April 1996 — Features

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Tips & Tricks for K-12 Educational LANs

PHILIP HESS, Computer Technician, North Hills School District, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Use SCSI hard drives in the file server. SCSI can queue multiple read/write requests for greater speed. Also, SCSI drives are available in greater capacity and higher RPM speeds. The faster the platters rotate on a hard drive, the more information can be put down or pulled off it. Another plus to SCSI is that it is as close to a universal expansion bus as you can get; one can connect up to seven devices to each SCSI card. With this configuration you can add additional hard disks, CD-ROMs, tape backup units, scanners and a variety of other devices to the server for just the cost of the device and a cable.

If your file server is going to be used for "mission critical" applications like an administrative network or students records, consider an external SCSI drive for all the network files. This way you can remove the drive from the file server, in case of a fatal system crash, and plug it into another machine. While your network may work slowly in this configuration, at least it's working. Test this setup before you really need to use it. Another technique is to have applications on a write-protected/read-only disk or partition and have documents stored on a read/write disk or partition. This way you can backup applications once and documents as frequently as needed.

Savvy graduate students make good onsite technical support people.

Get Others Involved

Start a computer club at the school. This shifts learning the mechanics of a computer to non-instructional time. Then, when the children come to the lab for a classroom assignment, they don't have to be taught how to use a mouse, etc. Also, students can help out their teachers with the in-classroom computers, which they are proud to do. Look for fun projects for the children.

Have an after-school keyboard class if state education laws prohibit teacher keyboarding/typing without a business teacher/typing teacher present.

You may want to consider evening classes for parents as well. Frequently, parents are at a loss when it comes to finding quality computer instruction for their family.