On Mon, Dec 22, 2014 at 3:31 PM, Ken Chase <math@sizone.org> wrote:
Learning how to do CIDR math is a major core component of the coursework? Im thinking that this is about a 30 minute module in the material, once you know binary, powers of 2 and some addition and subtraction (all of which is taught in most schools by when, first year highschool?) you should be done with it.
So... just finished up teaching a network course because the Math/Comp Sci dept had lost professors I can tell you it was really tough getting across the idea of four bytes of dotted decimal from binary and THEN subnet masks and getting the students THEN to convert to CIDR. Many glazed eyeballs. We asked some of the students who had taken the network class in prior years and it was true that they learned very little of the things we consider basic, as Javier mentioned. The profs seemed to have been focusing on programming more than neworking per se, even tho the book they were using covered the technology as well as socket programming. We covered all of the things in Javier's initial rant and more, like the principles of TCP congestion control and the history of packet switching. It was fun being able to let them in on some real world things, like say the sinking feeling of making a change in a network and then the phone starts ringing off the hook :-) Unfortunately, this was likely a one-time deal that the students got to really learn a couple of things about networking. Dennis Bohn
Adelphi University