Loading. Buffering. Access denied. Connection failed. These are the most common, and most irritating, words that students and teachers see when trying to use the wireless Internet in school.

Students use the guest wifi often, while many teachers rarely use it. And when they do; it runs slow, denies access to many of the useful applications, or does not even work at all.

According to lab technicians Tonya Truitt and Jeff Wiemer, the problem is not the servers.

“The ports only allow 30 different devices to connect to each port.” Said Truitt.

This is one of the main reasons that teachers cannot connect.

A few weeks ago one of my teachers wanted to use gradebook on his iPad, so he could walk around the class and put in grades. So he tried to connect to the wifi, only to be rejected by the disappointing pop-up, “Connection Failed!”

Technology is advancing rapidly and we are falling behind. A year and a half ago we upgraded our servers, however we are already behind. There is just no way we can keep up.

“It’s time and it’s money that we don’t have.” Said Truitt.

The fact is that we need better wifi. Not because I want to get on Twitter during school, but because I think it is unfair to the teachers. If my teacher wants to play a YouTube video, then they should be able to do so without the fear of “overloading the server.”

We are currently moving towards implementing a “student” wifi, one that will allow us to use all of the online educational tools that we need. Unfortunately, this is at least a year away.

The solution? Give the teachers their own, better, faster, stronger connection and tell them how to use it. One that actually works, not one that makes me, and everyone else, want to rip our hair out.