The operation of LAN and WAN hardware and protocols

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This course is the last of the eight courses in the collection Computing for School – Communication and Networks.

The course is for anyone who wants to know in detail about the variety of ways devices are connected across the Internet and how we can connect to it. It looks at the ‘language’ (protocols) used between devices to explain how they communicate and cooperate to provide connectivity.

Wide Area Networks (WANs) are introduced, and a variety of different WAN technology suitable for providing home Internet connectivity is discussed. The differences in operation of between LANs and WANs is discussed, and the use of TCP/IP in facilitating communication between LANs and WANs is investigated in detail.

Schools interested in using these materials as part of the National Curricula are free to do so. Additional teaching resources to support the delivery, manage classes and run quizzes are available for free to schools by registering to become a Cisco Academy. http://cs.co/ComputingForSchoolsCourse

This course is free and gives you the opportunity to earn a digital badge as a recognition of your learning. To access the course materials, pass the quizzes and collect the badge, you’ll need to enrol. If you already have an Open University account, you need to sign in before you enrol. Otherwise, it’s easy to create one.

Once you’ve signed in, return to this page and refresh it by clicking on the refresh button in your web browser – this usually looks like a recycling icon that features one arrow in a circle pointing to its tail, or two arrows in a circle pointing to each other. This will update your status so you can enrol by clicking on the ‘Enrol’ button. You are now enrolled and ready to start the course!

To see the other courses in this series, please visit the Computing for School’s collection page.

OpenLearn – The operation of LAN and WAN hardware and protocols
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