Chapter 4

This previous week has been going over Chapter 4. This chapter is just a bit long since last week, we weren't able to complete all of the curriculum. I'm starting to understand the Transport Layer way more and it's all beginning to make an image in my mind. We're starting to learn about things that I've never even had known about before which is what I wanted from this class. All this hardware and internetworking of a computer that I didn't know before is what I originally wanted to gain from this class. I'm starting to wonder if I would want to associate myself with this kind of career but it doesn't look that promising right now. All of the things that we're learning about in class such as port numbers, TCP, UDP, addressing, sockets, segments, just to name a few, are widening my computer knowledge extensively. In no other class in LASA would I have been able to go so much in depth into these kinds of topics. So as of now, learning about these things seems to be more of a goal than to get any kind of certification which I've figured out doesn't last past college. Below is an image of the process in which the sender checks whether or not the receiver has received the data which I think would be the PDU's (protocol data units). I find this process really neat because it's simple enough to where even I would even be able to come up with it and its so useful.

Chapter 3

This week was the start of Chapter 3 in our lesson. Chapter 3 is about the Application layer in the internetworking models, but it gets quite in depth. Unlike Chapter 2, where the topics were quite broad and none were too specific, the Chapter 3 information goes way more in depth. In fact, we're going to have a test on the Chapter 3 material this Monday. We weren't given that much time in class since we only had two days due to the new scheduling, and I have not had Internetworking since last Wednesday. It makes everything so awkward because we're going to have a test after not having seen the teacher for nearly a week, but Mr. Stephens is allowing for studying in the morning. For Chapter 3, I'm going to have a bit better experience in how the questions since I've taken Chapter 2 Test. I however, haven't been able to complete all the Chapter 3 labs, but hopefully with my review tonight and the in-class notes, I should do well on the test.

Week 3

This past week was spent finalizing Chapter 2. We weren't able to move onto chapter 3 material just yet, however, due to trying to set up one of the computers to have an essential program. This will allow us to create a network environment so we can do some of the labs hands-on which would create a completely different learning environment in the classroom. In addition, we will probably be able to learn more of how the "real-world" works when not strictly bound to the computers to set up the fiction lab, but it is extremely time-saving. Another important thing we had this week, was that on Tuesday, we had our first test/quiz. Since it was over Chapter 2, there wasn't much material that needed to be covered, but as the chapters goes on, the topics will go more in depth and it'll gradually get harder. I wasn't extremely happy with the grade I got on it, especially since we were allowed other resources like the powerpoints. The reason I'm not too upset is because of the nice little ability we have to retake the test to make up to an 85%. This is pretty fair and it doesn't give a reasonable second chance to a student who for whatever reasons messed up the first time.

Chapter 2

I'm starting to like that Cisco has provided us with many resources that we are able to learn without the help of AISD. The powerpoint from the websites and their quizzes are pretty sufficient enough to run the class on its own. The test which we'll take, which has been rescheduled to Tuesday once again, it should be something new and hopefully with the help of notes, I should do well on it. Even though the course hasn't gotten into that much of the specifics yet, we have covered a lot of broad material which'll take some time, for me atleast, to settle into my brain. But what I'm already enjoying about it is that we're learning about the hardware aspects. Right now, its not the "coding" part that we've all been used to, but its more about how the objects themselves communicated with each other. The diagrams and the labs really do help a person visualize the scenario and mess around with it, which would take days to do in a real lab.