Data Transmission: Using the Collaboration Space in OneNote Class Notebook to teach children about how computers transmit data to peripherals

Over the last few weeks, I have been working with Year 4 and 5 students to develop their knowledge on hardware, software and peripheral devices. Last week we cracked open an old desktop computer to explore its internal components. Most found this very interesting. ​

Follow me on Instagram at @larubain to see more classroom examples from our new Maker Space, the "Fab Lab"

This week I wanted to explore how a digital system communicates with a peripheral device (such as a printer). We started discussing binary and how 1's and 0's represent on and off electrical states. Australian National Curriculum in upper primary requires only a rudimentary understanding of binary, so to help demonstrate this process we completed the following activity using the Collaboration Space in our OneNote Class Notebook.

Students worked in teams. Half of the team pretended to be a "computer" with a picture to send to the other half of the team who were the "printer". The computers recorded the picture in the Collaboration Space as 1's and 0's. The printing team interpreted the code and recreated the picture on the other side of the room using a laminated grid and cards. Both parts of the team took a photograph of their image to check their work. 

I found this worked really well and promoted a good conversation about data transmission.