[Year 12 Its] Ongoing misinformation about topology

Thu Aug 17 16:20:24 EST 2006

Its sad that a subject with such potential is being used for the rote 
learning of definitions. Do we want walking dictionaries?
"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled." Plutarch 
(46 - 127)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Allan Barnes" <abarnes at aiet.com.au>
To: "'Year 12 Information Technology Systems Teachers' Mailing List'" 
<is at edulists.com.au>
Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2006 12:08 PM
Subject: RE: [Year 12 Its] Ongoing misinformation about topology

>I think the classic definition of a star topology is correct as you have
> stated, however, as you have also stated, it is not often seen in places.
> Nowadays, it is more common to have hybrid networks that are a combination
> of a number of topologies, or two star networks stuck together, and so
> forth.
>
> If we are teaching the true meaning of a star network then essentially we
> have it right, but what we also need to be saying to our students is that
> the star topology is not generally found in industry and it is a mixture 
> or
> hybrid.
>
>
>
>
> Kind regards
>
>
> Allan Barnes, CEO
> Australian Institute of Education and Training
> Phone: (03) 9387 2051
> FAX: (03) 9387 3470
> E-mail: abarnes at aiet.com.au
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: is-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:is-bounces at edulists.com.au] On
> Behalf Of a.hopkins at bcc.vic.edu.au
> Sent: Thursday, 17 August 2006 11:11 AM
> To: Year 12 Information Technology Systems Teachers' Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Year 12 Its] Ongoing misinformation about topology
>
> Frank's comments strike a chord with me.  I came into computer teaching
> without formal qualifications in the area, but having done programming out
> of personal interest for perhaps twenty years.  The whole networking and
> hardware side of things was not on my radar.  I have found the textbooks 
> to
> be lacking in clarity and concision.  I don't mind my students knowing 
> more
> about networking than I do, because some of them are acquiring that
> knowledge in very practical ways.  But other students who aren't attuned 
> to
> hardware aspects, and I myself, could surely be served better by the
> textbooks we use.  When some time ago I asked my techie about some of the
> explanations offered, he thought they were pretty much irrelevant.
>
> Alex Hopkins
>
>
> Quoting Frank Van Den Boom <vandenboomfj at aquinas.vic.edu.au>:
>
>>
>>
>> There have been several discussions over the past couple of years
>> concerning the poor understanding and confusion about network topology
>> in texts, exam questions etc. I was looking forward to new editions of
>> the texts in the hope that we would finally get it right.
>>
>> I was going through page proofs of the Thomson/Nelson book (new
>> edition of Building Information Systems), and this is what it says
>> about Star network topology.
>>
>> "The most common topology is the star network. The main type of star
>> network has a central computer, usually a server computer, and all
>> computers and devices are connected directly to it. This configuration
>> is useful when the data to be used is required by many people and
>> needs to be centralised so that its integrity and security can be
>> easily managed. The access to the network is usually controlled by the
>> network operating system, that is run from the central computer.This
>> topology operates as a client/server network. A simple star network is
>> a network or segment of a network that is controlled by a switch or
>> hub. In this case the network is operating as a peer-to-peer network
>> as there is no central coordinating computer. There may be various
>> servers operating on the computers."
>>
>> I won't put in the text on Bus and Ring networks other than they do
>> focus more on the protocol and cabling topology. I don't know what the
>> above treatment of star network is based on and I find it all very
>> confusing. There are a ton of questions I would love to ask about this
>> paragraph. For starters - when was the last time any of us
>> saw/installed/used or even read about a star network where all the
>> devices were connected to a central computer? I won't bother with the
>> rest of the questions for now...
>>
>> In looking at the new Janson/Dawson book, at least the focus is
>> largely on the protocol.
>> I have not looked at any other of the new books on this topic but I am
>> not confident that this confusion will go away.
>>
>> So are we really clear on what we are teaching about "topology" ? I'm
>> not. The way the protocol works? The way the cabling is arranged?
>> Do we all realise that even 10 years ago, it was common to find a
>> 24-port token ring hub, which used a star cabling topology to connect
>> its devices, which could have connected to it a bunch of PC's
>> functioning on a peer-to-peer basis as well as a database server which
>> was being used by the same PC's for a client-server application.
>>
>> So often, I read about this stuff in our IPM and IS texts in a way
>> which treats them all as mutually exclusive options.
>>
>> The classic table that all of us have seen showing a list of
>> advantages and disadvantages for each of these topologies in many
>> cases is just a lot of rubbish in my view. For example, bus topologies
>> are cheaper to implement because they use less cable - might be true
>> for coax but not an old UTP/hub installation.
>>
>> I just had a quick look at the VITTA Networking CD to see how it
>> treats protocol - more consistent in what it considers topology to be,
>> but there are still things there that are oversimplified. For example,
>> "A disadvantage of a ring topology is that if any device is added to
>> or removed from the ring, the ring is broken and the segment fails
>> until it is reconnected." In theory that is true, but most places
>> would have used a token ring hub for years, in which case it is
>> irrelevant. But we are not really in a position to show our students
>> this when we teach it, and it is also meaningless in my view.
>> I am not a trained communications person, and only built up an
>> understanding of some of these things in a large network environment
>> that I worked in a few years ago. So there is a good chance that some
>> of my definitions/understanding are not quite right. But I can assure
>> you that the IPM and IS books that I have used for the past 5 years
>> have done very little to clarify much of this.
>>
>> It's probably too late for the authors of the new texts to review this
>> area. Is there some other way we can build a body of content that we
>> agree with, understand and can teach to kids in a meaningful way on
>> this subject?
>>
>> Does anybody else out there feel the same way about this as me???
>>
>> Frank
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
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