Challenge A: Prototype

Understand

Describe the Challenge:

Students often struggle to understand how the internet actually works because the process is invisible, abstract, and filled with technical jargon. Terms like “packets,” “routers,” and “servers” feel disconnected from everyday experience, leaving learners to memorize definitions without a clear mental model.

Context and Audience

• Typical Audience: High school and university students (ages 15–22) in introductory computer science or digital literacy classes.
• Extreme Audience: Curious younger learners who use the internet daily but don’t know how it functions, or adult learners wanting a simplified but accurate explanation.
• Learning Context: Students are familiar with using the internet (sending texts, browsing, video calls) but rarely think about the mechanics behind it. They need relatable, visual explanations that simplify the journey of a message from one computer to another.

POV Statement

High school and early university students need an engaging, visual way to understand how the internet works so that they can connect abstract networking terms with real-world examples and remember them for both academic and personal understanding.

Learning Objectives

• Explain what packets are and why messages are broken down into them.
• Show how routers direct traffic across the internet.
• Illustrate how data travels through cables, fiber optics, and satellites.

Plan

Ideation

I wanted to do a comic on networks and the internet since it was a topic that was not covered very well in my high school classes, and I had to learn the topic on my own. Since everyone is already familiar with how mail works and the postal system, I thought it would be a good idea to base the comic around that.

The comic is around 16 panels and explains the working of the internet and information transfer in the metaphor of post offices.

Comic Prototype

Panel 1

Image: Student typing a message on a laptop
Dialogue (student): “I just sent a message to my friend, but how did it get there?”

Panel 2

Image: The text message turns into a tiny character called “Cyber”
Dialogue (Cyber): “I’m your message and I will now travel to your friend’s computer”

Panel 3
Image: Cyber standing by a laptop.
Text (Cyber): “First, I’m broken into smaller pieces, called packets. Each one carries part of the message.”

Panel 4
Image: Multiple little “packets” lined up like a team.
Text: “Together, we make up the whole message.”

Panel 5
Image: Packets walk into a router shaped like a post office.
Text (Cyber): “This is the router. It decides where we go next.”

Panel 6
Image: Router with signposts labeled “Server A,” “Server B.”
Text (Router): “I’ll send you along the fastest path!”

Panel 7
Image: Packets traveling along cables like roads.
Text (Cyber): “We move through wires, fiber optics, and sometimes satellites.”

Panel 8
Image: A packet zipping through a glowing fiber optic cable.
Text: “Light signals carry us super fast!”

Panel 9
Image: Packets arrive at a server (big server tower).
Text (Cyber): “Here’s the destination server. It puts us back together.”

Panel 10
Image: Server reassembles all the packets into the full message.
Text (Server): “Message complete: ‘Hi!’”

Panel 11
Image: A person at another computer sees the message pop up.
Text (Recipient): “Oh cool, I just got your message!”

Panel 12
Image: Student looking amazed.
Text (Student): “So my little packets traveled across the internet like mail!”

Panel 13
Image: Cyber salutes.
Text (Cyber): “Exactly! Fast, reliable, and delivered in order.”

Panel 14
Image: Student thinking.
Text (Student): “But what if some packets get lost?”

Panel 15
Image: Cyber with a backup copy.
Text (Cyber): “No problem! The internet asks for a resend until all the pieces arrive.”

Panel 16 (Final)
Image: Student smiling at laptop, Cyber waving goodbye.
Text (Student): “Now I understand how the internet works!”
Text (Cyber): “Glad I could deliver the message!”

Principles

In this project, I applied several of Mayer’s principles of multimedia learning to make the content more engaging, accessible, and educationally effective.

• Coherence Principle: I eliminated any unnecessary or distracting visuals and text, focusing only on the essential concepts, such as packets, routers, servers, and the journey of a message across the internet.
• Signaling Principle: Speech bubbles and visual cues guide the reader’s attention to the main ideas in each panel.
• Modality Principle: The comic balances visuals and text rather than relying on dense narration. Images show the path of the message while Cyber’s dialogue explains each step, allowing learners to process information through both visual and verbal channels.
• Redundancy Principle: Each medium complements the other instead of repeating the same information. Visuals illustrate concepts like packet splitting and reassembly, while dialogue clarifies without duplicating the visuals unnecessarily.
• Spatial Contiguity Principle: Text and visuals are placed close together in each panel, so learners can immediately connect what they read with what they see.
• Segmenting Principle: The story is broken into clear, bite-sized panels, with each panel presenting a single concept or step. This helps learners process one idea at a time and prevents them from feeling overwhelmed by the complexity of internet communication.