High
Schools
A network administrator at a high school has one
of the most thankless jobs around. At
the heart of the difficulty is the fact that all elements are
combined for the perfect storm against an network administrator
at a high school. Trustees don't want to spend any money, but
they want to have every piece of technology that exists used in
the school, whether it has any educational value or not.
Administrators and principals don't have time to understand the
technology, grossly underestimate the amount of time it takes to
keep things running smoothly, and assume that anything that uses
electricity must be in the purview of the network administrator.
Teachers generally want no technology in the classroom,
preferring to teach in the tried and true traditional ways.
Students usually know more than everybody in the building except
the network admin, and use that fact to get away with
unspeakable things and more goal-oriented things like hacking
the grading system. Parents take the position that
they are paying an extra "technology fee", so they want to see
technology used in every possible aspect of their child's education,
even during the lunch period.
Here
are some of the unique challenges that we have engaged at client
high schools.
CAMPUS WIDE WIFI
Installing a single wireless router for a home or a small office is
one thing. Installing a 32-node integrated wireless system has a
completely new set of installation and management headaches. Let us
show you how to get this deployed without having to spend $1000 per
node, without having to drop wires to every AP, and without having
to spend 10 hours a week managing it.
STUDENT COMPUTER LABS
There are few
things as singularly frustrating as coming into a student computer
lab and finding all 25 computers set to new backgrounds, sounds,
browser home pages, and application installations. Let us show you
how to use Group Policy to kill that young student's ability to do
that.
LAPTOP AND IPAD FLEETS
Laptop and iPad deployments to the entire student body are
an unfortunate fact of life these days, despite the extremely
dubious value. Let us help you manage repairs and deployments with
equipment tags, active monitoring, and Group Policy tie-ups.
CLASSROOM
PC'S FOR TEACHERS
The
hardest aspect to having computers in the classrooms is the
combination of two facts: 1) most teacher technical ability is
limited, and 2) it is easy pickings for a tech-savvy student to play
a prank. We can help you avoid bearing the brunt of the ensuing
teacher frustration with some controls and some training.
CAMERAS
Every school in today's climate must have DVR-based cameras
to record the coming and going of all visitors. If your school is
behind on this, let us get you up and going.
EMAIL
MANAGEMENT
Student and teacher email accounts make
for a heavy management burden. Let us show you ways to automate
some of your Exchange Server management tasks.
HEAVY HITTING
School network admins often are doing everything they can to stay
ahead of the fires. When disaster strikes or large projects like
server replacements loom, it can seem overwhelming. We have found in
our relationships with schools that one of the most oft-needed
support items is the heavy-hitter role. Let us take the big nasty
issues while you keep the daily items running smoothly.
