‘Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD) might be the most affordable mobile device solution for your district. A BYOD initiative allows staff and students to bring personal mobile devices to use in the classroom.
Thinking about a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) program in your district or school? Here are some tips to help:
1. Cover the whys. What makes BYOD a good fit for your district? You’ll need to think through the options and outline the benefits.
2. Get buy-in. You’ll need a solid, written plan to get approval from your board and buy-in from parents and teachers.
3. Determine the devices. Determine what you will allow on campus, including whether you’ll only allow personal electronic devices on your wired network or just your wireless network.
4. Update all Acceptable Use Policies (AUP). Set and share policies for what, when, and how students can use their own devices on campus and determine how you’ll enforce them.
5. Plan your IT support protocols. Determine what IT will and won’t do on personal devices, and what hours IT support will be available.
6. Educate teachers. Give them training on managing a classroom that incorporates devices and basic advice to support lessons across multiple platforms.
7. Address equity. What will you do about students who don’t have a device? Make supplemental devices part of your plan. Some districts adopt a ‘Hybrid’ approach and provide mobile devices for students in need and allow students with the necessary resources to bring their own devices.
8. Prepare your network. Get your wireless infrastructure ready for BYOD demands, determine how you will secure your primary network, force personally owned devices onto a separate LAN, and provide filtered access through that LAN.
9. Provide a learning platform. BYOD encourages anytime, anywhere, any device learning — so make sure you have a safe, mobile, collaborative platform compatible with any device that students and teachers can access for schoolwork, discussions, resources, assignments, and more (like My Big Campus).
10. Be prepared, but flexible. BYOD is a big change for many districts. Prepare yourself by reading and listening to districts who have done it — but also be flexible and ready to adapt to unexpected surprises (good and bad).
11. Plan for device management. Determine how you’ll manage devices, push curriculum apps, and set policies. With BYOD it’s essential to use a flexible MDM solution that understands schools and school BYOD environments.
12. Prepare students. Make sure students also have training, on expectations, how and when to use their devices, digital citizenship, and device safety strategies. (Here is a bundle that can help.)
As far as learning from district that has done it, here’s one example!
Paso Robles Public Schools embraces emerging technologies and encourages its teachers and students to look for ways of using them to enhance teacher and learning.
Paso Robles uses the Lightspeed Systems Web Filter to provide user-authenticated access, safety and CIPA compliance for their primary network and their BYOD guest network. Both staff and students benefit from a true Anytime, Anywhere and Any Device environment. In addition, the independence and device use is developing life learning skills, preparing students for higher education and the work force.
Share your own mobile device deployment experience and any tips you might have on our training blog page. Reminder this months Take Off with Lightspeed Systems is on June 26th at 8:00am on Mobile Manager: Best Practices with Henry Danielson. You will hear how he has used Mobile Manager at his school district.
| The Email Archive Module is designed with powerful and flexible features that make it easy to archive and retrieve email. One of those features gives you the ability to specify multiple archive locations on your network.
You will always use one Current Archive Location; however, if that location should happen to become low on disc space before the archive retention settings expire, then you can add a second location and begin archiving there. This means that you can upgrade your storage space without moving a single file.
All locations will remain indexed so that future searches will query the correct archive place. Furthermore, you may add as many archive locations as you wish. These locations may include:
- an iSCSI connection.
- a Windows network share.
- a share residing on a SAN.
- etc.
Please keep the following tips in mind when creating an archive location:
- You cannot use an IP address for the host name.
- Share names cannot contain spaces.
- The text entered for the Mount Point Name will be used to create a subdirectory on the Rocket Appliance, which will act as a proxy to the archive location. You should only enter valid subdirectory names and avoid using embedded spaces.
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We have recently added a few more videos to the video library. There are two videos on Email Archiving and the Spam Filter under the Email Management category as well as a new Web Filter Overrides video under the Polices section of the Rocket Web Filter. Constantly keeping you up to date with training curriculum like these videos is a goal of the Professional Development team, so if there is a video that you would to see added to the library, please let us know.
Last week we featured the Spam Filter portion of our Rocket Email Management Module. In this one hour session, Brad Casselman discusses the basic features and functions of the the Spam Filter. If you were unable to attend this or any other webinar, you can always find recordings in the video archive section of the Training Page. Watch last weeks Spam Filter webinar now.
