[plug] suggestion: PLUG 4 Schools

[Justin Hall]

<snip>
 >Teachers don't want Windows or Linux or Mac, they
 >want to get their job done.
Amen ;)

It is a long hard road to get some teachers to use technology - but you 
will find that there are other teachers who love it, and if only they had 
more time - or more access - they would be into it more...

Also a 'mission' such as this might be very useful if it starts out with a 
primary school - not secondary... why?
Just some quick points...
- the machines will be logged in to one account for the whole day.. and 
these accounts will not change a lot over the years...
- teachers in primary have a list of things they want to get done, that can 
use computers, and a lot of them dont have a fixed program in mind (having 
said that, i have met a few who have very specific wants)
- the number of PC's will be smaller (we have 1 in each class, a 'POD' of 
10 PC's, and 10 laptops in the library of our primary school)
- a lot of the good primary kids programs run in DOS or win3.1 (some newer 
ones in 95) - and the current compatibility layers in Linux probably work 
better with such programs...
- The reporting needs are different (i wont say less, as the Curriculum 
Frame work has work in the title (and it means it))...

Having said that, for those that are interested in secondary - here are 
some badly formatted, very hole filled, and probably partially insane notes 
about what can be involved in a secondary school computing system...

Network: Some schools separate the Administration (Ie Office Staff;) 
network from the rest of the school - on a physically separate network, or 
on a VLAN... I actually know someone who works in a government high school 
who has two computers on his desk - connected to the 'separate' networks in 
his school! One network has the email, the other internet - last time i met 
with him he could only print on the network that didnt have the email! He 
ended up getting a Hotmail account so he could email himself anything he 
wanted to print!

Usually you can separate the PC's into those that are available for student 
use, those available for teacher use, and those available for Office 
staff... office staff are limited to logining in the office - staff can 
login on staff and student machines - students can only login on student 
machines...

Access to computers: staff and students should have a User account, that 
can be created from a text file dumped from the administation program... 
logins should be the same on all machines - and automatically give the user 
access to the network stored files and the shared directory for their 
type... we group users by type .. so a login to a generic machine that is 
not set apart for a specific user type would be username.02 for a student 
in Year 8, username.staff for a staff user, username.office for an office 
user etc...
should be able to control network space useage by year group... no local 
drive access allowed...

Internet access should be monitored - and access should be restricted to 
students... (we use Novell Border manager as it uses students netware login 
names to restrict access) - it should be simple for a staff member to add 
URL's to the block list...

Email - Staff email should be easy, start to type in a staff members name - 
and it completes it...
Students may or may not have email access (we dont currently give students 
email access, and we block webmail access - but we are thinking of changing 
this policy)...

Programs Common
Word, Excel, Power point, Access, Efofex Software programs 
(http://www.efofex.com/) - shared storage (G: drive personal, H: drive 
shared (access controlled)).

Programs Students
Visual Basic, Animated Movie Maker (Ren and Stimpy), Scaler (presentation), 
Ulead Photoimpact, Gif Animator, web editor of the moment (HTML Kit 
currently). Video Man (Video editing software), Virtual Dub...
Not so common programs students use: ChemLab, Working Mathematically Space, 
Weather Monitor, World Book Encyclopedia 2001, lots of little miscellaneous 
W9x programs...

Programs Staff
Curriculum Council Assessor Program (Access Based Sold by the CC, need to 
work out Outcomes based marks), Redback Software Outcomes Marks (Access 
Based), XLMarks (Free Excel based template for simple marks book).
Banking programs - such as Bankwest Office Banking, Common Wealth Quickline 
5. The tax department ECI program...

Special Program - essential
Administration and Reporting software - usually one of: Maze 
(http://www.caz.com.au/index.shtml), RM, Synergy, Blackbook - heaps more, 
but my mind is now blank ;)

Printers
We have lots of HP Jet direct network print adaptors - and a few horrible 
netgear print adaptors... if a school has anything they will probably be 
similar... depending on budget...

If it is a government school it will probably have an NT box that is 
dedicated for the Administration software - and it will have some sort of 
direct link into the education department.. so that is probably something 
that can not change... so any plan will need to work around that system... 
maybe in the morning i can chase up what that system is.. other wise i am 
sure there are people who know more about the specifics of the public 
system than me...

I hope that helps... i can offer more specifics, to a degree, if people are 
interested ;)

Night ;)

Justin