Surfing the Net

Today, the children were busy learning all about the World Wide Web. Specifically, how does an email, a picture or an invite to an online game travel from one device to another…

We began by learning all about what we use the internet for and networking. The children were all assigned to their own little networks on their tables. They began by sending an email to someone in their network by giving it to the switch who then passed it to the person the email was addressed to. We then explored how a router works. The children were asked to send an email to another network (someone on a different table). We learnt that the message would be sent to the switch, who would then pass it to the router and the router’s job is to then pass it to the correct network. We then thought about this on a global scale and how incredibly mind-blowing the internet is, particularly how quickly the information is able to travel from one network to another via the router.

We then talked about how a network will try to prevent inappropriate, unkind or harmful messages and files from being sent, however some do sometimes slip the net. It was great to see that the children knew that if they ever encountered something suspicious online then they were to inform a responsible adult.

We also learnt some fascinating facts about technology. Did you know:

-There are currently approximately 4.1 billion internet users, which is over half the world’s population!

-China has the most internet users with over 800 million people online. 

-The internet was invented by Sir Tim Berners Lee and went live to the public on April 30th, 1993. 

Well done, Year 4. A great afternoon of networking!