Main Activities
This chapter involves a lot of material and a lot of terminology. It is best to break this down into
manageable pieces for the students (and to keep you on track). There are three overall sections to
this chapter: media, devices, and specialized networking. Mention each category first and keep the
rest separate from the discussion until one section is completed.
1. Network Media
Keeping running diagrams and charts on the board is a good way to keep each area straight. One
of the main purposes of this is to decide which cable to use and when, so you should develop a
hierarchy as you go in terms of distance, price, and network capacity.
It is important to distinguish why a certain medium is used for communication. For instance,
copper wire is cheap but it is subject to a lot of issues like crosstalk and EMI. There are ways to
Using the triangle and other factors (such as up-front cost versus maintenance cost, scalability,
and so on), the final ranking you should establish is as follows:
a. Copper (or wireless where feasible) for short distances
b. MMF for longer distances
c. SMF where the others cannot be used
This should help your students identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of the media and
engage in debate and conversation to support the differences.
2. Network Routing
The next exercise should focus on the use of routers, switches, bridges, and hubs in a network.
Create a mock network on the board using at least two subnets and three nodes each. Connect
each node to a blank box in the subnet, such as the one shown here.