Posted on 09/06/2005 12:19:09 AM PDT by Swordmaker
"I think we're as ready as we're going to be, but it's going to be a learning experience for all of us," said Lloyd Brown, director of technology for the Henrico school system. "We'll be able to take the bumps that we get and address them as fast as we can."
Never in the history of the laptop program in the school district of Henrico County, Va., have the students' Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) iBooks fallen victim to a fast-spreading virus or worm.
Apples were not as prone to them, said Lloyd Brown, director of technology for the Henrico school system.
The school system has also had good luck with its Windows-based PCs, though a virus attacked Windows computer labs at three or four schools about two years ago, Brown recalled.
But this school year could be a learning experience in many ways.
Goodbye iBooks, Hello Viruses?
The Henrico school system will distribute Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) laptops to high school students this year, a change from the past four years with iBooks. That also means a switch from a Macintosh to a Windows operating system that has been more prone to viruses.
Student e-mail accounts, where many viruses spread, are not being used.
Filters, anti-theft tags, a firewall and wireless updates will help stem problems.
At least, that's the plan.
"There are so many layers we have to have to ... be somewhat secure," Brown said. "I'm never going to tell you we're 100 percent secure."
Striving to Protect the Dells
But his team is trying. School technology staff members and Dell employees started developing the standard configuration for the laptops as soon as a contract was signed.
Plans call for laptops to have anti-theft stop tags and tracing capabilities to show the location of each machine, said school and Dell officials.
School technicians can wirelessly send updates, give access to or lock features of the laptops. Administrators in each high school can remotely view the screen of any laptop in the building at any time.
A firewall and antivirus software are designed to protect the system from malicious attacks and from people pulling into the parking lot trying to tap into the wireless network.
Students will not be able to download new software, Brown said.
Filters are designed to keep students from accessing inappropriate Web sites, but in the event that they do, a nondeletable history will log their activity.
The technology team is alerted when someone visits a forbidden site multiple times.
"Or literally, you could take control of that machine remotely ... and take a look at that information," said Kathy Thomas, Dell's manager of education strategy for K-12.
No Impassable Wall
But both Brown and Thomas agree there's still a chance that a tech-savvy teen could get around the security .
"If you really have a malicious intent in your heart and you're unwavering from that, there's a chance you're going to get through, but we look at all these defenses to try to avoid that," Thomas said.
In addition, a team of employees with Dell, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Henrico will continually evaluate and configure security measures throughout the school year, Thomas said.
As of late last week, all parties said they were on schedule for a deployment scheduled for the second week of school.
"I think we're as ready as we're going to be, but it's going to be a learning experience for all of us," Brown said. "We'll be able to take the bumps that we get and address them as fast as we can."
Hopes for Success
Charles B. Swaim of Eperitus, a Richmond-based education research and consulting firm that specializes in kindergarten through 12th-grade technology, said the Henrico school system's chance of success is "very high."
The precautions the school system is taking will not drastically change, he said.
Internally some changes will be made, he said, but the defenses the school system has been using all along will still be in place and most likely will be enhanced.
In the end, he said, the laptop -- whether an Apple or Dell -- is meant to be a tool.
"It's like a car," Swaim said. "Most of us can navigate regardless of the make or model we're in. With a little bit of time, you'll be right back into that new car the way you were with the old one."
This is the same school district that sold 1000 iBooks for $50 each and who's "excellent" preplanning, security, and "precautions" at the sale caused a riot and injuries.
So one of the answers is to cripple the functionality of the computers...
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
"Never in the history of the laptop program in the school district of Henrico County, Va., have the students' Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) iBooks fallen victim to a fast-spreading virus or worm.
Henrico dumped Apple's for Windows because Dell came in with a slightly lower initial bid... the bid savings were smaller than the losses generated by selling the 1000 surplus iBooks at below market price at $50 each.
It should be interesting to see how the TCO comparison will come out in four years... or even in the first month of deployment.
Whenever I hear about stuff like this I wonder how much employment and maintenance contracts had to do with the decision.
In my experience when I was in the computer retail business, working for a company that provided support for Apple computers in the school market, schools and districts that switched to PC's had the policy made by people with a vested interest in the change over. More specifically - the support of Apple computers is a pretty much closed market. Only a few certified Apple service providers per market area, and becoming a certified Apple service provider isn't easy. However, a large number of PC service providers can lobby the decision makers and get the Apple units replaced, thereby increasing their contracts, and for the school districts - increasing their employment.
In a school with a hundred Macintosh lab computers, a single teacher working part time can maintain the computers, fixing everything but serious hardware issues. In a similar environment, at least 2 full time PC techs would have to be employed. There are schools in Hawaii where the administration uses PC's and the teachers use Macs. There are no Mac techs on staff, even though there are more macs in use than PC's. There is at least one PC tech on full time staff who is typically overwhelmed by the couple of dozen PC's in use by the school's administration.
So, I question if Henrico's school district's decision to make the switch had less to do with a deal from Dell, and more to do with certain business contracts that will be signed by the district to maintain those Dells.
Here's a more detailed page from Henrico school:
http://www.henrico.k12.va.us/Announcements/Dell/
No doubt they will try to do prevent software installation and control what the children do with the machines, but I would be surprised if took more than an afternoon for at least one enterprising child to have a different operating system booted. In particular, from the web, the machine has at least two USB ports which might well mean that someone could get the Puppy distribution booted off of a USB port, maybe within a few minutes.
What caught my eye was the big upfront difference: Apple quoted $4 million more. $4 million can pay for a number of FTEs. Also, it appears that Office wasn't part of the Apple quote, although that's what Henrico schools wanted according to the article. (Although it wasn't clearly stated that Dell had included Office as part of its quote, it seemed to imply that.)
Why don't they disable the internet port and wireless card while they're at it, just to be on the safe side. :-)
M/S Office?! Great! The kids can worry about fonts and styles over silly old-fashioned things like grammer.
So much for emailing homework to the teacher now.
It will be interesting to see if they add the cost and time for all the virus mitigation into their TCO.
Umm, do you really think the iBooks were configured to allow students to allow any random piece of software? If they were, do you really think that's a good idea?
And spelling.
"So one of the answers is to cripple the functionality of the computers..."
Too late! ;')
LOL
Sigh... you cant give a minimially competent and sufficiently curios person physical access to a box, let them take it home, and prevent them from installing software. Cant be done on any OS I have ever seen.
Or spelling?
(I'll hit myself upside the head for you now. "OW!")
It would be a lot less risky than to allow it on a PC...
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