The department of instuctional technology is committed to minimizing instances in which technical difficulties impact student learning and engagement. It’s tough to be engaged while waiting indefinitely for a website or blog to load. Part of ensuring we have robust resources for our students is removing obsolete equipment from our classrooms and networks. Another part is regularly reviewing how our resources are used. Using specific instances that we were able to replicate, our technical team attacked a problem that Link was having with blogging and identified insufficient bandwidth as the likely culprit. Immediately we requested that BOCES, who provides our internet service and filtering, increase our bandwidth by at least fifty percent; a change that was made by 1:00 the next day.
The Department of Instructional Technology is committed to providing a high quality of service and an appropriate sense of urgency in resolving technical difficulties that impact instruction.
John, thanks for this post. I noticed the increase in bandwidth immediately. As you know, I have been involved in student projects that involve file transfers using both ftp and webDAV. I have noticed another issue that may be related to bandwidth, but it could also involve the firewall: When I attempt to transfer a file, such as a web page, the transfer works well until it hits sub-folders in a file. At that point it locks up. In order to post student projects, I must then open up each sub-folder and individually transfer the file. As you say, this consumes a lot of time and locks up a computer for hours. This issue may come up again when you offer web locker to staff and students.