Features
BYOD and Security
3/1/2011 By:
How do you
protect students
from themselves?
By Ellen Ullman
Last month we wrote about the evolution of
one-to-one computing and how districts are allowing
students to “bring your own device” (BYOD) to school.
This month we look at how they are handling security and
other issues so they can let students BYOD.
The Do-It-Yourself
Approach
At New Canaan High School in
Connecticut, students are welcome to
bring in their own devices. “With the
economy plummeting, this is the first
time in my 28 years that we have
more students in class than laptops on
carts,” says Cathy Swan, technologyintegration
specialist. “It’s great when a
kid can supplement the cart.”
A student simply registers a
device’s MAC address and the equipment
is enabled for Internet access.
Registration is simple: The Web site
https://sites.google.com/a/ncps-k12.
org/macaddress has detailed instructions
for finding the MAC address, whether it’s a laptop, a smartphone, or
an iPad. Students can fill out the form
on a classroom desktop or on a computer
in the library. Every week, the
technology staff updates the list and
adds the new devices to the network.
Since there is no school-wide mandate
about BYOD, teachers have the
flexibility to let students use their own
devices or not; the tech staff merely
makes it possible. “We’ve been doing
this for a couple of years and have had
zero problems since we started,” Swan
says. “Students who have their own
tech can use it; others use products
that the school supplies.”
Network Segmentation
The Alvarado (Texas) Independent
School District has been working on a
one-to-one initiative since 2007. Today
all students in the fourth through eighth
grades have school-issued laptops. But
because state funding has dwindled,
the district has turned to BYOD.
Alvarado is already wireless, something
Kyle Berger, executive director of
technology, began working on before
beginning the one-to-one program.
He plans to segment the network and establish a quarantined network that will
validate student devices after checking
for updated antivirus tools and other
requirements. “Basically, it’s like turning
the school’s network into what you’d
find at a hotel,” Berger says. “Students
will open their device and get a screen
asking, ‘Do you want to connect?’”
Berger feels comfortable with the
technical aspects of BYOD but is less
sure about how to handle the changes
that will make instruction possible. He’s
concerned about teachers having to
provide lessons for a mixed population
of products. How do you teach about
Excel spreadsheets, for instance, if one
student has a two-inch screen and
another has a laptop?
To address this matter, Berger’s
team is working with a couple of vendors
to deliver applications that will
be device independent. “A lot of programs
and resources are Web based
or going up to the cloud, but on a small
device the Web can be a problem,” he
says. “For instance, iPhones don’t have
Flash. We have to know that kids will
get the content.”
Making a Public, Filtered
Wi-Fi
Over at the Katy (Texas) ISD, content is
not a concern, because the district has
been preparing for BYOD in a number
of ways. Two years ago, when the tech
staff handed out mobile phones to fifth
graders for a pilot project, they saw
incredible instructional results, says
Lenny Schad, chief information officer.
Security was a nonissue, because
Schad created a public Wi-Fi at the
elementary school that was filtered in
the same way the wired network was.
The Katy ISD has now distributed
1,500 mobile-learning devices to all
the fifth graders at its 11 elementary
campuses, and there is public Wi-Fi on
12 campuses.
When the children take their schoolsupplied
mobile devices home, they
connect to the Verizon network. These
devices can connect to only that network
or the Katy Wi-Fi network. Both
networks filter Internet access through
the district’s filtering system, which
protects students from going to inappropriate
Web sites.
This two-year program has laid the
foundation for next year, when every
campus will have a filtered public Wi-Fi
and the district will allow kids to BYOD
to school. In terms of curriculum, the
Katy IS D has focused for the past
couple of years on helping teachers
integrate Web 2.0 tools into the curriculum;
already most are comfortable
teaching this way. “It’s an important
thing people need to realize,” Schad
says. “If you haven’t prepared your
teachers for what to do [when you
start a BYOD program], you won’t get
your bang for the buck.”
Schad took a simple approach to
security because he knew that teachers
would need Internet access to
use 2.0 tools. In keeping with that
philosophy, teachers help students,
even the youngest elementary kids,
take digital responsibility and become
smart and informed digital citizens.
“We allow them to take advantage of
Web 2.0 tools to collaborate, do their
homework, and so on,” Schad says.
“Otherwise, there’s no need for BYOD.
The public Wi-Fi is just a continuation
of a lot of things we’re doing. It’s a natural
progression in this change cycle.”
A final, and perhaps the most
important, reason the district is so
keen on using Web 2.0 tools is that
they are device neutral, and so another
potential burden is removed. “I don’t
want to add to a teacher’s overloaded
workload,” Schad says. “Taking device
specifics out of the equation makes it
so much easier.”
Two Networks
Eric Willard, chief technology officer of
Community Unit School District (CUS D)
300 in Carpentersville, Illinois, started
his BYOD program by going through
all the district’s policies and reworking
the pieces that dealt with technology.
He eliminated anything that stopped
him from moving toward Web 2.0. That
process took an entire year.
He spent another year working on
district-level administrative procedures.
“Lots of our leadership was saying no;
they think cell phones are a nuisance,”
he says. So he changed the procedures
to align with the new policies and
present no roadblocks to BYOD.
In September, Willard began implementation,
but he then learned that
many of the schools had handbooks
that prohibited students from bringing
in cell phones. Rather than push,
he chose to delay for a year and go
to each of his 27 buildings. He’s now
listening to their concerns, informing
them of the benefits of BYOD, and
removing any lingering barriers. “That’s
where we are now,” he says. “I intend
to be open next year, and it will be a
nonissue.”
While Willard goes from school to
school, he’s doing pilots and working on
infrastructure. He recently completed
putting in basic wireless access in every
building and is about to add more IP
addresses and build bigger firewalls
that will handle additional users.
Currently, if a teacher brings in her
own computer, she receives a password
with which she can log on to the guest
network. “Once we get more access for
the kids, we’ll set switches up,” Willard
says. “They will have a different network
they can access automatically; it will go
through our filter and have a limited
bandwidth pipe that doesn’t interfere
with what school-owned computers are
using. It might be a slightly slower network,
but it will balance out.”
The Right Building Blocks
Regardless of how a district chooses to
handle BYOD and security, a few key
steps make the entire process go much
more smoothly. Willard has dubbed
these steps “Willard’s Pyramid,” a nottoo-
subtle homage to Maslow’s hierarchy
of needs. Here are the pieces of
Willard’s Pyramid:
Funding and leadership. These crucial
elements are the base of the pyramid,
he says. “Without those in place,
don’t bother going forward.”
Technology planning and support.
“Make sure all stakeholders are
involved from the beginning. Figure
out what you have and where you
want to go. Build a team that supports
what’s in place today or you won’t get
the credibility to continue.”
Standards and infrastructure. After
the tech planning, it’s time to develop
a series of standards, including hardware,
software, instruction, networking,
and infrastructure. “At this point you’ll
know if you need fiber between buildings,
and so on. Then you can start
buying hardware and software.”
Ellen Ullman is editor of School CIO.