Be nice to your sub while I’m at the Tech Prep Conference…

…and keep working on your OSI Model PowerPoint presentation. Today, Friday, please do your best to finish the presentation so I can see all of them next Wednesday.

Don’t forget:

The Introduction and History slides

Slides for each layer of the OSI Model explaining everything (with really good graphics!)

(plus the extra slides on decimal-to-binary and binary-to-decimal conversion among the Network layer slides)

and a Citations page with all the sites you visited in building your presentation

I’ll have a special activity waiting on the blog each day, so check in each day when the bell rings.

I’ll be checking up on how you all did when I get back from…

…County, that is.

A couple of additions to the OSI Model assignment

I’ve been waiting for the right time to teach you about binary-decimal and decimal-binary conversion. You see, a binary number like 10011001 is equal to a decimal number, for instance 192 (my examples don’t equal each other, BTW).

Since the Network Layer of the OSI Model involves IP addresses, which are a series of binary octets expressed in decimal form, it’s a good time to learn what the binary form looks like. Therfore:

• Each student in each team needs to find a website that explains decimal-binary and binary-decimal conversion.
• Each student needs to save it to his or her bookmarks in Firefox, and each student needs to show me his or her web pages that their team could use to build the slides that explain binary numbers and their decimal equivalents.
• Then, each team needs to add these slides just before the third, or Network, layer of the OSI Model PowerPoint presentation.

Okay. Now there’s another special added requirement of the OSI Model presentation. I want us to find out what part of Windows operating system software controls session management during file transfer. So, today or Tuesday, I would like:

• Each student to search for and find a website that explains how file-transfer sessions are managed by Windows. This might be hard, so I’ll be looking, too, in order to give you clues.
• When we find the information, we should include it in our Session Layer section of the PowerPoint presentation.

This will make our OSI Model presentations more complete and understandable.

Special Memo to 3rd Period

Lately I haven’t had the best luck getting you all to get quiet, focused, and ready to work. You’re not the only class that has ever been like this, but you’re the one class I worry about this year.

So, I’ve tried a few things, and some work, some don’t. I’m going to try one more thing because I want the students who are mature and ready to do more in this class to not get held back.

Here’s what I’m going to do:

• I’m going to give an assignment and let you alone. If you don’t want to work, you will probably get an F in this class. That will be decided by losing 5% of your grade for each period you don’t produce much work.
• Those of you who are good at taking responsibility will get special hands-on work that’s more fun and takes a mature person to do it safely.
• Everyday I’ll check in the last 5 minutes to see who wins or loses points. You need to have something to show me each day.
• Those of you who do not do work will not only lose points but end up in detention and Saturday School. I hope you don’t choose this path.

I look forward to working with kids who are motivated and responsible. You’ll end up being the winners. I hope no one chooses to lose. I hope everyone shows up to work.

The OSI Model PowerPoint Presentation

Now we’re going to break up into groups of 7 to build a PowerPoint presentation on the OSI Model.

Each member should start out working on one layer

Each member should include both words and pictures that explain the layer

Then the team should work together to have an introduction with the history and purpose, a graphic that represents the model, and a combined citations page

Do a tight but thorough job. The presentation is due next Monday, Feb. 19th.

The OSI Reference Model

We’ve already taken a quick look at the OSI Reference Model, and we’ve checked out Ethernet, which is the most popular networking architecture on the Physical layer of the OSI Model. (And a little bit of Ethernet acts on the Data Link, or second, layer.)

So we’ve already gotten a start. Today, I want you to research the OSI Reference Model itself. Let’s do it this way:

1. From the Research Links, open a Cornell Notes page. Type in your name and date, and then hit the F12 key that gives you the “Save As” box. Change the saving folder to “My Documents” and save with the name “osi model research” and include your name in the file name.
2. Use the Cornell Notes page to organize your research.
3. Find the history and origin of the OSI Reference Model. Remember, if you’re using Firefox, you can right-click on any word (or highlighted phrase) , click on “Look up on Answers.com” and check out the meaning of a word or its entry in an encyclopedia.
4. Also write or find a paragraph explaining each of the 7 layers of the OSI Model. You can use Google or any search engine you like, or you can use any of the several great links among the Research Links on the blog.
5. Find and copy any good pictures and graphics of the OSI Model and then paste them into your Cornell Notes page(s). That will save them for later.

Okay! Good luck finding all you need to know about this really handy model for understanding the way networks work. That’s what the OSI Reference Model is all about.

Be sure to save your work from time to time…