How To Wire Your School: Organizational and Technical Considerations

Organizing A Networking Project

The proper preparation for any project is deciding what you hope to accomplish and the general strategy you intend to follow for achieving those goals. The Massachusetts Department of Education, through the Mass Ed OnLine (MEOL) project, has sponsored training sessions and materials that help with the strategic planning needed to create a local technology plan. The matching grant section of the new Education Technology bond bill will help with the long term funding. A group called Business and Education for Schools and Technology (BEST) is monitoring progress on the Bond.

Once you've decided to organize a local NetDay you've got to create an organization. NetDay Organizing Committee roles describes one way to divide up the responsibilities and tasks at both the district and school levels. MassNetworks has devised a schedule that gives you a list of tasks to do in addition to the sequence in which they should be done.

A large part of the work involves technical work, most of which must be done before NetDay. You will have to design the internal network, which will probably require the help of paid or volunteer professionals with the appropriate expertise. You will have to create a wiring diagram that shows where the wires will actually go through the walls down to the classroom faceplates. You will have to select and purchase equipment and services, install the backbone wiring and network electronics, and configure the software on the network and classroom computers. Finally, you will have to select a method for making the outside connection, and choose an Internet Service Provider (ISP).

On NetDay, all that should be left to do is to install the termination wiring from the backbone's wiring closets to the classroom, plug in the classroom workstations, test and fix everything, and then announce your success to the rest of the state. Our NetDay overview describes a typical outline for the day. You should also check our Web Page Development Guide. The Down to the Wire booklet emphasizes the organizational tasks required to make NetDay a success.

To make it easy for you to find the information you need, we've put together a table of contents to all of the technical materials and have created a glossary of common networking terms.

Other Useful Information

Equipment is useless unless people know how to use it. Educator professional development is the first priority of MassNetworks. Our directory of professional development opportunities shows you what is available. We also encourage people to join MassCUE , the organization of Massachusetts Computer-Using Educators.

A central theme of MassNetworks is the need to reconnect our schools with our communities, which is why we stress the importance of volunteer support. You will need to recruit, train, effectively use, thank, and follow-up with the people who come to help.  It is very smart to keep track of all your volunteers so you can invite them back in to the schools in several months to show them what you are doing with "their" wires.

It is vital that you approach this like a community organizing campaign. That means you need to do outreach to your local media. You should also send announcements to civic, business, fraternal, and religious groups. You should do several rounds of outreach to let people know what you re doing, invite them to join, and then list your accomplishments.