April 1996 — Features
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Tips & Tricks for K-12 Educational LANs
Access Issues
If there will be several labs in a school district, connect them together for cooperative learning activities. This can be as simple as a modem on the lab's phone line, ISDN connection or as complex as a fiber optic link or T1 data line between all schools.
Include access to the Internet in your lab. Depending on your needs and goals, this could take the form of a dedicated Internet connection or several shared modems. Internet access is an issue all to itself, so I'll leave the subject by saying you need to have a mechanism in place that limits students access. You don't want children to use this resource without some sort of checks and balances. Two programs of potential benefit are SurfWatch and Net Nanny, offered in Mac and Windows versions. Other programs and approaches are available as well.
Sponsor a parents/community night after the lab is up and running and let both students and teachers show off their skills for visitors. Some members of the community, especially those without children in your schools, will view computers as an unneeded expense. Make sure the lab is open and operational during Open House. Have plenty of examples of student work on hand -- maybe some of the most skilled students can demonstrate their knowledge. Invite the media when you show off your lab; they love this kind of human interest stuff.
Planning & Budget Issues
Eight megabytes of RAM is essential to run today's software and operating systems. Minimum memory requirements listed on software boxes are typically for stand-alone machines, not a network, and networking software always takes up some memory. If memory is tight some packages won't run or will exhibit odd behavior. Having 8MB in the computers also saves you from having to resort to using virtual memory, a technique that uses a portion of the computer's hard drive to simulate memory. While it d'es work, performance takes a major hit.
When preparing a yearly budget, don't overlook the inevitable software upgrades. Evaluate upgrades as you would any other software purchase. If the application is a major part of your program then it's worth upgrading as older versions cannot usually read files created by newer versions. If a program is not integral, then sticking with an older version may be fine.
