For Years 9–10: how the operating system manages hardware and access, how names and addresses get data to the right computer, how sign-in and permissions decide who may do what, and how hashes and public keys protect passwords and messages. Then a capture-the-flag finale: find the weaknesses in a school portal and fix them.
Each lesson works two ways. Students can work through the online tutorial at their own pace (it checks their answers and saves their progress in their browser), or you can teach it to the whole class from the slides, then send students into the tutorial for the Modify and Make steps.
Every lesson guide has plain-language notes, the answers to every check, a solution for every task, and slides and a worksheet for Waypoints Prepare. These guide pages are not linked from student pages, but they are not secret either: keep printed Teacher editions for answers you do not want students to find.
Whole-course cheat sheet: Open to print (every command, grouped by unit: a handout for the final challenge)
The operating system, names and addresses, sign-in and permissions, hashes and keys.
The operating system sits between apps and hardware. Apps ask it to use the camera or save a file; it uses a driver for each device, so the same app works with any webcam, and it decides which apps may use what.
To reach a website, DNS turns its name into an IP address; every packet carries that address, and routers use their tables to send it the right way. A lookalike name (schoo1 instead of school) leads to a different address, and a different server.
Authentication proves who you are (a password, plus a code with multi-factor sign-in). Authorisation (permissions) decides what you may then do. Give each role only what its job needs (least privilege).
Passwords are stored as hashes: a one-way scramble, the same every time for the same password, so a login can be checked without storing the password. A salt makes identical passwords hash differently. Public key encryption is like an open padlock anyone can snap shut, while only its owner has the key; it is how HTTPS sets up a secret with a website.
The Code pathway's Secret messages course builds ciphers, key exchange and challenge-response on micro:bits, and ends with its own capture the flag.
operating system, driver, IP address, DNS, router, authentication, authorisation, least privilege, multi-factor, hash, salt, public key, private key.
Cheat sheet: Open to print (A4, with board pictures) · Markdown
Find the weaknesses in a school portal with what you have learned, then fix them.
Cheat sheet: Open to print (A4, with board pictures) · Markdown