Unit 5 Learning styles and the networked environment

Unit 5 Blog Assignment Learning Styles the Networked Environment

I found this week's readings to be very difficult. The number of links seemed endless and the amout of reading was very challenging. The material was also pretty opaque to me filled as it is with numerous references to acronyms, standards, formats and layers. Despite the videos I am having a hard time understanding many of the concepts. I do now understand, agree with and appreciate the pedagogical caution that was attached to a number of the references in the lecture that “it gets a bit geeky but give it a read and get what you can” and find that advice somewhat reassuring. I'll try rereading some of the text articles and reviewing the videos and maybe it will make more sense, perhaps the light will go on? The whole subnet mask thing still baffles me so if somebody can break it down for me I'm ready to listen.

Not sure what kind of learner I am,(reflective,active ?) perhaps because like everybody else I am a mixture of learning styles rather than one type or another. I must confess that I find myself jumping into things like setting up and configuring hardware and peripherals often with not much prior attention paid to the manual. This usually leads me into problems and then I have to take a step back and rethink and redo the whole process. (Or maybe just read the instructions and then try it?) Patience is something I need to embrace more often but time is always limited and generally there is so much to do.

I understand that the complex nature of the material motivated our instructor to give us a number of different formats and avenues to explore while learning about networking. Maybe I just need to go back over things a second time and with hindsight and a new perspective something will click and I'll have a Eureka moment.