This year we are doing something different with the certification process; modular certification. Starting February 1st, an exam will be available for customers interested in being a Certified Lightspeed Systems Web Filter Administrator. In order to become certified in this module, you will have to complete the following:
- Pass the LS Web Filter Certification exam with a score of 70% or higher
- Complete LS Rocket Essentials or LS Web Filter Essentials
- Complete LS Web Filter 101, 102 & ADV classes
The exam will be open to those that have already completed these courses on February 1st. If you have not completed all of the classes but are interested in finding out what classes you still need to take and the cost associated, please contact Misty Whitten the Training Facilitator at Lightspeed Systems. She will provide you with payment information, and courses available. If you already know what classes you need to complete the certification process, you can register here for any upcoming courses.
Additionally we will be releasing a LS Email Manager and LS Mobile Device Manager certification exams in the near future.
There are many features and benefits to taking advantage of the Self Paced Training option for Rocket Certification Training in My Big Campus. One feature in particular is the available office hours. Chat live with a training engineer any Wednesday from 8:30am – 9:30am and 3:30pm – 4:30pm Pacific Time.
2012 was a very big year for Lightspeed Systems – and 2013 promises to be even more exciting!
Over the next few years, we believe all children will have a mobile device and be connected to the Internet. These are certainly exciting times in education, but it also comes with challenges. We hope to help schools meet these goals with solutions that are easy to use and that make learning safe, mobile and collaborative. We’re excited about what this new year holds, and look forward to working with you to help you meet your goals!
With so much excitement and anticipation around the direction that Lightspeed Systems is going, we decided to shared all this and more during our December 20 Take off with Lightspeed Roundtable webinar. If you weren’t able to attend, you can watch the recording to hear from our President, Brian Thomas; our VP of Product Development, Rob Chambers; and our VP of Operations, John Genter—as well as some Q&A between them and customers. And stay tuned for future Take Off With Lightspeed webinars; they happen every month and cover a variety of topics.
We are excited to announce that after the release of the Lightspeed Systems Rocket Spam Filter we now have the accompanying training course available. The purpose of the Spam Filter & Email Archiving class is to make any network administrator more familiar with this product. The Spam Filter portion of this course will cover everything from Module Settings, Policies, and User Rules to Spam Filter Reports, Daily Email Summary, and the Spam Filter User Portal. The Email Archiving portion of the class will also cover Module Settings and Policies, as well as the Migrator, Reports, and Email Retrieval. This class has just been added to our Self Paced Training Course and will be available for a live instruction course starting Wednesday January 30th, 2013. Class is estimated to run for 4 hours starting at 8am PST (11am EST). Anyone who has transitioned over to the Lightspeed Systems Rocket Spam Filter is strongly encouraged to register for the class. The course is only $100 per person and offers an in-depth look at the features that are available.
REGISTER NOW
Have you signed up for our next Take Off With Lightspeed Webinar?
We will be bringing in some fresh faces for your enjoyment. Brian Thomas, our President, Rob Chambers, VP of Product Development and John Genter, VP of Operations will be the featured speakers for this event. They will be discussing the direction of the company, future development, and support as we bring 2012 to a close and continue to move forward into 2013.
Please join us, bring your questions, and get an inside look at the future of Lightspeed Systems:
Thursday December 20th, 8-9am PST
Register Now
The Holidays are in full effect and we’d like to share our expanded support hours and end-of-year schedule.
Expanded Live Support
Technical Support is available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. You can reach live support as follows:
- Monday – Thursday 12:00am to 10:00pm PST
- Friday – 12:00am to 5:00pm PST
- Saturday – 8:00am to 5:00pm PST
- Sunday – 1:00pm to 10:00pm PST
Off-hours Support
All other hours are covered by on-call support staff. To get off-hours support, you must call and leave a message on the support line: 1-800-444-9267 (661-326-8324). A support engineer will return your call within one hour.
Holiday Support
The Lightspeed Systems offices will be closed December 25th-January 1st for the year-end holidays. Technical Support for these holiday periods is available via Off-hours Support as described above.
