What is a Network?

A network consists of two or more computers that are linked together to share resources (such as printers and files), or to allow electronic communications.

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What is a Network?

The computers on a network may be linked through cables, telephone lines, radio waves, satellites, or infrared light beams.

Two basic types of networks:

Local Area Network and

Wide Area Network

Typical Network

Local Area Network

A Local Area Network (LAN) is usually confined to a small geographic area such as a school, or hospital.

Local Area Network

In a typical LAN configuration, one computer is designated as the file server.

It stores all of the software that controls the network, as well as the software that can be shared by the computers attached to the network.

How do they Communicate?

Computers connected to the file server are called workstations.

The workstations can be less powerful than the file server, and they may have additional software on their hard drives.

How do they Communicate?

On most LANs, cables are used to connect the computers together.

Wireless is becoming more and more popular and is what our iPads use to communicate.

Wide Area Network

Wide Area Networks (WANs) connect larger geographic areas, such as Towns, Counties, or the world (WWW).

Wide Area Network

Using a WAN, schools in can communicate with places like America in a matter of seconds

A WAN is very complicated.

It uses special equipment to connect local and other WANs to global communications networks like the Internet.

To users, however, a WAN will not appear to be much different than a LAN.

Advantages of Network

SPEED

Speed

Networks provide a rapid method for sharing and transferring files.

Without a network, files are shared by copying them to memory pens, then carrying or sending the pens from one computer to another.

This method of transferring files (referred to as sneaker-net ) is time-consuming.

Cost

Networkable versions of many popular software programs are available at considerable savings when compared to buying individually licensed copies.

Cost in Time

Besides monetary savings, sharing a program on a network allows for easier upgrading of the program.

The changes have to be done only once, on the file server, instead of on all the individual workstations.

Security

Files and programs on a network can be designated to particular workstations only.

Also, passwords can be created for specific files.

Electronic Mail

If the LAN is connected to the Internet, Teachers and Staff can communicate with others throughout the world.

Flexible Access .

School networks allow students to access their files from computers throughout the school.

Students can begin work in their classroom, save part of it on the network, and then go to a different part of the school to finish their work.

Flexible Access .

As you know we have done this by starting work on an iPad and completing it in the Suite.

Students can also work cooperatively (together) through the network.

What exactly is the Internet, and how does it work?

In the early days, most people just used the Internet to search for information.

Today's Internet is a constantly evolving tool that not only contains an amazing variety of information but that also provides new ways of accessing, interacting, and connecting with people and content.

As a result, new terms are constantly appearing as new technologies are introduced.

So, what is the Internet

What is the Internet? The Internet is the largest computer network in the world, connecting millions of computers.

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The World Wide Web

When most people think of the Internet, the first thing they think about is the World Wide Web.

Nowadays, the terms "Internet" and "World Wide Web" are often used interchangeably—but they're actually not the same thing.

The Internet is the physical network of computers all over the world.

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The World Wide Web is a virtual network of websites connected by hyperlinks (or "links").

Websites are stored on servers on the Internet, so the World Wide Web is a part of the Internet.

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HTML The backbone of the World Wide Web is made of HTML files, which are specially formatted documents that can contain links, as well as images and other media.

All web browsers can read HTML files.

In addition to HTML, it's common for websites to use technologies like CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and JavaScript and Flash to do more advanced things.

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URL

To get to a webpage, you can type the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) into a browser. The URL, also known as the web address, tells the browser exactly where to find the page.

However, most of the time, people get to a webpage by following a link from a different page or by searching for the page using a search engine.

History of the Internet

Before there was the public internet there was the internet's forerunner ARPAnet or Advanced Research Projects Agency Networks.

ARPAnet was funded by the United States military after the cold war with the aim of having a military command and control centre that could withstand nuclear attack.

History of the Internet

The point was to distribute information between geographically dispersed computers.

ARPAnet created the TCP/IP communications standard, which defines data transfer on the Internet today.

History of the Internet

The ARPAnet opened in 1969 and was quickly usurped by civilian computer nerds who had now found a way to share the few great computers that existed at that time.

Father of the Internet Tim Berners-Lee

History of the Internet

Tim Berners-Lee was the man leading the development of the World Wide Web (with help of course), the defining of HTML (hypertext mark-up language) used to create web pages, HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) and URLs (Universal Resource Locators).

All of those developments took place between 1989 and 1991.

History of the Internet

Tim Berners-Lee was born in London, England and graduated in Physics from Oxford University in 1976.

He is currently the Director of the World Wide Web Consortium, the group that sets technical standards for the Web.

Did you know?

The foundation of the Internet began in 1969, when the U.S. Department of Defence created ARPAnet, a project to allow military personnel to communicate with each other in an emergency.

By 2012, the number of Internet users worldwide reached 2.4 billion—about one-third of the world's population.

To store all of the information that's available on the Internet, you would need more than 2 billion DVDs or 500 million Blu-ray discs.

What we do not use the Internet for……