3 barriers, 3 fixes for school broadband

A new report urges state leaders to help all school districts access high-speed school broadband

school-broadbandNationwide, 23 percent of school districts still do not meet the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) minimum school broadband access goal of 100 kbps per student, according to a state-by-state broadband connectivity report from the nonprofit EducationSuperHighway.

The top three barriers to meeting the FCC’s minimum school broadband goal, according to the report, include:

  • Access to fiber: School districts without fiber are 15 percent less likely to meet connectivity goals.
  • Broadband affordability: Districts that do meet the 100 kpbs per student minimum pay an average cost of $5.07 per Mbps–those that do not meet the goal pay more than double, at $12.33 per Mbps.
  • School district budgets: The average internet access budget in districts that meet the FCC’s connectivity goal is $4.93 per student–more than 2.4 times the $2.08 per student budget for districts that do not meet the school broadband connectivity goals.

In all, 20 million more students have been connected to high-speed broadband over the past 2 years, according to the report. In 2013, just 30 percent of school districts met the Federal Communication Commission’s minimum school broadband access goal. In 2015, that jumped to 77 percent.…Read More

How students get around web filters, and how schools can stop it

Students are technology are getting smarter. And schools need to stay a step ahead

web-filteringChristine Durso knew she was onto something when she saw how easily her 16-year-old daughter was able to work around a Facebook web filter installed by her school.

“She came up with a pretty creative way to utilize the social networking site on the device she uses in the classroom to fulfill her Individualized Education Program (IEP),” said Durso, instructional technologist at The Speyer Legacy School in New York. The inventive teen simply installed the Facebook application on her device and, without the use of a web browser, was able to post various links to websites that she wanted to visit. “She basically just created her own browser using Facebook.”

The level of creativity was both impressive and alarming for Durso, who knows that her daughter is one of many K-12 students who are finding ways to circumvent school-instituted web filters. By screening incoming web pages to determine whether some or all of them should (or shouldn’t) be displayed to the user, web filters help institutions comply with the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). The act requires schools and libraries using E-Rate discounts to have appropriate measures in place to protect students from obscene or harmful online content, thus limiting children’s exposure to explicit content online.…Read More

Is this a smarter way to store school data?

Network attached storage (NAS) provides a cost-effective way to store, share, and back up work securely

storage-NAS-tieredHow many educators have mislaid a USB hard drive and had that sinking feeling that months of work had simply evaporated? Yet, despite the risks, USB drives remain a primary storage mechanism for many, who often want to maintain physical possession of their work. Fortunately, the days of such a laissez-faire approach may be numbered given the enormous improvements in the reliability, ease of use, and security of network attached storage.

NAS comes in two flavors: desktop appliances and rack-mounted systems. Both are scalable and capable of holding close to 100 TB of data. The smaller systems are often for personal use, but the range of available NAS is staggering, capable of meeting the storage needs of departments, campuses, and even as backup for an entire university’s SAN. The smaller desktop systems are generally easy to install and manage without expert IT support, and they connect to an existing network—wireless or otherwise—via an Ethernet cable. Computers and other devices on the network can then be set to automatically back up their contents to the NAS.

Because they’re on a desktop or mounted in a rack, NAS don’t go walk-about like USB drives sometimes do. Further, NAS can be configured in a RAID to provide built-in redundancy. “In contrast, the reliability of an external USB drive is relatively low, especially if you move it around a lot,” said Brian Chee, an IT specialist in the dean’s office of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, which has implemented NAS from Taiwan-based Synology.…Read More

Napa County wins $50K collaboration prize for vocabulary gap solution

Inaugural winner of Collaboration Nation program focuses on innovation, student success

collaboration-nationThe Napa County Office of Education has emerged as the grand prize winner of CDW-G’s Collaboration Nation, a program recognizing school districts’ commitment and dedication to student success, collaboration, and innovative use of education technology to empower learning.

The district will receive $50,000 in products and services from CDW-G partners such as HP, Lenovo and Meraki.

In Napa County, more than 50 percent of all kindergartners come to school having been exposed to 30 million fewer words than their peers, putting them two years behind developmentally. The Napa County Office of Education, all five districts in the county and the public-private partner Napa Learns decided to take a new approach to get students up to speed. Their mission was to use tablets to give every preschool student the skills needed to be successful in reading.…Read More

Providing free wireless hotspots helps this district close the equity gap

A new program is helping students connect to devices and internet after the last bell

wifi-equityThe achievement gap. The literacy gap. The nutrition Gap. The preschool gap. It seems like our education system talks and talks about the inequities that exist between students and schools that are well-funded, well-supported, and well-granted, and those that struggle to keep the lights on, pay their staff, and run the HVAC.

There’s another gap, a growing one, perhaps with less media buzz, that has made its way to the doors of our schools. It’s one we can no longer ignore. This is the chasm between the homes with and those without access to quality broadband.

