Have students act out packet routing to learn about how information moves through the Internet in a way that is easy for them to understand and visualize.

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  • This activity, borrowed from Jan Plane at University Maryland, College Park, works especially well with younger students.
  • Activity:
    • Assign all student to one of four roles:
      • Routers
      • Packets
      • Clients
      • Servers
    • Tell the students what each role is supposed to do.
    • Give Packet students pieces of papers.
    • Next, Client students send the Packet students to a particular series of Routers.
      • Say Client student 1 send’s every other Packet student to Router student A or Router student B.
        • So a Packet student gets sent to Router student A, then the next Packet student gets sent to Router B, and then the next to Router A, and so on and so forth.
      • Then Router students send the Packet student to another Router student.
        • Say Router A sends a Packet student to Router D.
        • The Packet student walks over to Router D and that Router directs them to a Server.
        • The Packet student gives the Server their piece of paper.
        • The Server makes a modification to the paper (perhaps they’ll draw on it).
        • Then the Server gives the paper back to the Packet and send the Packet to a Router.
        • The Router sends them back to the Client.
    • Note: Depending on the number of students, you can make this more or less complex.
External Source

Interview with Elissa Redmiles.

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