10th Week

The Chapter 6 was the highlight of last week. The test and completing all the labs and activities made Internetworking one of my more important classes last week. What I was surprised about on the test was that there was not as much math as I thought there would be. I was expecting more towards what the worksheets were asking from us like finding the broadcast, next subnet, last subnet, etc, but the test focused a lot more on the logical parts. Also, for the summer camp, recruiting potential people involves researching the schools. We have picked a couple of middle schools but we haven't confirmed their interest in the camp. So that is something that we will need to do eventually.

Week 9

The past week has been heavily focusing on the subnetting aspect of Internetworking. Subnetting is where a network is divided so that a company or organization can use it for their own personal use. The first way we learned on how to do it was a technique that had a lot of excess IP's in each subnet. So to save space, another, more efficient way of subnetting is there which compresses the space and puts all them right next to each other. Subnetting is one of those topics that takes people some time to get used to, and it seems like 2 weeks does seem appropriate for this specific topic. The multiple worksheets we're getting is actually better in helping me how the process works. It was a bit confusing at first, but after doing those worksheets I think I've got the main idea and the main process in doing them. I still need to go back to the reference sheet to get some of the numbers which would be pretty tedious to do. This topic, is not solely about memorization like the other topics have been, but is a bit harder since it involves having to do arithmetic and knowing the content at the same time.

Week 8

Since this week was incredibly short due to the PSAT on Wednesday, but there's a lot that we're learning. Subnetting and Masking are things that I've never even heard before and they require a lot more calculations than  what I expected Internetworking to go into. Now that I think about it, subnetting seems like a topic that even technology savvy people don't know how to get. Most people who have a good understanding of computer technology will know what an IP address and a network is, but most people won't understand the concept behind subnetting. As I do the worksheets, I began to familiarize myself with the technique used to get the correct answer but I'm still a bit sketchy on some areas. I find that these worksheets is better than if we had just learned everything via audio. This topic seems a bit confusing at first but things start tying together, because everything in this has a relevance. An obvious but true recognition should be that after all a human did construct the network, therefore, all aspects of the network have some function and eventually fit together as puzzle pieces. So when learning this, for me, its near the end where everything starts to conjoin and be fully understandable. The worksheets on the given topic, even though I haven't yet completed them, should let me know how well I actually understand the material by myself.

Week 7

We've got through chapter 5; we've been through all the material and we've completed the test. I'm glad to have the test over with because I don't have to worry much over this weekend for anything Internetworking related since PSAT is coming up. Since its such an important test for juniors like me, I need to pay more attention to it over this weekend. In addition, I'm glad not to have the internetworking test in the 40-minute period we have after the psat. This network layer that was addressed in chapter 5 was an understandable topic and after taking the test I believe I'm pretty good at this section. Next week will not be normal at all, since our timing in the class is going to be minimum. We'll only have a full period class on Thursday, which means we might not be able to go through all of chapter 6 material by next week. For success in chapter 6, I'm going to look over the quiz worksheet that's at the end of the online course (or the printed out sheet we've been getting for the last two chapters). Doing them forces me to go through the material and notice the elements and topics that I wouldn't have noticed before. Also, it helps me know if I understand the material, in turn, preparing me for the test.

Week 6

I haven't had Internetworking from Wednesday so it's a bit challenging trying to remember what we did! We were able to finish the test of Chapter 4 on Tuesday lunch which did save us a whole bunch of time in class but did have to sacrifice half a lunch which wasn't a very big problem for me on Tuesday. Chapter 4 test was a bit challenging, but I did notice that having the multiple-choice quiz worksheet from the beginning did help me a bit in understanding the concepts rather than using the Cisco website/powerpoint for help. That's one of the suggestions I would like to make. Chapter 5, which we might have covered just a bit, I think, will be the focus of next week. And by next week, we might also get the Eagle Server up and running which should assist us in doing the labs in real-life instead of in the Packet Tracer labs. My first six weeks of Junior year has now been complete and I'm satisfied in what I'm doing in Internetworking.