WA Education readies BYOD for state's schools

Why state standards matter

Having all schools in the state on a single SOE sets the stage for the department to execute its long-term vision for ICT systems in schools across the state.

Eventually, Veen is hopeful of replacing the primary server at each site with what he calls a "school-in-a-box", part of what is now codenamed SOEv5.

"The technology's getting closer where we can put a router, server, wireless LAN controller, and maybe a bandwidth management appliance inside a single chassis," he said.

"[Right now] this is just theoretical, based on reasonable assessment of the technology trends that are coming, [but] that's where we're trying to drive it."

A common network across all schools statewide could also allow ICT to proactively recognise and resolve potential problems before they turn into something bigger.

"Once we have that common network across every school ... [we can] be pre-emptive in how we support schools, rather than wait for something to fail and deliver [a replacement]," Veen said.

Veen envisioned being able to refresh servers simply by couriering the box to the school, having someone at the school "plug [it] in at 3pm on a Friday afternoon and by the time [they] come in Monday it'll be reconfigured and ready to go."

Such a capability would not only absolve technicians of having to travel to remote schools; it would also provide confidence around the availability of network infrastructure.

"Something that we've seen with SOE [already] is that there's lots more confidence for teachers to use digital teaching and learning content because they know that when they come into school on the Monday morning that network is going to be working," Veen said.

"It wasn't like that in the past."

A common statewide SOE would allow teachers and students to move between schools on a single set of accepted credentials.

Some of this is already possible. For example, when the roof blew off Bunbury Senior High School in June this year, students relocated to three other senior high schools in the area.

Because all schools used SOEv4, students were able to "roam between campuses" on their existing credentials.

"They walked in Monday morning and they connected," Veen said. "Thats what you want to be able to do.

"In the past the local school would have had to create user profiles for the kids and [with] 350 kids [it] takes a long time to do that."

In the future, Veen hopes the department will be able to take that roaming capability to a whole new level.

"The future is that a kid walking home from [secondary] school might walk past two primary schools on the way from the high school, [and] can connect on the way past, because we know who they are, we know what they're doing, it's all filtered and managed and there's a proxy in place so we can track what they're doing and where they're going," Veen said.

"The education system will be just not a school campus anymore. It'll be a statewide system.

"That's what we want to happen."