Opinions please (teenagers especially!)

Raumarik

Raumarik

Raumarik

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I'm the network manager at a high school (and primary feeder schools), only been in the job a few weeks and although I did a similar job before I've been seeing things very much more from a student point of view than an "IT" viewpoint recently.

One of the main problem we have in the school is students damaging equipment whether it's software or hardware, we do have policies running to restrict access to C Drive, control panels etc (all the standard stuff) and software faults can be fixed pretty fast. But lets face it if someone is determined to do damage, they will. Regardless of the security in place.. if the will is there..

So the simple question!

If you were allowed to play GAMES on a computer at school would you be less likely to user it properly and value it more?

Obviously time would be the issue, I was thinking lunchtimes/after school.

Just curious, I know it could in itself raise serious problems but I think it's worth at least considering.
 
i suppose that approach could work

one of the main reasons i pratted around on pcs at school looking for a way to bypass stuff, was simply because the restriction was there. If you deny people, they will look for another way.

don't know if allowing people to play games would solve the idea though, personally i dont think it would. Those pcs should be used for work.

I think better supervision (not remote desktop :p)/punishments would be the better answer tbh
 
Sounds like a good idea. Most kids and teenagers love computer games.

Also these kids would probably discourage/ be on the look out for others damaging the equipment.
 
I would think so. My school spent most of their time blocking games sites and whatever off. I spent most of my time finding workarounds. The network admin really didn't like me (but to be fair, she knew nothing about computers).

Make sure you don't have any open drives on your network too. Our favourite trick was we find a drive, the notorious 'G Drive' which we all had free access to. So obviously we installed quake2 / doom etc on there and had fun playing ;).
 
Unfortunatly in a Secondary school it proberly won't work, as a lot of the people who smash up IT equipment in my old school where the idiot chavs that didn't understand the concept of a computer
 
I'm 16. From what I saw in my secondary school and from what I see in my college...



















...Computers have no place in a teenagers hands.



But I suppose allowing freedom will work. I always just used Googles Translate tool to translate english to english as a free proxy to bypass the firewall and play games :p
 
To be honest I've seen the students do a lot of stuff I was guilty of at school :) With the power of google and the various tools available on the net these days I personally think that any determined mind can find it's way around it. I'd never remove security from the client PCs but I don't really expect it to do it's job 100%, hence the library of images I have!

Main problem I seem to have is hardware, keyboards being broken on laptops, mice being nicked etc. I know it's mostly lads that are doing it and partly why I think if they had a reason to want the PCs in working order they'd possibly think twice.

Unfortunately not all the staff value the PCs either, some PCs aren't exactly brand new but other staff are superb with the students and equipment.

Internet wise we have a very annoying iGear system, I detest it more than the students as I spend about 30mins a day unlocking those that have been "silly" and entered the BBC news site and been locked out because the word sex and violence appear on the same page. bleh! It does it's job a little too effectively at times!
 
I'm in upper 6th now and out school has a policy where if you're caught playing games (either through technicians watching your screen or a teacher finding you), you're banned for 4 weeks. That tends to discourage most from doing anything.

We are, however, allowed to play games after school (though not at lunch / break as people are working) and I think this works well.

A few years ago, there were a few problems with people vandalising PCs and stealing mouse balls :p and the answer to that was - webcams in the top corners of the rooms (although I'm sure they aren't actually connected to anything)!
 
Kami said:
I'm the network manager at a high school (and primary feeder schools), only been in the job a few weeks and although I did a similar job before I've been seeing things very much more from a student point of view than an "IT" viewpoint recently.

One of the main problem we have in the school is students damaging equipment whether it's software or hardware, we do have policies running to restrict access to C Drive, control panels etc (all the standard stuff) and software faults can be fixed pretty fast. But lets face it if someone is determined to do damage, they will. Regardless of the security in place.. if the will is there..

So the simple question!

If you were allowed to play GAMES on a computer at school would you be less likely to user it properly and value it more?

Obviously time would be the issue, I was thinking lunchtimes/after school.

Just curious, I know it could in itself raise serious problems but I think it's worth at least considering.
Click to expand...


That would only apply to those interested enough to care about computers in the first place. The fact is, those damaging the computers are probably not interested in computers and will continue to do so either way.

