Teacher Laptops

[Shadow_Walker]

Please move this if in the wrong place.

 

Right where to start. I have started my new job at another school and they give most of there teachers a laptop (complete difference to my 2 previous schools which are all desktops). Now we are and RM cc4 school and the current method is when they are in school they seem to log into the domain and when they are at home they seem to log into there local account. Each user is a privileged user on there account (This is something i want to get rid of.) They all have access to the C drive to save work so some users have work saved on c drive and then some have it on there network drive which gets really confusing and when we need to re image machines will become a pain.

 

What i am asking is there a better way of doing any of this as i am becoming at a bit of a loss of how we could improve all of this. In theory i want to get rid of them having access to the C drive so if that means partitioning the drive to another letter then that is fine.

 

Can anyone recommend me a better way of doing all of this.

 

Thanks

[FN-GM]

Cached domain logins with offline files? For the very few laptops we have in our schools that what we do.

 

Long term? Get rid of them all for desktops.

[matt40k]

Never got why you'd have two logins - a domain one and a local one - just bizarre. Like @FN-GM said, other then that, maybe look DirectAccess so they can connect from home. Not a fan of desktops, but that's assuming staff are actually working at home and not abusing having a laptop.

[Shadow_Walker]

Cached domain logins with offline files? For the very few laptops we have in our schools that what we do.

 

Long term? Get rid of them all for desktops.

 

Will look into that thanks

 

Not sure if that is in the plans but that is what i want.

Edited September 1, 2015 by Shadow_Walker

[Shadow_Walker]

Never got why you'd have two logins - a domain one and a local one - just bizarre. Like @FN-GM said, other then that, maybe look DirectAccess so they can connect from home. Not a fan of desktops, but that's assuming staff are actually working at home and not abusing having a laptop.

 

We have got CC4 Anywhere which is citrix which works fine

[psydii]

Never got why you'd have two logins - a domain one and a local one - just bizarre. Like @FN-GM said, other then that, maybe look DirectAccess so they can connect from home. Not a fan of desktops, but that's assuming staff are actually working at home and not abusing having a laptop.

 

Have you experienced a cc4 network?

 

The correct solution is to take off and nuke the site from orbit.

 

Then build a greenfield domain, setting it up to work properly in the first place.

 

Careful use of folder redirection, offline files, roaming profiles (with bespoke exclusions), and a few tweaks to allow non-privileged users to install local printers, combined with a carefully designed application deployment strategy, laptops can work really well, without given most of the users local admin rights.

 

You've got to have mechanisms in place to ensure the laptops are physically reliable too.

Edited September 1, 2015 by psydii
added 'users'

[Edu-IT]

Never got why you'd have two logins - a domain one and a local one - just bizarre. Like @FN-GM said, other then that, maybe look DirectAccess so they can connect from home. Not a fan of desktops, but that's assuming staff are actually working at home and not abusing having a laptop.

What's wrong with desktops?

 

Why can't staff just use CC4 anywhere to remote in to school, and work on files that way? Then they wouldn't need access to the C drive?

[Shadow_Walker]

What's wrong with desktops?

 

Why can't staff just use CC4 anywhere to remote in to school, and work on files that way? Then they wouldn't need access to the C drive?

 

Desktops are the way i want to go but not to sure how more senior people feel about it.

 

Could work but still use local profile to log in?

[Shadow_Walker]

Have you experienced a cc4 network?

 

 

Yes my last 2 schools. I don't want this to get into a hate battle between RM and vanilla but your answer was not helpful at all as this is staying as RM.

[Blue_Cookeh]

I don't see why people are so against giving teachers laptops, just about every other job you'd walk into now gives you a laptop if there's even the potential for you to work at home, and I'm pretty sure our teachers use their laptops to work at home often judging by the times e-mails are flying about! (We actually give iPads to some teachers too).

 

I haven't used a CC network, but in terms of vanilla give them cached domain profiles with folder redirection and call it a day, use DFS for some redundancy. If you want to go all out then deploy DirectAccess so you can still proxy their Internet access.

[FN-GM]

I don't see why people are so against giving teachers laptops, just about every other job you'd walk into now gives you a laptop if there's even the potential for you to work at home, and I'm pretty sure our teachers use their laptops to work at home often judging by the times e-mails are flying about! (We actually give iPads to some teachers too).

 

At one time yes, these days its all about using your own device. The cost of giving devices to staff members is quite high. The money could be spent directly on the students and technology inside the classroom. Teachers can use personal laptops to access school email, remote access etc if they choose to do so. In all honesty many staff say they prefer it. Some even bring the personal devices into work and not use the computers in the workroom.

Edited September 1, 2015 by FN-GM

[witch]

There are a couple of solution - we use cached domains and offline files, I would very much prefer remote access from their home device and desktops at school, but that brings up security issues - how do you make sure they don't have sensitive files on their home computers? (I am sure that they do already of course as many do not take their school laptops home anyway,

[psydii]

Yes my last 2 schools. I don't want this to get into a hate battle between RM and vanilla but your answer was not helpful at all as this is staying as RM.

 

The "have you used.." comment was a response to Matt40K. It was flippant. However, the reason the laptops are setup that way is because that is how RM recommend you set them up on a CC4 network.

 

In general people who have a great experience with staff laptops, and run them as the primary devices for the teachers even to the extent of echewing Classroom Teacher PCs, are not in the set of people who are using CC4.

 

You have expressed experience of CC4, happiness with CC4 Anywhere and a preference for desktops. CC4 is probably right for you. If you were in an environment where 1:1 devices/laptops were fundamental to the school strategy, CC4 may be a hindrance. That said, there would still be need of some management layer over the top though, be it SCCM, Impero, inTune, Meraki etc.

 

Beyond the bias shown in my opening 3 lines the technical advice was valid, and ought to apply to any Windows Domain based computers.

Edited September 1, 2015 by psydii

[Dkeen94]

RM CC4 school here,

 

We give all of our teaching staff a laptop to be able to work at home / staffroom and most staff have a desktop in there classrooms aswell.

 

We use Cached domain profiles with offline files and it works really well!

[Davit2005]

Domain Cached Credentials with remote access.

 

We used to have local accounts on Laptops here too but these are slowly being removed.

 

To be honest we do not have a lot of staff with Laptops now anyway, probably 20 out of 500 staff and nearly all of those have iPhones with tethering.

Edited September 2, 2015 by Davit2005

[lholland421]

I've just setup direct access and it works perfectly , staff can work on their laptop as they would in school

[truebluesteve]

We are a CC4 school and most of our teaching staff have laptops (although they can choose to have an iPad instead) and they are privileged users of them and to be fair it has caused us very few problems. Most staff know not to store their files on them and if they do, they need to have them backed up. When we re-image them we tell them to backup anything on the C drive and sign a disclaimer to that effect! The problem is getting them to make the backups - after all storing it on a USB drive is no better than putting in on the local drive of their laptop!

 

As for desktop v laptop - from an admin point of view desktops are easier to manage but I don't have an issue with laptops

[Oaktech]

We are a bit of a mess here as far as this goes.

 

We have the 2 login system for some people, it works well enough, and the local user is standard not admin. We have some devices using directaccess but we've had problems with some ISPs blocking direct access traffic. As i'm trying to get everyone down the desktop route too (lower support overhead, lower buy-in, longer device life etc) we have provided everyone with a 2gb stick with all the school policies on it and a copy of the RDP file for remote access.

 

I've had more almost 10 people this year, out of a staff of 60 actively say they don't want a laptop they would rather have a static machine in their room that doesn't get unplugged and fiddled with, provided they can use the RDP file from home.