computational thinking for information technology

STUDENT SCENARIO:WIRELESS CAMPUS PROJECT

In this scenario, you have been hired as part of a consulting team to design a wireless

network for the campus.

Kevin Atwood will be your guide andvirtual supervisor for the lesson.


ObjectivesThis course will enable you to develop logical thinking skills, including:• Asking probing questions to uncover details of a problem• Clearly defining a problem• Evaluating the effects of design options• Deconstructing the problem into its component parts• Identifying the steps required to solve a problem• Measuring and evaluating solutions against the success

criteria


WELCOME

Expectations | About our Consulting


Hello, I’m Kevin. Welcome aboard! We’re very

excited to have you on our team of consultants.


ExpectationsIn your first months here, you will learn new technologies, research cutting-edge technologies, prepare documents, create and deliver presentations, and design and develop websites for clients.

These assignments may take you out of your comfort zone and push you to think in new ways. However, we are certain that the excitement of solving these challenges will more than make up for the difficulties you might encounter.


We expect each of you to make the client’s

needs your priority by contributing to your

team and producing quality, finished

products on time.

We have worked hard to develop a

reputation for excellence, and are currently

the industry leader in consulting services in

information technology. We hope to be the

industry leader in the region within the next

five years. I hope you will be an integral

part of helping us reach that goal.


About our consultingWe are a premier information technology

solution provider. We specialize in

providing reliable solutions for

businesses in today's fast-paced

technology world. The company is

dedicated to providing clients with the

most powerful IT products, solutions and

strategies that keep their businesses on

the cutting edge of technology.


We are committed to personal and professional

integrity, honesty, and open communications

with our clients. We seek long-term

relationships with our clients.

The Community College and University IT

(CCUIT) Division is responsible for providing

consulting services for educational institutions

systems. CCUIT is the largest division in the

company and key to the company’s success.


Your roleOur excellent reputation is spreading. As a

result, within the last year, we have seen a

surge in the number of new clients seeking

our services. In turn, this has allowed us to

hire new employees such as you to help

us to deliver these services. You have

been assigned to the Community College

and University IT Services Division. The

division is primarily responsible for

providing consulting services for

educational institutions.


Since many of the clients you will be working

for are new clients to the company, I would

like to ask you to start building a good

relationship with your client. Pay attention to

customer service skills, communicate often,

and most importantly provide your client with

finished products that are up to our standard

of excellence.

This is a fast-paced working environment. I

hope you will enjoy and be up to the

challenge.

Welcome aboard!


Ready to get started? Task 1 is waiting for you!


TASKS AND ASSIGNMENTSAs you know, our consulting firm has been selected by the client, the College’s IT Department, to design

a campus wireless network.

Please complete all the steps to the tasks, and refer back to your Working in Teams and Working with

Tasks overviews if you run into any obstacles.


TASK 1: CLIENT PROPOSAL1.1: SELECTING CATEGORIES1.2: RESEARCH PROPOSAL

For this task, you will develop a proposal for the design of a wireless network.


OverviewThe firm’s first task must be to begin to determine what you know about wireless networks already, what you don’t know, what you need to know, and how to fill the gaps. You must do this by suggesting ideas as a consulting team and then organizing and categorizing those ideas into a categorized brainstorm document. The categorized brainstorm must be submitted to the client within the client’s timeline and delivery method, for their review and approval.


DeliverablesYou will deliver to the client a list of categories necessary to design a wireless network for potential further research and exploration to address the client’s needs. All the ideas from the brainstorming session must be logically placed in general categories that can be easily understood by the client.


Action Plan1. You must begin by brainstorming

everything you currently know about wireless networking. Consider all creative ideas and be as exhaustive as possible and non-judgmental.


Action Plan (cont.)2. Secondly, move to all items you might

not know or understand about wireless networks that may be relevant to this task. Again, consider all ideas as valid and reserve judgment.


