School Netbooks are here! (2 Viewers)

[brendan_leo]

Just like to let you all know, one of my teachers that is also part of the IT crew bought one to class the other day and im here to tell you they are nothing flash... They come in a plastic container with contact on the top of the lid. They are color coded with teachers receiving black and students recieving a colour such as cream or red i think the options were. They have built in trackers and can be remotly shut down. But they have a serious problem, with their restrictions you cant change the resolution and the desktop can not even fit on one page so you have to scroll to see it. And i hope you dont have a printer flash drive and mouse because it only has two USB ports... Good luck and thankgod im in year 11!!!

Did your teacher happen to have the resolution set to XGA using the desktop icon? You shouldn't need to scroll if the screen is at native res.

Yeah, that's very true.

Not to mention that if they want to throw on extra shit like that they should make it free (GIMP's about as difficult to learn as Photoshop) so it's not costing anything extra anyway.

Schools using proprietary products on their lab computers that not all students have access to (without paying hundreds of dollars) is bad enough, but then actively propping up those proprietary system with tens of thousands of new purchases of them each year all with the benefits (for the monopolists) of vendor lock-in in children? That's so fucked up.

Did they even have a bidding process for the OS? The hardware vendor? How did Lenovo get the deal in the first place?

Lenovo already provides equipment for the T4L (Tech 4 Learning) program, hence why school computers are provided by Lenovo. The fact that the contract and agreement already exists with DET is the main reason they were the selected provider of netbooks.

well i spent most of today commissioning these machines and their not too bad, and aside from what the 1st post says they have 2 gigs of ram not 1, they were upgraded as a last resort, also the machines come with the whole cs4 suit, aside from premier and photoshop, those 2 are only elements. these machines do have lockouts and I'm proud to say not one machine i commissioned got locked out making my school the 1st to not lock out a machine.
as a side note these small net books would probably currently retail around 650-700, so that's 65,000 per grade of 100 students wasted.
the trial group of students these were tested on took 5 weeks to crack them, and basically there is barely any security (I'm not 100% sure about eeproms or the like but all the security is software based so i don't really need to spell this one out for you). the main security concern was the bluetooth, students were using it to take control of the teachers computer via a outdated version of vnc server.

as far as whats on these machines, as stated before its windows 7 and actually a lot of freeware has been used aside from industry standards such as MS office and the adobe suit, from what i remember there were programs such as zip-7 on it and i noticed a gtk runtime, so some linux apps were on them, there was a very long list to put things simply. as far as physical security goes as well i believe there is some sort of tracking technology on these machines, as the bottom is printed with DET propaganda saying that the machines are trackable by nsw police which lead me to believe that they have some sort of microdot technology on them Microdot - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia see modern usage.

also classroom plans for these machines are the classroom will be fitted with a circular table that students sit around to give teachers an easier field of vision when teaching.

edit: forgot to add, they are 3g capable and take sim cards on the underside, and have wireless n standard cards installed.

Only the teacher laptops have 3G, this feature has been removed on the student model, along with the open PCI-E expansion port

I am sure you could manage to get the HDD out somehow, and if you could, all you have to do is put it in a desktop with a compatible cable, format, install e.t.c on there, and your are sweet

Think about this. If you did this, without the Computrace client installed in Windows, the DET would see the laptop as lost or stolen, and would hence disable it, making it a worthless paperweight. If you did install Computrace, the laptop would phone home anyway, and DET would be none the wiser. This would also bring along all the associated group policies that make the laptops useless anyway. Is it really worth it?

lol why the hell do they want to give year 9 laptops when all the dropouts are still there...... they will probably sell it for cig and alcy money The government should use their head for once and give it to year 11s or uni students

They could, but it would be worthless to anyone who bought it, as it is linked to the DET account of the allocated student. If they were to sell it, not only would they have full liability for anything that happens on that account, but any asset stocktake would reveal a missing laptop that hasn't phoned home for a while, and it would get remotely disabled through Computrace.

 

[zstar]

Kids will use it to surf porn and download pirated films.

 

[Uncle]

if its got norton, yes

 

[HumanDichotomy]

I was jealous at first that my brothers were getting one...but now...I don't mind. Don't look like they're gonna be too crash-hot.

 

[Sarebs]

I bought a netbook last year to take to school coz I knew my other laptops would get nicked. But anyway, they're good for LIGHT use. And if you have little fingers. Wouldn't dream of using photoshop on it. But really portable so that's a big plus. Although I think this whole laptop scheme is a massive waste of money, the year nines at my school will end up drawing all over them with so and so is a cunt, as I see so often on the desks.

 

[ziki]

This computer is a total bull****, it is not only small but it is inbult with the DET program which practically blocks EVERYTHING on the internet. But then the disk is pretty good with alot of useful programs

3/10 rating

 

[HumanDichotomy]

The year nines at my school will end up drawing all over them with so and so is a cunt, as I see so often on the desks.

Haha so true.

 

[mfhs]

its not cs4 its elements cs4, shush.

 

[SnowFox]

its not cs4 its elements cs4, shush.

*facepalm*

 

[infinityonhigh]

We got them today. They're actually alright, believe it or not.

 

[Crystal Cuckoo]

I reckon it's a waste that they aren't given to the seniors, who stand a better chance of actually using them for their intended purpose. =P

A group of year nines had a class in the library a few days ago, and thus they took out their laptops to do "work". When the teacher had their back to them, they were all playing games including Simpsons' Hit and Run, Warcraft III and GTA III.

What infuriated me even more was when these twinkies complained about not being able to initially access facebook, or being unable to load Steam. THEY'RE NOT FOR GAMING. They're for resources that would usually take too long to find in a library, or word processing.

We don't even NEED netbooks, so long as we have a functioning computer at home. I would find it reasonable if the computers were given to students too poor to afford a computer, but everyone in the goddamned year has a desktop/laptop at home. They don't need another one to waste their time on.

Pen and paper work fine for in-class studies. We don't need anything greater than that. Granted, I understand that 2000 word essays require the use of a computer (or at least, are more suited to them), but these netbooks are hardly going to be used for that. I doubt many students will want to squint at a 9-inch screen for over an hour as they toil away at an essay.

There are, however, some things I don't mind too much. As these kids are going to be using these netbooks constantly (even if for gaming/socialising) their handwriting will deteriorate from never putting pen to paper. Last time I checked, you weren't allowed to do in-class essays on a computer. As a result, their handwriting will be illegible and written so slowly and thus will gain marks that won't even compare to ours.

 

[Bigboyjames lol]

stfu.

you get the chance to rip of the fuck government you fucking take it

lol if they were not going to give you the net books you think they would provide some other great service to the education system? yeah whatever. the money would be swallowed up by the bureaucracy.

 

[Aquawhite]

Their logic is that the Year 9 kids will use the netbook now and keep using them throughout their schooling - most of them are trashing them and don't want anything to do with it.

I bought my own netbook and am on it now ^_^... I like it lots. I use it for all my school things.