School Wireless For Devices - How Do You Handle It?

[jmair]

I would love to know if there is a poll somewhere on this. I'm curious to know how you think the majority of school handle WiFi access to the Inter/Intra net.

 

Is it open for everyone with a firewall/filter at the end?

Do you only allow district or school devices?

How do you handle guests or personal staff devices?

How do you handle personal student devices?

What about public events such as a sports game or school play?

[jmair]

We are a small school with around 400 users and +-800 devices on the network at any one time. We have a filter and firewall at the endpoint, but we are completely open at the request of staff and administration. I see this question as a double edged sword with full access or with restricted access.

[timbo343]

I would love to know if there is a poll somewhere on this. I'm curious to know how you think the majority of school handle WiFi access to the Inter/Intra net.

 

Is it open for everyone with a firewall/filter at the end?

Do you only allow district or school devices?

How do you handle guests or personal staff devices?

How do you handle personal student devices?

What about public events such as a sports game or school play?

 

Ours is accessible for staff, sixth form and guests only with diiferent SSIDs and VLANs for each. Everyone goes through the smoothwall with a transparent proxy.

 

School bought devices would usually go on the School Domain SSID. Everything else would go on the BYOD SSIDs.

 

Guest devices jump on to the Guest WIFI which is broadcasted in certain areas to cut down yr7-11 students jumping on the guest SSID. Access is controlled by a guest key.

 

Personal student devices (sixth form) jump on the POST16 SSID.

 

We dont issue out wifi access for public events but if i was going to do it i would either control it with a guest login key generated on the wifi system or have the SSID open.

 

What wifi / firewall are you using?

[FN-GM]

Is it open for everyone with a firewall/filter at the end? - All filtered and Firewalled

Do you only allow district or school devices? - Only devices from the Academy Trust on the production network (secured by 802.1x). Council devices go on the guest WIFI

How do you handle guests or personal staff devices? - We have a guest WIFI and temporary one use codes are issued by reception. We have a BYOD WIFI where staff connect using 802.1x.

How do you handle personal student devices? - Student devices are not permitted.

What about public events such as a sports game or school play? - Guest WIFI as above.

[Fazza]

Why dont you start a Poll on this thread then and then you'll find out!

[Danp]

Ours is accessible for staff, sixth form and guests only with diiferent SSIDs and VLANs for each. Everyone goes through the smoothwall with a transparent proxy.

 

School bought devices would usually go on the School Domain SSID. Everything else would go on the BYOD SSIDs.

 

Guest devices jump on to the Guest WIFI which is broadcasted in certain areas to cut down yr7-11 students jumping on the guest SSID. Access is controlled by a guest key.

 

Personal student devices (sixth form) jump on the POST16 SSID.

 

We dont issue out wifi access for public events but if i was going to do it i would either control it with a guest login key generated on the wifi system or have the SSID open.

 

What wifi / firewall are you using?

 

Out of interest, how does the transparent proxy work for you? We have had issues because we have different levels of filtering for students. One example is Years 10-13 have YouTube but Years R-9 dont.

[timbo343]

Out of interest, how does the transparent proxy work for you? We have had issues because we have different levels of filtering for students. One example is Years 10-13 have YouTube but Years R-9 dont.

 

It works like a dream, dont have any problems at all. It has taken a while to get it perfected but its all worth it.

 

What are you using as your filtering and wifi?

[JordanT91]

Is it open for everyone with a firewall/filter at the end? - Protected with WPA2. Our internet connection uses a Lightspeed Rocket filter managed by our LA - domain computers have the Lightspeed client installed which recognises which user is logged on. Non-domain devices will be unable to access the internet until a school username and password is entered.

Do you only allow district or school devices? - The official policy is only school-owned and managed devices can connect to the network. Exceptions are made when necessary.

How do you handle guests or personal staff devices? - Officially not allowed. The SMT and I use our phones on the network.

How do you handle personal student devices? - Not allowed. Not even allowed in school.

What about public events such as a sports game or school play? - Not allowed.

[mthomas08]

We have two separate Wi-Fi setups, one being on the domain and the other is more open direct to the internet.

 

The open one still requires the School password, we allow any device because they still need to authenticate to gain internet access. We've got visitor accounts available which can easily be reset and provided when needed. Students know this Wi-Fi password and it's completely VLAN off the grid to the point you can't see anything but the Internet.