What an exciting past 5 months it has been for the GISD Technology and Information Systems Division!
We have recently completed the switch infrastructure upgrades at seven high school campuses and are waiting the arrival of the new wireless access points. We have heard from our vendor that the wireless access points have started shipping, so we anticipate having them installed within the next few weeks. This will allow us ample time to test and tweak the systems prior to our students returning for the 2016 - 2017 school year.
Our division has also been busy preparing for the deployment of the 1:1 devices, which will start in September. In order to determine the deployment order, we completed a "deployment draft" with campus principals in May. This "draft" allowed principals to pick the order they wanted to go in for device deployment. Below is the result of that "draft".
High School Device Deployment Dates
September 12th - 16th - Garland High School
September 19th - 23rd - Rowlett High School and Naaman Forest High School
September 26th - 30th - North Garland High School and Lakeview High School
October 3rd - 7th - Sachse High School and South Garland High School
October 10th - 12th - Memorial
October 13th - 17th - PAC
October 18th - 20th - AEC
In addition to planning for the device deployment, our team has been working closely with multiple vendors to ensure proper firewall, content filtering, load balancing, and system configurations are in place and tested well in advance of the deployment of iPad devices. We were fortunate to have some summer school students test the deployment steps and device settings in order to provide us feedback for improvement.
We will continue to work throughout the summer to ensure our students and teachers have the best experience possible during their deployment and use of the iPad devices.
Please visit our FAQ page for frequent updates and feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.
We look forward to powering the many possibilities GISD Ready 1:1 will provide the students and staff of Garland ISD.
Laurie Vondersaar
lvondersaar@garlandisd.net
Chief Information Officer
Garland Independent School District
