Fox Road Media Tech Tips: April
April is all about being Balanced!
Looking for PYP Read-Alouds? Look no further!
Balanced Books
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
The Librarian of Basra
Mama Miti
Miracle Mud
New Shoes
The Woman Who Invented the Thread That Stops Bullets
March is Women's History Month!
NCWiseOwl has also compiled resources. You can find them here.
Alicia Alonso: Prima Ballerina
Aung San Suu Kyi
Mighty Jackie: The Strike Out Queen
Tech Bytes: What's the Hub, Bub?
Tech Tips: Hubs, Switches and Routers.
As we proceed through the various devices and protocols which are keeping our wireless and cabled computer networks humming, I would be remiss if I didn't mention three of the most crucial, if not absolutely necessary, parts of any computer network and those would be Hubs, Switches and Routers.
In all three cases these are devices which connect computers either to each other or to the Internet itself. The biggest difference between these boxes boils down to the amount of intelligence each has and their ability to management network traffic.
1) The Hub: A hub is a passive device with at least two (2) ports which connects computers to one another and can then be connected to a Switch or Router. The Hub only provides connectivity. It is not "intelligent" in any sense and to it all network traffic looks the same. One thing to note with hubs is that computers connected to one can see each other's network traffic and even access each other's files. A Hub can be connected to either of its smarter cousins, Switch or Router, to gain access to the Internet.
2) The Switch: A Switch is a much smarter version of a Hub. A Switch can read network traffic and determine which message (packet) should go where. In essence a Switch is a digital traffic cop which directs messages to the next proper destination in the request chain. The Switch can also segment its ports into separate domains within the network, therefore computers connect by a hub which is in turn connected to a switch can be on their own private network with no other computers being able to "see" their traffic or information.
3) The Router: The Router is the highest level of device in the Hub, Switch, Router food chain. The Router can do everything that the Switch and Hub can do but it also is able to communicate directly with the Internet via Domain Name Servers (DNS). The Router builds tables and stores the locations of computers within its own network and those frequently visited computers outside its network. Routers have built-in safeguards (e.g. Firewalls) which protect the Router and the computers under its purview. The average Internet consumer has a Router at home which provides wireless connectivity and World Wide Web access via a telephone or cable line.
Most of our classrooms here at Fox Road have wall-mounted cabinets which hold Switches that have cables running out to computers in the room and then fiber-optic lines running back to the main Router stack behind the Media Center.
That Router stack is connected to the WCPSS Wide Area Network via a T-1 phone line which is in turn connected to the Internet through T-3 Phones lines at Wake County Central.