Netsupport School (how have you set it up?)

[Halfmad]

Curious if anyone else is running this and if so how they've set it up, we've only had it on trial for a week and it seems to run great but there's a few things i'm worried about:

1. Lack of client end security, if a kid downloaded this at home and got it working off a flash drive - they could connect to any PC that had the client end installed. Anyway of preventing this?

2. restricting the tutor part to only connect to certain PCs, I've tried using the "known list" but it continues to search and list all PCs with the client version installed, slightly confused why !

[rdhawkins]

Halfmad,

1. You can apply a 'security key' to your install of NetSupport School, this can be a custom password or based on your licence key. Only Tutor's with this set can connect/see Students.

2. You need to make sure in the startup settings it is set to 'Use Known List' rather than 'Browse and connect'. You can access the startup settings from the Configuration menu item under the School menu.

I work at NetSupport so any questions you have I'd be happy to answer.

Rob

[Halfmad]

1. Ah cheers, thought it'd be something simple like that

2. I have it set as "use known list" is there any other settings which could confict with this either on the tutor or student side? We're running the free trial perhaps that's not helping (I am poking my headteacher with a stick to get funding)

[rdhawkins]

Have a look at this Technical Document, it explains the various startup modes of NetSupport School, what they do and under what circumstances we recommend using them:

NSS Startup options

[Halfmad]

Cheers Mr Hawkins!

I'm trying to get the Education department involved as I know for a fact this isn't used anywhere else in West Lothian and could save a bloody ton of time supporting and make lessons more fun (from what I've seen this week).

[john]

There are a few of us on here that use Net Support Manager (which comes with NSSchool) may also be worth looking at that as then you as IT dude don't need to go anywhere near the educational bits and get the nice Managery bits

[Halfmad]

It's primarily for the teachers, I don't really need the management side unless it does something mindblowing. I also know I'll struggle to get funding for it unless it's classroom orientated, software for me is never a priority!

[Teth]

We use net support here as of 3 months ago and its gone down a storm.

We bought it for a room at first and that lasted a month before the booking for the room saturated and we applied to finance to get it for the rest of the curriculum network.

At first only a couple of memebers of staff used it and I got worried it had been a bad buy but once those teachers left planned lessons using netsupport for cover teachers soon I had requests for access (which they all had they just hand't noticed) and training. So on our last baker day back in feb myself and one of the teachers who had been making alot of use of it ran a brief tutorial for anyone that wanted to come. Around 17 memebers of staff turned up and considering the school only has 4 IT teachers we thought that was good going. Since then we've had requests for another day or a written form which I'll create if I can get the time.

Anyway configuration wise I have dedicated "teacher" PCs set up in each lab which have the tutor version installed and the default startup is to connect to a known list of clients. I also have an admin station with it installed that I can use to connect to any and all clients for supervision after school and During lunch.

Getting classroom layouts to remain persistent is something of an annoance still but I'm sure its something I'm doing wrong. I intend to make a new mandatory profile for teachers soon and I'm hoping that that will sort this out. The layout feature really helps teachers visualise where in the room any given pupil is when they look at the screen and I think this is one of net supports big benefits over other software.

The register taking and testing modules are very quick to use and staff are using them for the kinds of lessons that would previsouly have been done with active boards.

We didn't get net support manager altho I'd like to try and sneak it into a future budget since you can upgrade to it by paying the difference from school. My only reservation there is whether clients being connected to a tutor machine prevents the mangement version connecting to it. That would make it less than useful

For the moment I use LanView 3 for network management I've had no conflicting issues with it and Netsupport school even if I VNC a machine that is being Viewed or broadcast by netsupport.

[john]

I think you point about 2 connecting to a machine will not be an issue, I have NSM set so I can connect to a machine as can anyone else with the right permissions etc so I cannot see an issue

[Ric_]

IIRC you can have two control clients (e.g. one tutor and one manager) connected to a client at once.

[rdhawkins]

Thats correct, you can connect to a client with NetSupport School and NetSupport Manager at the same time.

I I remember correctly it isn't turned on by default, you have to change the configuration at the client to allow multiple connections.

[john]

Your quite correct its a config option that needs modifying to allow more than one connection, but it was only a tick box if I remember correctly