is serving as a "router computer."
  • Have students return to their seats and draw a diagram on the back of Activity Sheet 1 illustrating how the class members arranged themselves. Invite volunteers to share and discuss their diagrams.

Teach 2

  • Distribute Activity Sheet 2.
  • OPTIONAL: Explain that the use of glass cables is called fiber optics. Information travels through these very thin glass fibers as light energy. In contrast, information travels through copper wires as electrical energy.

Assess

The following items assess student mastery of the lesson objectives.

  • Ask: What is the Internet?
  • Ask: How do computers communicate on the Internet?
  • Ask: Who owns the Internet?

Extend

The following activity can be added for students who completed this lesson in a previous grade.

  • Challenge students to use string to model other ways to connect computers in a network.

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