Action Plan (cont.)3. Then, begin to identify the gaps

between what you know and what you don’t know. The client asks you to be thorough. Be sure to consider what else you might have missed.

4. Take a look at the results and notice the repetition of words or ideas. Begin to sort and group logically these ideas into a few descriptive but broad categories.


TASK 1: CLIENT PROPOSAL1.1: SELECTING CATEGORIES1.2: RESEARCH PROPOSAL

For this task, you will develop a proposal for the design of a wireless network.


OverviewThe client is exceedingly happy with your categories document. Excellent job! Your success has resulted in additional activity the client would like you to undertake. The client has decided that they would like you provide them with a written proposal for further research and exploration in one of four categories:

• Wireless Standards• Wireless Network Components• Wireless Security• Wireless Management


Overview (cont.)Your consulting teams must break into four subgroups and align yourself with a one of the four client selected categories. This will ultimately result in four proposals being submitted to the client from the entire consulting team. To meet the needs of the client you must develop and deliver one of the four proposals within the client’s timeline and delivery method, for their review and approval.


DeliverablesYour written proposal with justifications for investigation, testing and evaluation within one of four categories identified by the client. The proposal must be submitted to the client per their timeline and delivery method for review and approval.


Action Plan1. At this point, your consulting firm will be

divided into smaller consulting teams and each team will be matched to one of the categories determined in the sorting process.

2. Each consulting team will then take the brainstormed ideas for its assigned category and develop a proposal with justifications for investigation, testing and evaluation for the client.


Checklist for Submitting ProposalThe proposal must contain information required by your client to further investigate your particular category. Specifically, the written proposal must include but is not limited to:

• Relevance and justification of your category as it pertains to addressing client needs

• Questions you intend to research• Tests you intend to perform


DebriefReflect on what you've learned about this task by discussing the following questions with your colleagues after you complete the project:

• What does designing a wireless network mean to you? What do you know about this?

• What are some of the issues surrounding wireless network access? What problems have you experience in the area of wireless network access?


Debrief (cont.)• How would you define the terms:

- Encryption?

- Access Point?

- Wireless Standards?

• What other categories did your team come up with?


Debrief (cont.)• What is one thing you learned during

this process related to wireless networks that you didn’t know? Do you now feel you know it? If so, what helped you come to that understanding? If not, what next steps could you take to come to a better understanding?


Your team is doing well. It’s time for your next task.


TASK 2: RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS2.1: RESEARCH2.2 SOLUTIONS

2.3 TEST REPORT2.4 DEBRIEF

For this task, you will research your assigned category and provide solutions


OverviewNow that you have completed your proposal on the categories, your project manager will assign a category for you to research. The next step is to:1. Research the assigned category in detail2. Determine the

threats/limitations/advantages/costs etc. associated with the category

3. Explore and research a specific solution to the determined threats and limitations


DeliverablesYou need to research the assigned category in detail and identify the threats, limitations, advantages and costs associated with the category to properly design a wireless network. Therefore, you must develop a strategy to document your findings on the threats, limitations, advantages and costs. It is very important that the client understands the findings. The documentation you provide should clearly explain how you defined and determined the threats, limitations, advantages and costs.


EvaluationYour project manager will provide you with an evaluation grid to help you determine how you are doing with your deliverables. This is how I will provide feedback to you on your progress. This is a chance for constructive feedback. I hope that it helps to keep you on track along the way.




Remember to consult your resources for best results for this task!


OverviewI have discussed your findings with the client and they agree. They are looking forward to the solution(s) that will help them make their campus a wireless campus. You next task is to create technical documentation of the problem, solution and define a test plan checklist.

The document is called a "technical" document because it is not intended for the end user to understand. It is to be written in technical terms with attention to the small details of both the problem and solution.


Overview (cont.)Do this by describing the problem in parts. Then describe the solution in relation to each part of the problem. Be as technically detailed as you can. Ask the squad manager or industry expert (client) more questions if need be.

You may take into consideration constraints of the resources (Time, money, Personnel, Network bandwidth, etc.).


