Materials – Higher Server Side Scripting Unplugged

Activity Summary

This activity allows students to explore the client/server process used in web-based applications. They will simulate different interactions of data flowing between the browser and the webserver (specifically the HTTP server). They will start with simple examples and then gradually build up towards pages requiring a server side scripting engine and a database server. This can be used as either at the start of a block of learning as an overview or at the end to bring the different concepts together.

Suggested Number of Lessons

Two single periods or a double period

Resources

Zipped files including all resources

Follow up activities

• The browser sends a request to the server for a page that does not exist (404 error message produced)
• A DNS server is introduced to demonstrate how a URL is resolved into an IP address.
• Host the exercises on a server to demonstrate each activity working live (supplied in zipped file)
• Further examples of Kinaesthetic activities may be downloaded from CSunplugged.