Maintaining Labs

I spent the day yesterday in Charleston, MS at Charleston Middle School .


Map That school is one our Core Schools that is partnering with the CREATE for Mississippi project. They are a part of East Tallahatchie School District.

Anyway, they got a 30 desktop lab this year through grant funding. They have been able to utilize all of their enrichment, remediation, and progress monitoring programs for students at this school. However, with the good, there is also bad. The heavy use by student in the lab also indirectly leads to quite a few alterations in each computer's look, feel and performance. And, this is one time creativity is bad. As an educator or trainer, having 30 computers that look and act different can be a nightmare. So, I spent a fair amount of the day cleaning up things. I have done this before, but I think the Gateway system recovery (a link of the freakin' Start menu) got me. I think kids got board whether in afterschool programs or whatever, and clicked the link. Which basically undid everything I did in the Fall... No, I didn't have a ghost image b/c they don't have the license. So, I can't "provide" that service for them. So, I redid everything.

• Change Windows Update to Microsoft Update
• Remove all Acrobat Readers (3 versions) and update to 7.07
• Update from MS AntiSpyware to Windows Defender
• Remove Norton AV 2005 90-day trial and install ClamWin AV (Prefer AVG-but free for only personal use)
• Install and Config a stealth IE Privacy Keeper
• Configure Windows for the least amount of damage (Game removal, Sys Recovery removal, etc.)
  

So, it took awhile. It gets a little old. It had some sick, cool factor back when I prepped labs in '98. But, now, considering what I do most times with technology, it gets pretty old. I am trying to convince the district to get some kind of lockdown software. B/c in my experience I figure they have a couple of options.

• Novell rights mgmt
• Windows rights mgmt
• Pushing weekly images from the server level to the clients
• Using a program like DeepFreeze, Fortres, or CleanSlate

My opinion based on looking at the network. I would take an image of the computers and burn them to a bootable DVD. Then, I would install something like DeepFreeze and lock EVERY COMPUTER down. I hate it... I still have problems with progs like that... Does it constrict teachers and students' feeling they have some sort of ownership in the school's technology??? I don't know. But, I do know that computer up-time is one of the primary barriers to technology integration, which defeats my main mission in the school. So, lock 'er down and let's get to business.