INST 526: Making Connections: Networking / Prof. Keating

Mark McDonough / July 17, 2005

 

Network Walk-Through

Bigelow Middle School - Newton , Massachusetts

 

The student population at Bigelow is around five hundred 6th through 8th graders. We have one fulltime IT Specialist (who gave me the tour, and who took this course last year with Prof. Keating) and one part-time technology aide. The school was built around 1960. Before NetDay 1997, there was a piecemeal network consisting of several drops and hubs spread out across the school. Since NetDay 1997, there is a professionally installed network.

 


Bigelow is networked using a star topology. There are six drops in every classroom (524 total). Each one connects to the network via unshielded twisted pair (UTP) CAT5 cables that all come together in the “head end room”, a term I had never heard before in a closet- sized area I had never seen before!
 
I didn't intend for this picture to be out of focus, but it's a good indication of what my head felt like as I viewed this maze of cables for the first time!


The school-wide, wireless network was supposed to have been up and running over a year ago. It’s still not functional although there are several ‘hotspots’ around the school (i.e. AirPorts up and running). Our school has what I would call 1.5 computer labs. The main lab, left, has 26 workstations (eMacs and iMacs).


The smaller lab, right, is generally used by faculty or individual students and has 14 eMacs.




There are also 12 workstations (eMacs and iMacs) in the library, and there are 14 Windows-based workstations in the Engineering Technology classroom. All these workstations are equipped with Ethernet network interface cards (NICs); additionally, the Macs have LocalTalk available. Every teacher has an iBook G4, Ethernet- and Airport-ready.

  1. The school also has 3 wireless iBook G4 mobile labs, left, each with its own AirPort:
    The World Language Dept. has its own mobile lab with 20 iBooks (Purchased through a grant. Being a Spanish teacher, it’s been nice having an almost always available mobile lab in my room!)
  2. Two new mobiles for school-wide use. Each with ten iBooks.

The school has three dedicated servers: one for students, one for teachers, and one for administration. All three servers currently run OS X-Panther. They will be upgraded to Tiger next year. The student server is automatically backed up every night on a 120G external hard drive. Also next year, the student server will be located at the Central Office and it will serve the entire District.


For me personally, dealing with infrastructure and hardware would be least appealing aspects of an IT Specialist’s job. I view them as a “necessary evil” that must be conquered in order to get to the “good stuff” of software integration. As a result of this walk-through and from what I’m learning in class, I’m beginning to feel much more confident in dealing with the nuts and bolts of technology.

Home