Offered exclusively for Newport students this semester, the two-period course will be open to all district students next fall. The course is co-taught by Jeff Mason and Barbara White . Nationwide there are 1,500 Cisco academies. It's two weeks into the semester and so far the emphasis has been on learning networking theory and terminology. On the day we visit, Mason gives students an assignment to design and actually build a functional computer network using simple hubs and routers.
Students scatter to all corners and begin to take up the challenge.
At the whiteboard, student Jonathan Sharp and teacher Barbara White map out some design strategies for his project. Sharp describes it this way. Projects are presented in front of the class. Students must describe their projects, explain what they learned, say what was hard about the project and how they're going to use it. In sharing, they learn about different programs.