<h1>There are several problems with your approach.</h1>
<p>First there can be more than one website at an IP address. The server distinguishes them by name (the same name that is used by DNS). It is possible to separate them, but this will increase cognitive load.</p>
<p>Not all nodes on the internet are running ping servers.</p>
<p>You are reinforcing the idea that the internet is the web. These concepts have to be separated. Do not do anything to put them back together. You can look at how they relate, but continue to reinforce that they are not the same thing.</p>
<h1>Alternatives</h1>
<h2>Acting</h2>
<p>I get my class to act out the various roles on the network. On the second lesson of this we ask how do we know the address of the _____. And, introduce DNS. A student plays the role of the DN-Server. (I don't know how to get this to work for remote learning).</p>
<h2>Telnet</h2>
<pre><code>telnet telehack.com
starwars
</code></pre>
<p>You could break a command like this down into a DNS lookup, then the command with an IP-address.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-01T14:07:04.760Z
2024-04-01T14:07:04.760Z
ctrl-alt-delor
<p>I tried submitting <a href="https://networkengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/85239/for-teaching-basic-dns-to-ip-translation-to-a-lay-audience-in-a-mooc-would-there">this question to Network Engineering StackExchange</a>, but they said it wasn't in their scope. So can see what happens here in Computer Science Educators StackExchange.</p>
<p>On Coursera I'm taking Technical Support Fundamentals which is the first course in the Google IT Support Professional Certificate and I'm currently on module 4 which is on networking.</p>
<p>This is training/education designed for a general audience where there isn't any particular prerequisite to have prior IT or computing experience.</p>
<p>So there's a basic introduction to networking, and then a specific example where the IP address 172.217.6.46 is given, and the viewer is asked to put that IP address into a web browser.</p>
<p>I tried this and there wasn't any response, and then I tried pinging 172.217.6.46 and got no response as well.</p>
<p>But in the video it shows the Google home page showing up.</p>
<p>The idea was to show the students that one can type in an IP address instead of a domain name and that a well-known website will then pop up.</p>
<p>With all of the infrastructure in place perhaps it's not really so easy to have a single static IP for an example like that in a MOOC that is going to work in multiple different locations across different countries to bring up say Google or another well-known website. I suppose a network engineer could more precisely speak to this question.</p>
<p>Anyway, the course in the English language, but there's people all over the world who speak English, and my understanding is that the course is open to people from all different countries.</p>
<p>Maybe another way to do the example would be for the teacher to use either a website or the command line to do a DNS lookup, and then to put the IP address returned into a web browser, and show that the website comes up.</p>
<p>The students could then do that as well, and as long as the DNS lookup method works, and the other parts work, the website should also come up on the student's machine.</p>
<p>This is actually what I just kind of automatically did right after the example didn't work right away.</p>
<p>In the post on Network Engineering I also added some more stuff, but perhaps I'll just keep this one shorter.</p>
<p>My impression so far is that there isn't infrastructure to rapidly fix bugs/errors in the course materials. But maybe eventually they do go through the errata and fix bugs.</p>
<p>As I said in the first version posted on the Network Engineering StackExchange they could add a pop-up to that video so that it lets people know that the example will not work. Just like what they did for the one on Installing Windows 10, where after the speaker said that Windows 10 is the latest version of Windows they added a pop-up adding that as of October 5, 2021, Windows 11 is the latest version of Windows.</p>
<p>So as for the one on Network Engineering I can provide a link to the video on Coursera. There is a Coursera paywall; however, it seems that there's also three free trial videos.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.coursera.org/learn/technical-support-fundamentals/lecture/sLQ8s/the-web" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Coursera -&gt; Technical Support Fundamentals -&gt; Module 4 -&gt;  The Web</a></p>
<p>(at about 1:47 in the video the IP address 172.217.6.46 is given which in the video goes to Google's homepage, but which didn't work for me)</p>
<p>So can see how it goes with this post before possibly posting to the Coursera discussion forum for the class on that matter.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-04T02:34:23.853Z
Welcome to CSE SE! What exactly is your question? Can you make your question more clearer?
Napoleon Bonaparte
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-04T05:10:14.020Z
If you have an issue with Coursera, why would you post it somewhere else than in their support forums at all?
tripleee
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-04T07:16:40.077Z
Well, maybe I should just post it to Coursera forums. Maybe it's not well suited to a Q&A site like this. But, do people at least still understand what I'm saying in terms of what the issue is? Then on the Coursera forum (which might get less attention) I could post and point back here, and say that experienced people here agree that there's an issue with the example. When people try to ping or go to 172.217.6.46 (the IP address listed in the video) is there also no response? If it did somehow eventually get fixed it could perhaps help others who might get confused at that point in the course.
Jjjjjjjjjj
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-04T12:08:53.820Z
172.217.0.0/16 is registered to Google. The only one who can tell you what's going on with that IP address is Google.
Jörg W Mittag
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-05T04:50:18.597Z
FWIW I was just talking to my mom over Skype, and we tried it from a computer in Alexandria, Virginia, United States, and the result was, as expected, no response, just as it was when I tried it from Rocky Mount, North Carolina, United States.