Your best bet is to be able to implement detention/suspension/exclusion for those caught doing it. Log the computers before and after every student, if there is damage there that wasn't before - you have your culprit.
 
A.N.Other said:
I'm in upper 6th now and out school has a policy where if you're caught playing games (either through technicians watching your screen or a teacher finding you), you're banned for 4 weeks. That tends to discourage most from doing anything.

We are, however, allowed to play games after school (though not at lunch / break as people are working) and I think this works well.

A few years ago, there were a few problems with people vandalising PCs and stealing mouse balls :p and the answer to that was - webcams in the top corners of the rooms (although I'm sure they aren't actually connected to anything)!
Click to expand...

I got banned off the network once for writing a note to the technicians telling them what a couple of lazy sods they were. Hehe, I then went to them, had them show me the screenshot, to which I lied and said it wasn't me. Ofcourse I had to do this without bursting out into uncontrollable laughter.
 
it might do, but as a former IT prefect responsible for supervising 13 year olds at lunchtimes, I found the kids damaging hardware were just general vandals, the only solution was detention and banning them from the computer room.

The ones who thought hacking and getting round restrictions was cool did show a bit more respect if you let them play games, the rest I just put in detention and had their access suspended.
 
You'd need to define "damage" for us I think.

It's probably worth a try as a distraction for those who cause damage by trying something "clever" and those who just cause damage for damage sake. It's probably not going to solve all your problems but it will solve some of them.
 
in a scholl i used to go they had a software called "deep freeze" and what ever changes a user made on a pc,they where restored when the pc was restarted.
I think it works by loading a partition image every time windows boots.The problem was that we couldnt save anything on the harddisk(at least permanetly).

You can have 2 partitions,one that the image will be loaded,and another which will be used as a storage place
 
Hmm.. well my school did try to stop people playing games, but there are so many games and sites that they gave up. They don't seem to mind people playing games out of lessons, but have manage to stop the gamers during lessons by having all the screens pointing towards the teacher's station so that he/she can keep an eye on what's going on; it seems to work.

In terms of vandalism, my school has put IP cameras in every IT room (and all over the school) so they can easily see who the culprit is.
 
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The worst case of damaging equipment is when the computers are cheap, eg mouses that don't work you get angry hormone high teenagers wacking them on the desk. I think playing games might work, as Mr_L said trial basis and see the results.
 
NqR said:
in a scholl i used to go they had a software called "deep freeze" and what ever changes a user made on a pc,they where restored when the pc was restarted.
I think it works by loading a partition image every time windows boots.The problem was that we couldnt save anything on the harddisk(at least permanetly).

You can have 2 partitions,one that the image will be loaded,and another which will be used as a storage place
Click to expand...

Deep freeze is something I've used in the past, it works well but unfortunately this school doesn't have it. I might well start pushing for us to get licenses for it though, but at the moment I know there's simply a lack of funds. Alternative is a "bodyguard card" does the same thing but it's just a little PCI card that you plop in the PC :)
 
CS and UT were put on the system at school a while back, loads of people were playing, didn't have any damage during that time, although people spent the time playing games rather than work. Now they've been taken off and people spend time by punching in the drive spacers on the fronts of the pcs and destroying mice. Still don't do any work though :\.

If you want to stop people messing around on computers, securus is the way to go, there's still no known work around, but it doesn't stop people physically damaging the computers.
 
As said mate, if we want we WILL get past security. Not bragging or anything, but between 3 of us we can do almost everything but get admin rights.

I personally used to spend more time trying to get past college security to have a game of something (street fighter mostly). Spent more time attacking security than working tbh.

So to answer your question, yes, i think it may be worth it. If you have good students they will know whens time to take it play and when they need to work. Grant access to the orgiginal games like solitaire and minesweeper, and it might lower people trying to pass security as they will have something to do when bored.

I really wish our college would do this to be honest. For the amount of time i spend gettign round the proxy/running other web browsers and installing games etc it would have been easier to unrestrict everything then make the admins decide whether we have went over the line later. I mean, come on, my mate had a hell of a time researcing his uni courses as he wanted to do games design, and game is in the word filter so it kept shutting his browser off, and my college project is a games website (in sig) and i get owned on that.

In short, yes it woudl be worth it as long as students can use it reponsibly and when they know they have time to muck about.
 
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