Positively thinking...BYOD

We are 3 weeks into our BYOD initiative.  Well, not exactly 3 weeks.  Officially, we are 10 days into BYOD at LMK, but who's really counting.  We have many things to be proud of such as getting every student in the school to log in successfully to Google and successfully managing over 2400 simultaneous connections to our network district wide.

Our IT staff has been adjusting access points by moving them when teachers notice areas of weak signal strength.  They have been resetting passwords and adding new Google accounts daily.  Teachers and building administrators have also been troubleshooting and answering questions each day.

As the Director of Technology, many questions come to me.  Recently, a series of interactions made me remember a story I used to tell my students when I taught 7th grade science and we would discuss the great electricity debates between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse in the late 19th century.  The story goes something like this.  Thomas Edison developed a method of producing direct current.  He used it to light his famous light bulbs.  While it was effective and safe, it was not practical since he could not deliver it over long distances.  This is where George Westinghouse came in.  Westinghouse created the method for creating and delivering alternating current.  Edison knew that this would end his dominance in the world of delivered electricity, so he made it his mission to degrade Westinghouse and prove that his alternating current was unsafe.  Edison found everything he could find that was wrong with alternating current and he publicized it.  He invented the first "electrocution" machines that used alternating current to kill animals such as dogs and horses in the public arena to discredit Westinghouse's alternating current.  These machines later became what we know to be the "electric chair".

Yes, it is true that alternating current is dangerous.  Yet, we cannot live in our world without it.  In almost everything we do in life, we can always find the negative.  We can always find what doesn't work, and what may even hurt us.  That's the easy part.  In the end, Edison failed to prove that the world didn't need alternating current.  The world only needed to see its true value.  Thinking positively about it proved its success, even with the many doubters and naysayers.

I know you must be thinking...what is the connection to BYOD?  It's easy to find what doesn't work, what is challenging and maybe even impossible.  BYOD and Google is a different way of doing things...maybe it's akin to alternating current over 100 years ago.  Only time will tell.


Link to previous BYOD and Going Google Posts:

http://educreatechnics.blogspot.com/2015/09/byod-day-1-of-many.html

http://educreatechnics.blogspot.com/2015/05/going-google-part-2.html

http://educreatechnics.blogspot.com/2015/01/being-creative-with-google.html

http://educreatechnics.blogspot.com/2015/03/google-classroom-part-1.html

Follow me @brian_seligman

BYOD - Day 1 of many

BYOD - Day 1:  Google Apps for EDU and connecting to the network

Today was the second day of school, but the first day of BYOD and Google Apps for Education.  We have been planning this for a full year and today was the day.  We beefed up the network, increased our bandwidth, installed new controllers, new access points, set up over 3000 Google accounts, and spent countless hours leading professional development for teachers and staff.  The moment of truth was upon us.

By 9 am, almost 1500 users had connected to the network.  The most connections ever in the history of our district...and it was only 9 am.  As I walked the Middle School hallways with our principal, we were amazed at what we were seeing.  In every class, almost every student had  device and was actively engaged in connecting to the network and logging into their Google accounts.  We saw devices of all kinds; Microsoft Surfaces, iPads and mini iPads, Macbooks, chromebooks, kindles and standard laptops.  We saw devices that had 7 in screens all the way up to some massive 15 in laptops.  In the entire building of 850 students, my guess was that over 800 brought their own device.

All wasn't so good.  Our network is like a fortress...connecting to our network is like hacking the military...oh wait, bad example.  Actually, our network is set up with a double layer of authentication.  This was a challenge for some devices and for some students.  We found out that some of the newest devices running windows 8 or 10 had the most trouble accessing the network, but kids and teachers persevered.  Mr. Fried, our tech savvy principal made the rounds with me troubleshooting in several classrooms.  In the end, I would estimate that a good 70% of our students successfully logged into the network today.

However, at the end of the day, I met with my IT staff and we made several adjustments.  We changed the login protocol to our network by reducing the double authentication to a single password.  This hopefully will simplify things for our students.  We also added 2 additional access points in strategic locations in the building where we knew we had some issues.  We also resolved the windows 8 and 10 issues by running a patch and and update on the wireless controller and all access points.

Our teachers persevered today.  They were patient and a calming influence even when they were out of their comfort zones and their elements.  Today was a good day.  I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

Link to previous BYOD and Going Google Posts:

http://educreatechnics.blogspot.com/2015/05/going-google-part-2.html

http://educreatechnics.blogspot.com/2015/01/being-creative-with-google.html

http://educreatechnics.blogspot.com/2015/03/google-classroom-part-1.html

Follow me @brian_seligman