Fax Machines (How they work)

Clip:

(Typing sound)

Essentially, youre fax machine sends a coded image, much the same way your
telephone sends your voice. (distant chattering)

Begin by creating a document (typing sound)

The fax machine needs to be connected to an outlet and a telephone jack. To
scan entire document to a friend in California, slide paper into scanneritll pull
the paper in. (scanning sound followed twinkling(bell) sound)

The fax machine turns the pattern on the paper into an analog grid of thousands
of black and white squares. The black square is translated as 1 or ON and the
white squares are translated as 0 or OFF. (pinging sound)

This digital information of 0s and 1s is then passed to the electrical circuit which
sends it to the receiving fax machines via the telephone line. (stampede/walking
sound) (wooshing sound)

The receiving fax machine translates these digital 1s and 0s back into analog
grid of black and white square. The fax machine then prints this grid on the page
exactly. (printing sound)


Target Audience: Middle school (5
th
grade-8
th
grade) (ages 8-13); Subject:
Math/Computer Science/Tech

Learning Goals:

1. An understanding of how fax machines work

2. To understand the difference between analog and digital information

3. An understanding of the function of binary numeric codes

Learning Theories:

Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (CTML)- information needs to be
simplified and presented in an easily understood format. Information that is jumbled or
overly complex will loose focus of the goal. Information presented auditorily needs to be
simple and concise, and allow the user enough time to draw connections via cognitive
processing.

Connectivism: the learner needs to make connections with the information, since
knowledge is made up of connections that the user makes with their environment. The
design must be simple and draw connections between the learner and their experiences
(they must relate to what is being said).

Dual-Coding Theory: using both visual and verbal information allows for deeper
learning to occur. The learner will utilize two separate channels to process the
information. When recalling the learned information, learners can pull mental codes
corresponding to both verbal and visual information.

Information:

Woodford, C. (2004, September 18). Fax machines. Retrieved October 23, 2014,
from http://www.explainthatstuff.com/faxmachines.html

How fax machines work From start to finish. Retrieved October 21, 2014, from
http://faxauthority.com/how-a-fax-machine-works/