Teachers!! - Setting up Broadband at home.

[rusty155]

hi everyone,

I have recently started to get all sorts of problems with teachers installing and configuring their own wireless networks at home for their laptops. Sometimes this isn't a problem, as the windows systems works as it should and connects at home and school with no problem.

However there are certain broadband suppliers such as BT with the Home Hub that use their own utility and seem to only be able to connect to the Home Hub.

Has anyone else had similar problems, if so how do you cope with it?

Thanks.

[tscnmuk]

Know this isn't really a help but we had a teacher ages ago that couldn't get his school laptop to connect to his home wireless without removing it from the domain, which as a local user he at the time had the right to do. 2 or three mornings a week he would bring his laptop up to me to have it rejoined to the domain. Don't we all just love teachers

Not sure about the BT Home Hub but I know that some of the NTL Cable connections use a proxy server so this could be the problem? If it is just write a bit of script to change the proxy when he is at home to whatever it needs to be.

Tom

[bossman]

Rusty155: Have you said you would take on the responsibility of the teachers laptops at home? we run a policy for the laptop for teachers and that is they bring them in to us when they need updates which is usually every month and after that they are solely responsible for their own laptop which includes home broadband connections.

[tscnmuk]

I think what he is trying to say is that when they have got connected at home, the laptop will no longer connect to the school network properly? I may have misunderstood it though.

Tom

[gwendes]

Our laptops also have to be connected to the domain so I tell teachers not to connect to the internet at home. Still end up rejoining the occassional mistake...

Too much hassle - tell them not to.

[tscnmuk]

Our laptops also have to be connected to the domain so I tell teachers not to connect to the internet at home. Still end up rejoining the occassional mistake...

Too much hassle - tell them not to.

There is a local security policy somewhere to deny them the ability to remove the computer from the domain. Can't find it for the life of me at the moment but this is how I worked around the problem.

[Geoff]

Teachers here get a choice. Either they can have them connected to the domain and we'll look after them. Or they are configured as standalone machines and we have nothing more to do with them.

Also, if your teachers are taking laptops home. Ensure that either the school insurance (unlikely) or the teachers car + home insurance (also, unlikely) covers any loss or theft of the laptop.

[tscnmuk]

Teachers here get a choice. Either they can have them connected to the domain and we'll look after them. Or they are configured as standalone machines and we have nothing more to do with them.

Also, if your teachers are taking laptops home. Ensure that either the school insurance (unlikely) or the teachers car + home insurance (also, unlikely) covers any loss or theft of the laptop.

I have been tempted by offering this solution several times. However, if one of them really screws things up making the system unusable, don't you find they go running straight to the SMT who eventually will have you ending up doing the job anyway? Just a thought.

Tom

[Geoff]

Re-imaging a laptop really isn't a big deal here.

[tscnmuk]

I suppose not no, I just like to be quite draconian about things, and if I have said I won't do something, then I won't do it. End of story as far as I'm concerned

[Geoff]

Investigate the insurance thing then. It'll prevent the machines going offsite.

[EvLPhenom]

@Rusty155 - we had a teacher come into our office the other day saying that she couldn't connect to our school network wirelessly...anyway cut a long story short, the software that comes with the BT hub had to be disabled for here to work on the network...but we didn't have to rejoin here to the domain. afaik she just uses the windows wireless tool thing to connect to here home network and the schools.

[rusty155]

Thanks for all the help people!

looks like i am going to have to remove as much of the bt stuff as i can to get it connected to the school wireless. And then cross my fingers that it'll still work at her house! If not then - I have made it clear in the past that i will try and accomodate home wireless systems as much as possible but that the school system takes priority. So if it doesn't work at home after i've messed with it - tough i'm afraid.

[tscnmuk]

tough

My favourite Teacher/Network Manager communications phrase

[NetworkGeezer]

Other than the IE proxy setting and outbound personal firewalls , home internet has not been that much of show stopper.

You may need to set the "Never dial a connection" setting on the Connections tab of the Internet Explorer tools dialog on some ISP setups.