Help make my laptop student friendly.
September 1, 2010 10:08 AM Subscribe
Please help me setup a laptop to be safe and secure for use in a classroom by students.
I am due to start teaching science to 11-19 year old students tomorrow morning(!) and one of the things I am keen on is providing a laptop in the class for students to be able to look up questions they may be interested in. I will be teaching over 150 students so can't make an account for each one. So I would like to do the following:
Essential:
1. Ensure the computer is safe (as possible) from them being able to hack into it.
2. Ensure that they will be prevented (to the best of ability) from seeing inappropriate content.
Would be nice:
1. Prevent the students from seeing other content on the computer.
1. Log what was done on the computer.
2. Provide a kiosk style timed session (ideally network controllable by my main laptop).
The machine is currently running Windows XP SP3 and I have full administrator access to it. The students would only need the computer to get internet access - so they only need to be able to use IE, firefox or other browser.
At a push I could run linux on it - but it would have to be run from an external drive as I am not permitted to change the partitions.
NB: Extra points for free software!
Thanks!
I am due to start teaching science to 11-19 year old students tomorrow morning(!) and one of the things I am keen on is providing a laptop in the class for students to be able to look up questions they may be interested in. I will be teaching over 150 students so can't make an account for each one. So I would like to do the following:
Essential:
1. Ensure the computer is safe (as possible) from them being able to hack into it.
2. Ensure that they will be prevented (to the best of ability) from seeing inappropriate content.
Would be nice:
1. Prevent the students from seeing other content on the computer.
1. Log what was done on the computer.
2. Provide a kiosk style timed session (ideally network controllable by my main laptop).
The machine is currently running Windows XP SP3 and I have full administrator access to it. The students would only need the computer to get internet access - so they only need to be able to use IE, firefox or other browser.
At a push I could run linux on it - but it would have to be run from an external drive as I am not permitted to change the partitions.
NB: Extra points for free software!
Thanks!
Ensure the computer is safe (as possible) from them being able to hack into it.
Prevent the students from seeing other content on the computer.
Windows stedy state is ideal for this.
posted by WizKid at 10:59 AM on September 1, 2010
Prevent the students from seeing other content on the computer.
Windows stedy state is ideal for this.
posted by WizKid at 10:59 AM on September 1, 2010
Response by poster: Brilliant - exactly what I need - thanks all :)
posted by Morsey at 3:49 AM on September 5, 2010
posted by Morsey at 3:49 AM on September 5, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
Obviously, if someone is bound and determined to hack, they will succeed, but for general use, this is good. I"m pretty sure a student can't make themselves an admin and change permissions etc.
posted by getmetoSF at 10:40 AM on September 1, 2010