By Lauren Cosca ’15

As many students have noticed, free Wi-Fi is now available at Sherwood. The purpose of this network is to expand the availability of technology as classroom material for students and teachers. It is available to them on their iPhones, tablets and laptops. The building-wide wireless access was installed in August and September of 2013, but was only available for MCPS devices. Many new access points were added and moved in January of this year. Over the summer, capabilities were added in order to allow staff and students to use the schools network without a key or password.

According to IT Specialist Andrew Dodge, no additional equipment was installed when the Wi-Fi was added to monitor what the students were doing on the school’s network with their own personal devices. In relation to passwords and student’s privacy, most websites that are visited encrypt passwords so the school has no access to them. “It is important to note that no one [at Sherwood or in MCPS] is actively looking for passwords or personal information,” said Dodge.

With the popular iPhone, all incoming and outgoing text messages to other iPhones are sent using “iMessage,” which uses cellular data, or any available Wi-Fi. It has been reported that the staff at the school and the district wide level are not monitoring day-to-day text messages. If there is any suspicion of misuse within the school’s Wi-Fi, additional steps will be taken by the school.

At Sherwood’s level, there is no way for the staff to pull up any activity of the students on demand. All of the network usage goes through the same filters and monitoring tools as the school computers. There is a web filter at the point of entry to the MCPS network, so if certain students are repetitively trying to view inappropriate material, they will be reported to the school and actions will be taken at a lower level. Any websites that are blocked on the school computers also will be blocked on the wireless network. MCPS is legally required to follow federal law in protecting students on its network from specific material.

The school expects students and staff to use the wireless network for educational use. The rules of technology usage in the classroom still apply to students; it will be allowed based on the teacher’s discretion. Using the Wi-Fi is like using the school’s computers. “Staff and students are guests on the network and should use it as they would on a school computer,” said Dodge.