Chromecast installed around campus

Preliminary results were so positive on the use of Chromecast to improve wireless video transmission around campus that over the summer of 2015, we expanded the installation of Chromecast around campus. Several Epson projectors were upgraded to accommodate the Chromecast devices.  Training on using Chromecast for streaming video is provided to teachers by Barbara Angiolelli. Faculty were encouraged to download the Google Cast Extension to their Chrome broswers. Several apps even have Chromecast buttons included, like YouTube and Netflix. (Link to the original blog post)

New Technology Elective - Phone App Design

In our continued efforts to bring new technology electives to Blair, we will be offering our first course in phone app design next year.  This one semester course will teach the use of development software to design and create apps for smart phones.  The course will cover introductory computer programming concepts as they apply to the creation of phone apps.  Students are required to have their own laptop, and will produce working phone apps during the class.  The course will be taught by the members of the Technology Department, and will have an online learning component.

Wireless Video Projection and ChromeCast

One of the requests we get every year from teachers is to continue to expand the wireless capabilities of the technologies used in the classrooms. Teachers want to be able to connect to projectors and audio-visual systems wireless from anywhere in the room, and put class content on the screen from their laptops or tablets.  The Epson projectors and proprietary software we have put in place has worked well for many applications, but bandwidth limitations still make streaming video and audio choppy. Wireless video transmission is still an emerging technology, but we have been testing ChromeCast as a solution to this need, and the preliminary results seem positive. A test version is up and running in the technology training room, and we are deploying our first pilot run of this in Clinton now. If feedback is positive, it is likely that we will continue to deploy this solution in other classrooms during the summer.

Dealing with Cyber Attacks

Keeping the school internet online is always a primary focus for the Technology Office.  When it goes offline, the cause is usually a power loss, a failed network device, or problems with the telecommunication lines to our internet provider.  But, sometimes, the problem is caused by a form of cyber attack called Distributed Denial of Service.  We have lost internet for several hours at least three times in the past two years for this reason.  In response to this problem, our internet provider has been working with us to put software in place to quickly identify when such attacks occur, and to respond quickly to them to minimize downtime.  Today such a problem occurred right before before school meeting.  The attack was identified and mitigated with less than two minutes of downtime.  This represents the next step forward for us in providing stable, reliable internet service at the school.

Large Area Printing

The Fine Arts department has been utilizing a large area printer in Weber for several years. Recently, we have started to promote the use of the printer for other groups at Blair. In the science department, Ms. Schuster's class created digital posters which were printed in large format. The Technology Office used it to produce large, framed images to decorate the office. Ms. Maine from the Advancement office used the Weber Mac lab and the printer to provide visuals for a special Blair-themed event. The use of this printer is available to any teacher or staff member at the school for class or office use, and training on the printer software is available from Ms. Angiolelli.

Faculty and Staff Training Site

We have been developing a website dedicated to providing training resources to faculty and staff.  Barbara Angiolelli, our Instructional Technologist, has been gathering and posting information there for the last six months.  Topics and questions often come up in one-on-one help sessions and workshops, and gathering it all online is a great way to let people refer back to content later.  Contents range from using Google Apps for Education, connecting to devices in the classrooms, and mastering Excel in the office environment.  Blair users may view the site directly by clicking here.

Where Do Blair Users Spend Their Time on the Internet?

Two years ago when we analyzed internet traffic at Blair, the amount of traffic going to Facebook was larger than the sum of all the other sites put together.  Now Facebook is a distant follower to other sites.  The big change in internet use since then has been towards sites with video content.  People spend a lot of time watching TV shows and movies online.  People also use real time streaming video applications, such as Skype.  The amount of bandwidth needed to support this has increased substantially and quickly.  In two weeks we will be tripling our available bandwidth, which is consistent with what we are seeing happen at other boarding schools.  The graph below shows the top web domains visited by Blair users in the last 24 hours.