Practical 1: PC disassemble and reassemble
- Wear an anti-static wrist strap clipped to the case, and work on an anti-static mat with the PC unplugged.
- Photograph the inside before you remove anything, so you can put it back.
- Remove and name in order: side panel, RAM, GPU/expansion cards, drives and cables, CPU cooler (your teacher will say whether to remove the CPU).
- Reassemble in reverse order. Check every power and data cable is seated.
- Power on and check the PC reaches the BIOS/UEFI screen.
Check it works: Your teacher checks the PC boots.
Keep: Photos of each stage, labelled with the component names.
Practical 2: Motherboard ID and connectors
- On the Motherboard ID task sheet, label the CPU socket, RAM slots, PCIe slots, M.2 slot, chipset, SATA ports, 24-pin and 4/8-pin power connectors, CMOS battery and rear I/O panel.
- On the Connectors task, match each connector to its name and use: SATA data, SATA power, Molex, 24-pin ATX, 4/8-pin CPU, 6/8-pin PCIe, USB, HDMI, DisplayPort, RJ45.
- Find a real motherboard’s specification online. Record its socket, chipset, RAM type and maximum RAM, number of M.2 slots and USB ports.
- Explain which components you would upgrade first for a video editor, and why.
Keep: Completed task sheets and your written upgrade explanation.
Practical 3: Hardware spider diagram
- Create a spider diagram with the motherboard in the centre.
- Add branches for input devices, output devices, processors (cores, clock speed, cache, mobile processors), main memory (RAM, ROM), secondary storage (magnetic, solid state, optical), GPUs, network interfaces (PCI, USB) and cooling (air, liquid).
- On each branch write one feature and one use.
- Use the Learn page lesson on hardware devices to check your facts.
Keep: Your diagram (paper photo or digital).
Practical 4: Number systems practice
- Convert five 8-bit binary numbers to denary and five denary numbers to binary.
- Convert three binary numbers to hexadecimal and back.
- Add pairs of 8-bit binary numbers. Circle any overflow.
- Work out how many GiB are in a 1 TB drive and explain the difference.
Check it works: Check your answers with Quiz 1.
Keep: Your working, shown step by step.
Practical 5: Command-line network tools
- Open Command Prompt on a Windows PC.
- Type
ipconfig. Record your IPv4 address, subnet mask and default gateway. - Type
ipconfig /all. Record your MAC (physical) address, whether DHCP is enabled, the DHCP server and the DNS servers. - Type
ping 127.0.0.1 (tests your own network software), then ping your default gateway, then ping google.com. What does each success or failure tell you? - Type
arp -a. Explain what the list of IP-to-MAC addresses shows. - Type
netstat -an. Find a connection in the ESTABLISHED state and one LISTENING port. - Type
tracert google.com. Count the hops and find where the delay increases.
Check it works: You can explain what each command showed and when a technician would use it.
Keep: Screenshots of each command with one line explaining the result. Only run these on the network you have permission to use.
Practical 6: Build and test a LAN in Packet Tracer
- Add a 2960 switch and four PCs. Connect each PC to the switch with copper straight-through cables.
- Give the PCs addresses 192.168.1.10 to .13 with mask 255.255.255.0.
- Ping between PCs. Then switch to Simulation mode and watch an ICMP packet travel.
- Click the switch and open its MAC address table (
show mac address-table in the CLI). Explain how the switch learned the addresses.
Check it works: Every ping succeeds.
Keep: Screenshots of the topology, a ping and the MAC table.
Practical 7: A home network to the internet via cable and DSL
- Build a home network: PCs, a switch or home router, a cable modem and a DSL modem.
- Add a Cloud-PT and a server on the far side of the cloud. Give the server and PCs the IP addresses your teacher provides.
- Identify the type of media used for each link (copper, coaxial, phone line).
- In the cloud, route the modem connection to the Ethernet interface that leads to the server.
- Ping the server. Then change from DSL to cable (and back) and test again.
Check it works: The PC can ping the server over both DSL and cable.
Keep: Screenshots and a short note on the media used.
Practical 8: Routing between networks
- Open the router practical file your teacher provides (two or three routers with a LAN each).
- Configure the router interfaces with the IP addresses given.
- Enable RIP on each router:
router rip, version 2, then network for each connected network. - Use
show ip route and find routes learned by RIP (marked R). - Ping from a PC in one LAN to a PC in another. Disconnect a link and see whether traffic finds another path.
Check it works: PCs in different networks can ping each other.
Keep: Screenshots of the routing table and pings.
Practical 9: Create a virtual machine
- Install a type 2 hypervisor such as VirtualBox (or use the one on college PCs).
- Create a VM: give it 2 GB RAM, 2 CPU cores and a 20 GB virtual disk. Install a free Linux distribution from an ISO file.
- Take a snapshot. Make a change (install a program or delete a file), then restore the snapshot.
- Look at the host’s Task Manager while the VM runs. What happens to CPU and memory use?
- Write which key features of virtual environments you saw (isolation, emulation, managed execution, portability).
Check it works: The VM boots and the snapshot restores.
Keep: Screenshots and your list of features seen.
Practical 10: Cloud responsibilities and APIs
- Sort cards (or a table) of: user accounts, data, application software, runtime, system software, virtualisation, hardware into client or provider for IaaS, PaaS and SaaS.
- Find one real example of each model and write who manages what.
- Extension: follow your teacher’s Postman demo to send a GET request to a public API and read the JSON response. Explain how cloud services talk to each other using APIs.
Check it works: Your sort matches the specification.
Keep: Your completed table.
Practical 11: Plan resilience for a small business
- Choose a business: a dental practice, an online shop or a school.
- List its critical systems and what would happen if each failed for a day.
- Plan backups: what, how often, onsite, offsite and cloud copies, and who tests recovery.
- Choose redundancy, patching, hardening and a hot, warm or cold site. Justify each choice against cost.
- Write one standard operating procedure, e.g. what staff do in a ransomware attack.
Keep: Your one-page resilience plan: good revision for extended exam questions.
Practical 12: Cisco Introduction to IoT (optional badge)
- Enrol in the free Cisco Networking Academy course on the Internet of Things (your teacher will share the class link).
- Complete the modules and the final quiz to earn a digital badge.
- Write three examples of embedded or IoT systems and one security risk for each.
Keep: Your badge and notes.