It’s a complex and layered issue. In rural schools, the availability of internet access beyond school and home can be difficult to obtain, while students in urban areas often can poach access from libraries, open networks in the community, or nearby fast food restaurants. In both rural and urban settings, many students are obtaining their wi-fi signals using smartphones as hotspots at a rate that isn’t sustainable for their cellular plans. Others have a home network that is plagued with speed and consistency issues. In all of these situations, learning, especially at the pace and rate necessary for today’s student to succeed, is inhibited.…Read More

One state’s plan to bring better internet to schools and homes

Ohio’s OneCommunity brings broadband to schools and private homes

ohio-equitySince 2003, OneCommunity of Cleveland has been connecting and enabling public benefit organizations across the state like schools, government agencies, healthcare, museums, and libraries with next-generation fiber optics. And lately, they’re begun working with schools to identify private homes that lack sufficient bandwidth.

Lev Gonick, chief executive, said OneCommunity was born out of the need to elevate Northeastern Ohio’s “Rust Belt” status by infusing the region with faster and more accessible Internet. “Northeast Ohio was looking for a roadmap to reinvent itself,” said Gonick, who at the time was vice president and chief information officer at Case Western Reserve University, one of OneCommunity’s founding partners.

“Community leaders embraced the idea that whatever our future might be,” he adds, “fiber optics would [provide] a very important underlying and enabling infrastructure to get us there.”…Read More

Xirrus introduces Xtreme Density Wi-Fi

Xirrus XD4 access point incorporates four high-speed 802.11ac Wi-Fi radios, addressing exploding wireless usage

xd-wi-fiWireless network provider Xirrus has announced Xtreme Density (XD) Wi-Fi, high-density Wi-Fi Access Points (APs) that aim to deliver some of the fastest Wi-Fi available in the industry.

Designed to address the Internet of Things (IoT), Xirrus XD4 is a 4-radio all 802.11ac AP and aims to support more users, reduce the amount of equipment deployed, and decrease total cost of ownership.

Gartner estimates 4.9 billion Internet of Things units installed by 2015, increasing to 25 billion by 2020. This exceptional growth in the number of devices, and more importantly the increased volume of application traffic, has already severely stressed Wi-Fi networks.…Read More

Why every educator should care about net neutrality

Broadband for education expert gives four reasons why the FCC’s decision about internet service is a human rights issue

net-neutralityOn February 26th the world, as we know it, will either come to an end or we will have the second coming of the messiah.

Why? Because later this week the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will vote to reclassify broadband internet service as a telecommunications service, rather than an information service, under Title II of the Telecommunications Act—a decision which will have a significant impact on education.

With a handful of exceptions, the policy wonks and industry pundits have taken binary positions on the regulation of the internet, but there is more at stake than the Washington politics and beltway posturing: mainly, the issue of education as a basic human right and how the regulation of the internet may affect those rights.…Read More

The critical ABCs of 802.11ac

Network speed will experience a huge expansion under the 802.11ac standard

802.11ac-networkA relatively new technology standard has huge potential for school connectivity as it aims to relieve congested networks and drastically increase network speed.

The 802.11ac standard operates in the 5-gigahertz spectrum–a move away from the clogged 2.4-gigahertz frequency in which 802.11n operates.

The rollout will occur in three waves, and the first wave is already active. The three waves will eventually increase data rates up to 6.93 Gbps and will open MHz channels and available data streams.…Read More

Big perks for University High School tech support internship

University High School is saving money and investing in students by recruiting and training interns to provide front-line tech support

university-high-school-tech-supportAre you struggling to respond to student and faculty technology issues in a timely manner? Are expensive repairs depleting your tech budget?

If your school has a one-to-one initiative, a Bring Your Own Device policy or even multiple computer labs, a student-staffed technology help desk may be the answer.

When University High School in Normal, Illinois, rolled out a one-to-one laptop program four years ago, there were fears that supporting 620 student computers would overwhelm the single full-time IT administrator.…Read More

‘Bing for Schools’ offers ad-free web search and more

Microsoft-BingMicrosoft’s search engine, Bing, trails Google in terms of its use and influence, but the software giant is trying to change that with a significant push in the education market.

This fall, a new program called Bing for Schools will offer daily lesson plans designed to teach students web-search skills, as well as a free pilot program that will give students a tailored, advertising-free search experience when on their school’s network.

Schools participating in the search pilot will receive ad-free Bing search, strict filtering to help block adult content, and augmented privacy protections, Microsoft says. School districts can register for these search enhancements now; a limited number will be accepted into the initial pilot, and others will be notified of future eligibility.…Read More

District’s $38M technology bond issue would add more iPads, teaching tools to classrooms

Angela Bagby’s students in the autism classroom at Marshall Elementary School can’t verbalize the answers to a spelling test or hold a pencil for more than a few minutes at a time because of sensory issues. But they can sure operate an iPad.

The use of tablet computers is constantly expanding the boundaries and communication abilities of these dozen mostly nonverbal children with profound behavioral issues. But without grants, Bagby wouldn’t have six iPads in her classroom.

“It’s like their brains are wired for the technology more than they are for social interactions,” said Bagby, a veteran special education teacher. “I go with the philosophy that whatever I’m doing is getting in there. The more access they have to try different ways to communicate or have different ways to understand information, the better. My kids have come farther than they had in probably two years.”…Read More