'15-'16 Sending Binary Messages with the Internet Simulator

Hey tiffany. That’s kind of the intent of the A/B version of the Internet Simulator – think about the engineers who actually invented this stuff for the first time and had to solve the problems! When your students come up with solutions you can tell them that they just solved one of the greatest problems of engineering…one that lead to the construction of the internet.

I had my students try and use the Internet Simulator and worked for about 4 students only and the other 25 did not get a Join button on the simulator. What’s the trick? (I also tried it during the Hour of Code week too.). So we skipped it. I hoping to try the internet simulator on Lesson 8. Wish me luck.

Hello Everyone,

I am not part of any pilot program, just a teacher trying to get the AP CS Principles started at my school with very little help (and some resistance) from my admin. I sort of randomly found this curriculum and have started working through it. How do I find the actual Internet Simulator? I think I saw a post that showed how to use it by myself. Is that possible?

Thanks,
Roscoe

Hi Mr. Ahn

The internet simulator is built into the curriculum and evolves over the course of the curriculum. Each time it returns in the curriculum it gains new features so in fact there are multiple “versions” of the internet simulator that students use.

The first level you will find it on is Lesson 4 - Puzzle 2 - https://studio.code.org/s/cspunit1/stage/4/puzzle/2

You can also find all the levels of the Internet Simulator pulled out into their own script here: https://levelbuilder-studio.code.org/s/netsim

-Dani

I have done these twice now and the the students seem to enjoy them. Now I have to repeat the goal several times and I tend to give hints along the way to those who a struggling. I also have every pair show their machine. As they watch other machines the weaker students begin to get it. Don’t drag these lessons out. They really help students for the follow on lessons.

Create a class and add two students that you control. You will need to do this for later lesson anyhow. I also have not taken PD, but I’m using it already in my classroom and the student seem to really like the first two units. I t gives them a lot of knowledge on computer science without losing them.

I’m in a block school and just starting my second pass at teaching CSP. I feel a little bad for last semester’s kids because everything was just too new and too fast for me, even though I’d done the training. There is nothing like teaching a course once to learn the material yourself.

I agree with one of the previous posts that watching CSP Tips & Tricks on the Internet Simulator was a huge help in preparing for the lesson. Before we began I had students who had phones and phone numbers of someone in class send a text (the only time they can have their phones our all year!). It took about 30 seconds. I stressed that there were two enormously important challenges to providing a technology that could do that seemingly simple process: how to get the message from point A to point B, and how to figure out what was being sent. Today’s lesson dealt with the latter.

Also helpful was the blue-red colored line in the lesson plan.

The kids had no troubles pairing up on the wires, and at first there was the normal confusion about exactly what I wanted them to do. But quickly they caught on, and quickly they saw the necessity of the clock and a cadence or sequence. They were sitting next to each other with laptops at first, but as they gained confidence in their protocols I encourage them to separate (my room is big enough) and test it without talking.

For tomorrow I have prepared slips of papers with 10-letter sequences and they are ready for the Show Down. I’m going to set a timer to time their finish time. Points are lost for mistakes in transmission, but extra point can be gained for accurate AND speeds transmission. I have two sets of challenges: one one-way, and one back-and-forth (we will be clearing the log in between).

I am so much more confident with this material, and here in the second week of the semester I’m already one week ahead of where I was in the previous semester.

I am slowly beginning to understand just how good the lessons, videos, resources, Code Studio are. Not sucking up here, just appreciative for all the hard work that has gone into this. Now if I can find the time to learn in more in depth…

Hi Dale,

Thanks so much for sharing this! Its so great to hear that the second time around has gone much smoother than the first. LOVE the plan for the Show Down! Sounds super fun! Keep up the great work and let us know if you have any feedback about how the curriculum works the second time around.

-Dani

I have not attended PD so i am teaching myself in preparation for the 2016-17 school year. In this lesson the teaching guide says the case study can be accessed in App Lab but i have no idea how to do this. Please HELP!!!

Hello Bryan,

I’m sorry about the confusion here and you’re absolutely right that we neglected to include those images in Code Studio. I’ve marked it to be resolved but in the meantime I’d recommend just drawing the patterns on the whiteboard. It’s primarily supposed to be a thinking exercise so any way you can provide those images so they can reason about them is fine. Hope that helps and thanks for the heads up.

Best,
GT

Thanks so much for getting back to me. I am really excited about using your curriculum. Can you tell me whether you will provide written assessments for each unit or maybe each 1/2 unit. Just multiple choice assessments would be great as they would mirror the AP Exam. I’m new at this so any thing you could provide would be greatly appreciated

We just released some assessments in almost exactly that style for parts of Unit 3 but we don’t yet have them for Unit 1 or 2. You’re certainly not alone in asking for them but we’ll be directing resources towards Unit 3 and 4 assessments first since the majority of teachers are moving into those units now. We will be subsequently writing assessments for Units 1 and 2, however, and they will be available before the start of next school year. We do provide rubrics or even exemplars for many of the activities in Units 1 and 2 and if you verify your account with us (if you haven’t already) you can get access to some more teacher-facing content in Code Studio. To do so you can go to this form.

Really great to hear how excited you are about the curriculum and we hope you’ll find the resources helpful. Please keep coming back with questions and feedback!

Cheers,
GT

That is awesome!!! I have previously filled out the teacher form and been given access, but when I go to the lesson plans for unit 3 I don’t see any exams. Am I looking at the right place? In the list of lesson plans it does say assessment 1 and 2 in blue highlighting but I can’t click on it. I know I’m doing something wrong and I apologize for bothering you but your help would be deeply appreciated.

Thanks
Bryan

No worries at all Bryan. Check out this link https://studio.code.org/s/cspunit3/stage/8/puzzle/1 for the first set of assessments and this link https://studio.code.org/s/cspunit3/stage/15/puzzle/1 for the second set. They’re placed at the start of each lesson where we think it makes sense to give them and they also are linked in the lesson plans.

Keep asking questions, it helps us make things easier to use.

Related request: Can you send me a link to page that has the list of lesson plans where the links to assessment 1 and 2 aren’t working. I can see if I can figure that out as well.

Cheers,
GT

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Fantastic!!! Thank you

A little off topic here but i was wondering if you could tell me anything about the PD this summer and if i have any chance of making the cut. I was told i was on the waiting list but was holding out hope before i start the course for real in september

Hi Bryan,

Its awesome to hear you are interested in the summer PD. As much as we would like to train every interested teacher we have limited capacity this year as we grow a new program. We won’t know for a little bit if people from the waiting list will be able to join in the summer PD. We have to fill spots with teachers from our partner districts first. Once that process is complete we will have a better sense if there will be spots for teachers off the wait list.

-Dani

Anyone have tips for handling absent students making up activities on their own in the Internet Simulator? - Thanks, Andy

Hi Andy,

No particular tips since I have not had to deal with this situation, but just FYI it is possible for a student (or anyone) to connect to themselves with the internet simulator. Just open up two tabs in your browser to the same level and you’ll appear twice in the simulation. So, if you can think up something for a student to do on their own it is possible to use NetSim outside of class and/or by yourself.

-Baker

Can you explain what would happen if the friend sent one bit every 1/2 second instead? Would you only see AA or would you still see AABB? Sorry…I’m new to this.