The Rollout begins

This week, we gave our students their iPod Touches. First order of business (for me, anyway) was to get them all connecting to the wireless network.

I had done some preparation beforehand:

1) I configured our RADIUS server to allow all students in the class to connect to the RADIUS service - which is required for the wireless network they'll be connected to.

2) I configured our wireless LAN controllers to allow the MAC addresses of the iPods to access our "privately-owned computer" network.

I figure that it was best to connect these iPods to the "privately-owned" wireless LAN (despite the fact that they are owned by the College). Considering in 2011 all iPods will be privately-owned, the solutions we devise now will continue to work next year.

Now, it was time to step the students through the initial network setup (with the help of a data projector and big screen). A major part of configuring the iPods was the setup of the "proxy auto config" file (.pac file). Despite stressing to students the importance of getting the URL exactly right, about 1/3 of them had trouble with this configuration. However, 10 mins after class, and a couple of help-desk calls at lunchtime seems to have ironed out these glitches, and (as far as I know) all students can surf the Internet using their iPods on campus.

So, 1 lesson into the trial, and we have 27 iPods on the Internet. Next step is to get them access to the App Store (which is currently blocked by our web proxy).