The world's largest network, the Internet, is also expanding in useage. Once imagined only for military and university use, the Internet is pushing beyond its original goal of sending text data to discovering new and creative uses for the millions of miles of wires and airwaves that connect the World Wide Web. And consider the growth in networking for the future. The vast majority of homes and businesses in the world today are not networked.

This class, Intro to Computer Networking, is not designed to make you network engineers. It is an introductory class that teaches/demonstrates how networks work. It is designed for the average person, not the "computer nerd". It will teach you the basic concepts of how computers and networks communicate. The skills and knowledge gained in this class are life skills for anyone in the 21st century. You will leave here with a better understanding of how email gets from a sender to the receiver; how a webpage travels from New York to Minnesota; how your computer in one room can talk to your sister's computer in another room; how a server passes out data to a user in an office and how it knows which user to send it to. You will learn the basics of networking.

Some of you may wish to become full fledged "computer nerds". We do offer 4 more trimesters of Networking that explore in greater detail the technologies that allow the data to flow. If you want more than you learn this trimester, I would recommend signing up for Networking B, C, D, and E. Upon completion of Networking E, you should be ready to study for and pass a test that will make you a certified networking associate and gain an entry level job in the networking field. I would also recommend Networking B-E for college bound students who are going into computer fields.

Park Center is a local Cisco Networking Academy. Cisco is the largest networking company in the world. Most of my training as an instructor came from Cisco. In this class, Intro to Computer Networking, we will use much of the Cisco Networking Academy curriculum. I will also supplement other information and exercises not covered by Cisco. You will all be enrolled in the Cisco Networking Academy to allow you to access their services. If you do not go on to Networking B-E, you will be removed from the Cisco Academy records.

I am really happy you chose to take this class. I think "how networks work" is an important knowledge set to have entering into the work world. It will give you some advantages that others you are competing with will not have.