Overview (cont.)Provide a technical document that clearly defines the parts of the problem in technical terms and the solutions to each part of the problem. It should also include a checklist for testing the solutions. The checklist points are:• Who will test• What will be tested• Where: in what environment (Windows,

Mac) or (I.E., Firefox) and why• How results will be observed and recorded


DeliverablesYou have two deliverables for this task:

1. Report of prioritized recommendations

2. Cost-Benefit Analysis


EvaluationYour project manager will provide you with an evaluation grid to help you determine how you are doing with your deliverables for this task. This is how I will provide feedback to you on your progress. This is a chance for constructive feedback. I hope that it helps to keep you on track along the way.




Remember to consult your resources for best practices to complete the next task.


OverviewThe solution you gave in previous task looks great! Now, does it work? The client would like to see written proof of your testing that shows your solution in action. You will find in the resources a template to start the process of documenting your solution from beginning to end. The document that you will provide to the client will contain step-by-step instructions in screenshots demonstrating that the solution is effective.


DeliverablesThere is one deliverable for Task 2.3. You must submit a testing documentation that proves to the manager and the client that you have tested your solution and documented the process and results.


EvaluationYour project manager will provide you with an evaluation grid to help you determine how you are doing with your deliverables for this task as well. This is how you will receive feedback on your progress. This is a chance for constructive feedback. I hope that it helps to keep you on track along the way.




Here, you will reflect upon your work and discuss what worked, what didn’t and where

there is room for improvement.


DebriefReflect on what we've learned from this task by discussing the following questions with your manager and team:1. How successful was your team at following

the work plan you created for this task? What have you learned about each other as teammates? How can you use each other’s strengths to work more effectively in the next tasks?


Debrief (cont.)2. Do you feel like the team’s plan for

uncovering details of the assigned category was efficient and well thought? Do you feel like you contributed too much, too little, just enough? Did you learn something new about the process of discovering threats in a computing environment?


Debrief (cont.)3. How did the team prioritize the needs and

resources differently? How did they justify their choice? Do you agree with them? Did you feel the team worked like a real-world team would? How you re-prioritize the needs based on their presentations?


Debrief (cont.)4. How did the team go about creating and

justifying the cost-benefit analysis? Do you feel like you contributed too much, too little, just enough? Did you learn something new about the process of developing about cost-benefit analysis and documentation?


Debrief (cont.)5. How did the testing process go from

beginning to end? How did you start? What problems did you encounter? You were expected to screenshot the entire process….was it a challenge to document and test at the same time? Do you feel satisfied with the team’s test process? Do you feel satisfied with the team’s test documentation? What did you learn about the testing and documentation processes?


Debrief (cont.)6. Do you feel your team is ready to write a

chapter of the manual in the next task? Do you feel than any task done so far was not value added (unnecessary)? Was there anything you thought was note-worthy and great about this task?


Keep up the good work! You’re almost done. It’s

time for Task 3


TASK 3: THE FINAL PROPOSAL

For this task, write the proposal to be presented to the client for approval. Be sure to use your reference document for best results.


Deliverables (cont.)First of all, thanks for all your research; it's always good to consider the available technologies, threats, opportunities, limitations, and cost-benefit analysis for designing a highly available, secure and fast wireless network. There are two deliverables for this task:

1. Develop a chapter on the assigned category to be included in the proposal which will presented to the client

Your team will develop the content for that section and make sure that it complies with the proposal requirements.


Deliverables2. Make a Presentation to the IT Department to

defend the relevance of your teams' section of the proposal. The areas that you identified earlier will serve as the four sections in the proposal:• Wireless Standards• Wireless Network Components• Wireless Security• Wireless ManagementYour group will then give a 15-minute presentation to the IT Department personnel.


INSTRUCTOR CONTACT INFORMATION

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computational thinking for information technology

Documents

consultinghome welcome

new clients

wireless network

consulting team

new technologies

help hello

client proposal1

help expectationsin