Opinions please (teenagers especially!)

[Raumarik]

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.

 

[Raumarik]

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!

 

[Raumarik]

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

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