Often Irish primary schools will extend or build on prefabricated buildings to their permanent structure and often they will not have a WiFi infrastructure. This article assumes that WiFi is available in other parts of the school.
There are 2 possibilities here.
The first is that the new room has a wired network point. This is entirely possible in a prefab once it’s installed. The best way to get WiFi is to turn the the network point into a WiFi hotspot. There are a couple of ways to do this – either using a Network bridge or a WiFi extender. It’s something anyone with a techie brain should be able to do for under €200 but you might want to get an expert in to make sure it’s done right, which might raise the price a little.
The second possibility is that there are no network points at all in the new room. The best way to tackle this is through the electrical points in the room. You can buy network extenders in pretty much any technology shop or even in Argos or Tesco or other major retailer. Rather than using network cables, these use the electrical wires to transfer data. You will then have to add a WiFi access point similar to the above example to get Wifi going. While this is a very hacky way of doing things, it should work for under €500.
However, the best solution of all, especially if you are in a long term situation, is to call in the network experts and get something a bit more permanent installed. Sadly, if you are in a prefab, you might very well be in it for the long term!
Obviously, it goes without saying that I don’t see not having WiFi as an option when it comes to tablets. Any mobile device that doesn’t connect to the Internet is not utilising most of its capabilities.
Last Update: March 28, 2018