I'd be surprised if anybody here were to report here that that IP address 172.217.6.46 brings up the Google homepage.
Jjjjjjjjjj
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-05T04:51:50.843Z
Certainly from a theoretical point of view within an open network by default any node ought to be able to reach any other node. So anybody who has a static IP could set up a website on the Internet that would be accessible by anybody else on the Internet -- But that wouldn't be a well-known website like Google or YouTube or Wikipedia. Those much larger websites are not just single computers with a single IP address.
Jjjjjjjjjj
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-05T04:52:16.557Z
At the same time, perhaps what happened is that the example *did* work initially, even across the whole Internet. But Google's network configuration changed since the video was recorded, and there isn't really a lot of infrastructure to keep the course constantly updated.
Jjjjjjjjjj
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-05T05:12:15.520Z
I suppose there can be that tradeoff between text and video for a MOOC or for any course. Video can be really engaging, and help people to learn, but text can be much easier to update/change/rearrange, etc. The other thing I thought could be cool is to have adaptive quizzing/testing. If a student gets medium questions right then it can go to harder question, and if medium questions are gotten wrong then go to easier questions. Anyway, perhaps could share some of these thoughts on the relevant Coursera discussion forum. I don't want to go on for too long here.
Jjjjjjjjjj
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-05T06:07:46.593Z
Actually, some people about a month ago on Coursera raised the same issue in the discussion forums there. Note that there's a Coursera paywall to access the discussion forum: [Coursera -> Google Technical Support Fundamentals -> Discussion Forums -> Module 4 -> 172.217.6.46](https://www.coursera.org/learn/technical-support-fundamentals/discussions/forums/EgQGYwhGEe2_RhLaVPvqJQ/threads/xtLzNr15Ee6bbwo1s9RgVw)
Jjjjjjjjjj
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-11T00:51:18.700Z
Can you just show them the command to do the lookup themselves?
Criticize SE actions means ban
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-04-02T02:13:13.510Z
@user253751 - yeah, suppose could use `dig` in a command line with Linux or `nslookup` in Windows
Jjjjjjjjjj
<networks>
For teaching basic DNS to IP translation to a lay audience in a MOOC would there a way to have a static IP that would map to a well known website?
# For teaching basic DNS to IP translation to a lay audience in a MOOC would there a way to have a static IP that would map to a well known website?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2024-03-04)

I tried submitting [this question to Network Engineering StackExchange](https://networkengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/85239/for-teaching-basic-dns-to-ip-translation-to-a-lay-audience-in-a-mooc-would-there), but they said it wasn't in their scope. So can see what happens here in Computer Science Educators StackExchange.

On Coursera I'm taking Technical Support Fundamentals which is the first course in the Google IT Support Professional Certificate and I'm currently on module 4 which is on networking.

This is training/education designed for a general audience where there isn't any particular prerequisite to have prior IT or computing experience.

So there's a basic introduction to networking, and then a specific example where the IP address 172.217.6.46 is given, and the viewer is asked to put that IP address into a web browser.

I tried this and there wasn't any response, and then I tried pinging 172.217.6.46 and got no response as well.

But in the video it shows the Google home page showing up.

The idea was to show the students that one can type in an IP address instead of a domain name and that a well-known website will then pop up.

With all of the infrastructure in place perhaps it's not really so easy to have a single static IP for an example like that in a MOOC that is going to work in multiple different locations across different countries to bring up say Google or another well-known website. I suppose a network engineer could more precisely speak to this question.

Anyway, the course in the English language, but there's people all over the world who speak English, and my understanding is that the course is open to people from all different countries.

Maybe another way to do the example would be for the teacher to use either a website or the command line to do a DNS lookup, and then to put the IP address returned into a web browser, and show that the website comes up.

The students could then do that as well, and as long as the DNS lookup method works, and the other parts work, the website should also come up on the student's machine.

This is actually what I just kind of automatically did right after the example didn't work right away.

In the post on Network Engineering I also added some more stuff, but perhaps I'll just keep this one shorter.

