Unplugged Activity - The Internet

This lesson is all about the internet. The
internet is a very busy place and similar

to this busy road. Messages like cars are
zooming along to get to their destinations.

Messages move through the internet very quickly.
Acting out how the internet works will help

you understand what's happening when you use
the internet. You'll learn how messages get

from your computer to a favorite website or
from a friend to an email inbox. Just like

it's easier to navigate busy roads when you
know the roads and can read the signs, traveling

the internet is not so complicated when you
know what goes on behind the scenes. Sending

messages on the internet is a little bit like
sending messages in the mail but with a few

differences. I'm here at Google.com. The IP
address for this website is this number. You

can think of an IP address as your return
address in the mail. Let's imagine that I

want to send a message in the mail to someone
in the office down the there. Do you see URL

and the IP address on that door? I've written
this message and hit send. Unlike the Postal

Service, the first thing that happens is that
the internet breaks the message into smaller

parts so it can be sent more easily. These
small parts are called packets. Each packet

of the message is delivered to the destination
one at a time. These packets are all put together

in the right order so that the receiver can
read the message correctly. Of course, there

are many more things to learn about how the
internet works but this is a great start.

You're on your way to becoming a savvy internet
user! Be sure to tell your family and friends

what you've learned! My name is Amanda Camp
and I'm a software engineer at Google. I work

on a team that works on a backend server that
stores profiles and contacts. In my job, we

think a lot about how contacts can be sent
to other devices, such as your phone. Most

people have a lot of contacts, you might have
say, 1000 contacts and we don't want to send

all of those contacts at once to your phone
because it's too large of a message. Similar

to the way the internet breaks large messages
down into packets, we use a concept called

paging where we might only send your phone
100 contacts at a time and let your phone

respond to us and ask for the next 100. The
most exciting thing about software is the

fact that it can impact the entire world.
I first learned to program when I was about

nineteen. I think I was already a sophomore
or a junior in college. The first program

I remember writing is something that converted
Celsius to Fahrenheit. I like programming

because I like helping people. I can write
programs at Google that help people all over

the world and that's really mind-boggling
and exciting.