Greg Kearney. In the Middle School, the school provides standardized
and supported laptops for the students to use (and take home). In the
Upper School, students can choose, use and support their own laptops.
We ensure that there is anti-virus, support for connecting to network
services, and basic trouble-shooting support to the student-owned
machines.
In the seven years of doing this, I haven't found security risks from
broadcast viruses or similar worries to be a major factor, especially
if your wireless network is on a VLAN so that broadcast issues are
limited. I'm also considering a second Meru Networks deployment for
a centrally controlled high density wireless solution, and it can also
limit which broadcast ports are even heard by the access points.
I also like how Greg touches on the idea of not having file servers
for students. I actually have a specific meeting with my staff about
this very issue this morning. To me, I would like to recommend or
provide a comprehensive backup and access solution for student files,
instead of one that is only good for 5 or 50 megs on a network file
server. I'm interested in alternatives that would put the control and
responsibility in the hands of the students-- such as external hard
drives that are taken home, or student-run unlimited online backups
via a service like Mozy.
Thanks, and good luck with the planning.
Jim Heynderickx
Director of Technology
American School in London
On 9/25/07, Greg Kearney <kearney@tribcsp.com> wrote:
> We permit, and encourage students to bring their own computers to
> school, we do not issue or have school laptops.
>
> As we do not have servers with storage or that people connect to we
> have few concerns as to security. We do check the windows PC's for
> anti-virus software before permitting them to connect.
[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a Creative Commons license.
