A Pedagogical Evaluation of New State Model Diagrams for Teaching Internetwork Technologies

Curriculum based on internetworking devices is primarily based on the Command Line Interface (CLI) and case studies. However a single CLI command may produce output that is not only hierarchical but must also be interpreted – both represent learning difficulties for novices. It should also be noted that device status requires many different CLI commands. Internetworking curriculum also typically defines devices as ‘black boxes’ - this is not a good teaching strategy. New state models were designed that diagrammatically integrated relevant output from different CLI commands with protocol finite state information and protocol stacks by means of tables. The diagrams are modular and hierarchical thereby providing top down decomposition by means of levelling. Hyperlinks may be used to navigate between different state tables and diagrams. The models were used as the pedagogical foundation of internetworking curriculum and results compared with control groups who were taught in the sta...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: ACSC
• Authors: Stanislaw P. Maj, G. Kohli, T. Fetherston
• Keywords: ACSC 2005, Cli Commands, Computer Science, Single Cli Command, State Models