“WiFi in a Box” – A Cloud Solution for K-12
An article by EdTechMagazine.com shares how WiFi is a necessity as more schools log on for learning and how cloud technology can help:
Larry Padgett, Director of IT Infrastructure and Systems Support for the School District of Palm Beach County in Florida, says,“We believed then that every student would eventually have at least one, if not two, mobile devices, so Wi-Fi would have to be upgraded.”
Today, every classroom in the district has Wi-Fi access. There’s a centrally controlled Aerohive access point in all 12,000 classrooms, as well as most hallways, media centers and other gathering areas such as gymnasiums for a total of more than 17,000 wireless access points.”
The Benefits of ‘Wi-Fi In a Box’
The Palm Beach implementation uses Aerohive technology in a centrally controlled setup that flows back through the organization’s own WAN. But there are many options when setting up Wi-Fi.
For those districts and schools that don’t have their own IT staff, so-called “Wi-Fi in a box” that uses a cloud-based controller eliminates onsite hardware. It also allows IT professionals to add and subtract access points based on need.
Lamar County School District in south Mississippi employs this type of equipment, says Ross Randall, the district’s director of technology. “We knew we wanted a web-based, hosted solution,” Randall says. “We had a controller-based implementation before, but once you max out onsite controllers, you have to buy a new controller. Cloud was what we needed.”
“The biggest benefit is that we can offer teachers many more cloud-based apps,” Grove says. “Discovery Education Streaming is in every school, and Discovery Techbooks are in our K–8 buildings.”
The school also can offer online testing and assessments conducted wherever teachers want, she says.
Learn more about K-12 cloud solutions here