My impression so far is that there isn't infrastructure to rapidly fix bugs/errors in the course materials. But maybe eventually they do go through the errata and fix bugs.

As I said in the first version posted on the Network Engineering StackExchange they could add a pop-up to that video so that it lets people know that the example will not work. Just like what they did for the one on Installing Windows 10, where after the speaker said that Windows 10 is the latest version of Windows they added a pop-up adding that as of October 5, 2021, Windows 11 is the latest version of Windows.

So as for the one on Network Engineering I can provide a link to the video on Coursera. There is a Coursera paywall; however, it seems that there's also three free trial videos.

[Coursera -> Technical Support Fundamentals -> Module 4 -> The Web](https://www.coursera.org/learn/technical-support-fundamentals/lecture/sLQ8s/the-web)

(at about 1:47 in the video the IP address 172.217.6.46 is given which in the video goes to Google's homepage, but which didn't work for me)

So can see how it goes with this post before possibly posting to the Coursera discussion forum for the class on that matter.

**Tags:** networks

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Welcome to CSE SE! What exactly is your question? Can you make your question more clearer?  
> **username_2**: If you have an issue with Coursera, why would you post it somewhere else than in their support forums at all?  
> **username_0**: Well, maybe I should just post it to Coursera forums. Maybe it's not well suited to a Q&A site like this. But, do people at least still understand what I'm saying in terms of what the issue is? Then on the Coursera forum (which might get less attention) I could post and point back here, and say that experienced people here agree that there's an issue with the example. When people try to ping or go to 172.217.6.46 (the IP address listed in the video) is there also no response? If it did somehow eventually get fixed it could perhaps help others who might get confused at that point in the course.  
> **username_3**: 172.217.0.0/16 is registered to Google. The only one who can tell you what's going on with that IP address is Google.  
> **username_0**: FWIW I was just talking to my mom over Skype, and we tried it from a computer in Alexandria, Virginia, United States, and the result was, as expected, no response, just as it was when I tried it from Rocky Mount, North Carolina, United States.  I'd be surprised if anybody here were to report here that that IP address 172.217.6.46 brings up the Google homepage.  
> **username_0**: Certainly from a theoretical point of view within an open network by default any node ought to be able to reach any other node. So anybody who has a static IP could set up a website on the Internet that would be accessible by anybody else on the Internet -- But that wouldn't be a well-known website like Google or YouTube or Wikipedia. Those much larger websites are not just single computers with a single IP address.  
> **username_0**: At the same time, perhaps what happened is that the example *did* work initially, even across the whole Internet. But Google's network configuration changed since the video was recorded, and there isn't really a lot of infrastructure to keep the course constantly updated.  
> **username_0**: I suppose there can be that tradeoff between text and video for a MOOC or for any course. Video can be really engaging, and help people to learn, but text can be much easier to update/change/rearrange, etc. The other thing I thought could be cool is to have adaptive quizzing/testing. If a student gets medium questions right then it can go to harder question, and if medium questions are gotten wrong then go to easier questions. Anyway, perhaps could share some of these thoughts on the relevant Coursera discussion forum. I don't want to go on for too long here.  
> **username_0**: Actually, some people about a month ago on Coursera raised the same issue in the discussion forums there. Note that there's a Coursera paywall to access the discussion forum: [Coursera -> Google Technical Support Fundamentals -> Discussion Forums -> Module 4 -> 172.217.6.46](https://www.coursera.org/learn/technical-support-fundamentals/discussions/forums/EgQGYwhGEe2_RhLaVPvqJQ/threads/xtLzNr15Ee6bbwo1s9RgVw)  
> **username_4**: Can you just show them the command to do the lookup themselves?  
> **username_0**: @user253751 - yeah, suppose could use `dig` in a command line with Linux or `nslookup` in Windows  

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_5 on 2024-04-01. Score: 1

There are several problems with your approach.
First there can be more than one website at an IP address. The server distinguishes them by name (the same name that is used by DNS). It is possible to separate them, but this will increase cognitive load.
Not all nodes on the internet are running ping servers.
You are reinforcing the idea that the internet is the web. These concepts have to be separated. Do not do anything to put them back together. You can look at how they relate, but continue to reinforce that they are not the same thing.
Alternatives
Acting
I get my class to act out the various roles on the network. On the second lesson of this we ask how do we know the address of the _____. And, introduce DNS. A student plays the role of the DN-Server. (I don't know how to get this to work for remote learning).
Telnet
telnet telehack.com
starwars

You could break a command like this down into a DNS lookup, then the command with an IP-address.


---

