In a digital age
SD#23 paving the way for how schools access the Internet By Shayna Wiwierski
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ased on a recent statistic, it’s estimated that the overall number of mobile phone users will reach 4.77 billion in 20171. Google also reported a couple years ago that 87 per cent of people always have their smartphone at their side, day and night. It’s a no-brainer that we live in a technologically filled world, and since anything and everything is readily available on our smartphones, computers, and tablets, the education system is a hub for these devices. Since WiFi is incredibly important to being connected, there’s one school district in B.C. that is paving the way for keeping their staff, students, and guests on a digital network. 24
Ops Talk • Spring 2017
The Central Okanagan School District (SD#23) offers an assortment of different WiFi networks to their 47 different sites, 44 of which are schools. Depending on who is accessing the Internet, whether it’s a student, teacher, or guest, their firewall will provide different qualities of services to the user. Meaning, that if a teacher is on one of the networks, they will get a higher bandwidth (faster Internet, perfect for streaming), versus a student or a guest. Depending on the machine type, whether it’s a district-owned device or their own personal one, each user must log on with district credentials so SD#23 can recognize who they are and allot the amount of bandwidth accordingly.
“If it’s a student with their personal device, our network will recognize that and give them a different quality of service. Same with teachers,” says Dave Swystun, learning technology department manager for SD#23, who adds that personal devices get a lower quality of service. “We give priority to the district-owned devices. Now they can log onto multiple different WiFis based on the device you’re using, and depending on who you are, you will get a different quality of service.” Since there are over 14,000 devices that access their networks, SD#23 offers different networks to avoid congestion. They also have a dedicated guest access one if a vendor comes in and wants access to the
