Meeting the challenges of digital learning

You may be aware of the Future Focused Learning Report May 2014 released by the 21st Century Learning Reference group. The report recommends that the Ministry of Education provide guidelines on introducing and effectively using digital devices for learning, with the expectation that by 2017:

• all early childhood learners and school-age students will have access to digital devices
• every student from Year 4 will have access to a personal digital device.

In meeting these recommendations, schools are faced with numerous IT challenges to ensure appropriate network and web-content access for all students and the devices they use. To help schools meet these challenges Smart Computer Systems Ltd has partnered with Linewize Ltd to provide Smart-Net schools the ability to self-manage a students’ network and web-content access across both school and personal devices (BYOD).

The Linewize service is a cloud based solution that provides a elegant answer to the device management

challenges that schools face, including:

• A new student teacher is here for 2 weeks and we need to grant them temporary wifi access to the school's Internet.
• A website has been incorrectly blocked and we need to have immediate access to this website.
• There has been an incident involving inappropriate content and we need to know how widespread this behaviour is and which students are involved.
• For his birthday Johnny received a new iPad which he would like to use at school and we want to support this.
• Student Facebook use is proving problematic and we want to block student access to social media sites during lesson time.
• Our Internet connection struggles to keep up during lesson time and we want to find out what is causing this contention.
• A new app has become popular and we need to block it as the app is not appropriate for use in school time.

Linewize provides user authentication across both fixed and mobile devices, directory integration, (including Google) user specific filtering and complete visibility over student web browsing history across all the devices they use. The Linewize service is already used by a growing number of Smart-Net schools including Breens Intermediate, Southbrook Primary and Thorrington Primary.

Provisioning the Linewize service requires no network changes or upfront hardware costs. In most cases the Linewize device can be installed by the School’s TIC for ICT matters.

Smart Computer Systems has negotiated a 10% discount for Smart-Net schools looking to support BYOD or better manage their existing devices and guest wifi access. Smart-Net schools are charged a fixed rate of just
0.45c per student per month based on the school’s MOE published roll, (subject to a minimum charge of $112.50 per month for school rolls less than 250 students). Smart-Net schools can also receive one month free by choosing to pay annually on service commencement. If you are interested in supporting BYOD or better managing student and guest device access to your existing network please contact Smart Computer Systems today on 0508 9822233.

For one lucky Smart-Net school, Linewize are offering a year's free subscription.

School's can enter the draw by clicking the Follow button for Linewize on LinkedIn.

https://www.linkedin.com/company/linewize