Your local area network is a critical component of your SmartClass language lab system
By Pierre Emond
Date of Creation: 2019-11-13
Last Update: 2023-02-24
It is mandatory that your network be configured to support the synchronous traffic being generated when your language teachers are running classroom activities like conversation pairing and/or screen sharing.
The following devices must all have 1000 Mbps wired network connections:
- SmartClass Server or NAS
- SmartClass Teacher Station for LIVE + HUB
- SmartClass BYOD Manager
- SmartClass HomeWork Manager (aka WEB Manager)
- All network switches and wireless access points.
WiFi Networks for Students with LIVE + HUB
WiFi networks provide shared network bandwidth for all connected devices, so they can quickly become a bottleneck for overall language lab performance. The following guidelines are recommended:
- Use commercial-grade wireless access points (WAP).
- Wireless access points should support IEEE 802.11n (IEEE 802.11ac strongly recommended).
- There should be a dedicated SSID for the language lab.
- All casual (non-language-lab) users should connect to a different WAP.
- Restrict device connections to a maximum of 20 per WAP.
- Use only the 5 GHz band on the WAP.
- Remove any bandwidth restrictions for lab users.
All users (teachers and students) should be on the same subnet. If this is not practical, ensure that students using Windows devices use only the AIR version of the SmartClass Student application.
Contact us if you would like more information.