Section 2.1

Learning Goals

• CSN-1.D: Students will describe the differences between the Internet and the World Wide Web.

• CSN-1.E: For fault-tolerant systems, like the Internet:

  • a. Students will describe the benefits of fault tolerance.

  • b. Students will explain how a given system is fault-tolerant.

• Students will record in chronological order benchmark devices in the history of computing.

• Students will summarize the design decisions that made the Internet scalable. 

• CSN-1.B.6: The scalability of a system is the capacity for the system to change in size and scale to meet new demands. 

• CSN-1.B.7: The Internet was designed to be scalable. 

Objectives and General Description

The objective for this section is to walk students through a history of computing devices that includes the formation of the Internet.  Fault tolerance, redundancy and open systems were design decisions in the creation of the Internet that have made the Internet scalable allowing unprecedented growth and impacting society, economy and cultures worldwide.  These concepts will be explored more in depth later in this unit.

Students will be asked to mark several important dates on their personal timeline.  As the lesson progresses, students will add important computing milestones to this timeline so that the students can visualize the rapid growth of technology since the late 1960's.  As part of this exploration, students will be introduced to ARPANET which ultimately became the basis for the Internet.  Class discussions will focus on the design decisions made at this time that were significant in the scalability of the Internet.

Activities

Note:  If Unit 0 was omitted, you may want to start this lesson with the impact activity from Section 0.1.

Activity 2.1.1 (Budget 55 minutes)

1. Warm up activity:  Ask the students to individually answer the question “What is the Internet?”.  Use "What is the Internet?" worksheet to record individual responses.  Have students also add their response to a group display (Padlet, survey monkey, google form) and briefly discuss their thoughts.  Discussion should be casual and non-judgmental.  

2. History of Computing Timeline: Students are given a blank timeline and asked to fill in the four dates:  the year they were born, the year they can remember getting/playing  their first electronic device, the year they got their first cell phone and the year their selected innovation was first created.  Note:  if there are students who do not have their own cell phones, you may want to switch this item to the year they first used a computer, had a computer in the classroom, etc.  Discuss and get a sense of dates.  Students like to talk about their first electronic device.  It's fun for the teacher to share information too (date you got your first cell phone, first email address, birthday, etc.).  Have fun with this.  Ask student to put this timeline and the What is the Internet worksheet to the side for the moment.

3.  History of major computing developments.  There are two options for how to teach this.

Option A.  Have the class build an collaborative timeline.  Break the class into groups.  Assign each group a topic from the list below.  These topics on the list are important people, products or ideas that have shaped modern computing.  Students should quickly research the assigned topic,  define/describe the topic and summarize the  importance to the computing field.   Finally the students will be adding the topic to the timeline in the correct location.  The computing topics to assign are:

• • • Abacus

    • Babbage machine

    • Ada Lovelace

    • Arpanet

    • Sir Tim Berners-Lee

    • ENIAC/UNIVAC

    • PONG

    • John Henry Thompson

    • Altair 8800

    • Xbox

    • Transistors

    • Tablets

    • Smart watches

    • IBM 5150

    • Dr. Marc Dean

    • Apple 1

    • Pascal's Adding Machine

    • Grace Hopper

    • IBM System/360

    • Robert Noyce

    • Osborne 1

    • Oculus

The timeline can be build digitally using google slides or other digital tools.  Student groups can make a slide that identifies the topic, adds a picture and a description of what the item is and why it was important.  Or, the teacher can draw a timeline on the board and students can add sticky notes & orally present the information.  All students should quickly jot the items down on their individual timelines.  

Option B.  Instead of building a timeline, use a resource and have students research the previously mentioned items and add them to the timeline handout.   Find a website, video or textbook PowerPoint that covers the history of major computing advancements.  Some suggestions are:

• https://www.livescience.com/20718-computer-history.html 

• Videos: 

  • History of computers part 1

  • History of Computers part 2

  • History of Computing

  • ExplainThatStuff.com

Once you have selected a resource, have students add important dates to their timeline.

4.  Reflection discussion after the timeline is created or during the presentation of items.

• 1. What was ARPANET?  The design decisions made with ARPANET were critical  (fault tolerance, redundancy and open system).  Students need to understand each concept and how those decisions together allowed ARPANET to become the internet and scale to the size that we have today.

  2. When did most computing innovations happen?  Why?

  3. What's the difference between the internet and the World Wide Web?

  4. What do you think was the most impactful item on the timeline?

5.  Show the video “What is the Internet?”  which can be found at https://code.org/educate/resources/videos  Video is 3 minutes, 44 seconds.  There are several resource videos on this page.

6.  Discuss and have students update their "What is the Internet?" worksheet with the 2.0 column.

Resources

• 2.1.1: What is the Internet? (student worksheet)

• 2.1.1: Blank computing timeline (student worksheet)

• 2.1.1: Code.org Video Resource Page (student resource)