Texas District Changes Classrooms with Wireless Technology

Each school in Texas' North East Independent School District provides laptops and iTouches for students to use. And in the future, the students may be able to bring in their own devices.

But because of all the mobile devices, the infrastructure takes a beating. One access point serves three classrooms. If each room has more than 15 or 20 devices, connectivity goes down or disappears altogether. Dead zones and slow access to the Internet also cause problems. 

“With our current solution, we just couldn’t support the density of 30 devices per classroom,” said Brandon Platt, assistant director of Management Information Services for the San Antonio district.

And because video and multimedia communication is a top priority, the district decided to switch to Motorola Inc.'s wireless local area network and infrastructure management solution. With the new network, students will move around instead of being tied to one spot, said Andrea Tondre, executive director of Management Information Services.

"What we’re really pushing toward is changing up the way our classroom looks."

Instead of rows of desks, the classroom will have stations. Three or four students will collaborate around a station by using their mobile tools to research, finish assignments and communicate with each other.

Lessons and advice

This summer, the IT staff members are working on the new infrastructure and plan to finish the project by spring 2011. Since January, the district has tested the wireless network at one of the middle schools, and that pilot has taught the staff some lessons.

For example, the tech team originally placed an access point outside a home economics classroom. But the signal couldn't penetrate the room's four microwaves, which meant the devices wouldn't work.

“They shut ’em down," Platt said. "It was crazy.”

They solved the problem by sticking another access point in the middle of the classroom between the users and the microwaves.

For other school districts that are thinking about moving to wireless, the tech team has some advice:

• Have at least a gigabyte backbone to support the access points
   
• Consider using three access points in common spaces such as auditoriums and cafeterias
   
• Work with a vendor that provides good support
   
• Go through a pilot process

Have some advice to share? Let us know by leaving a comment.