Computing and Programming at A-Level

[Divaldo]

Hi folks, I was wondering what other schools are using to run A-Level Computing and/or Programming courses.

 

We have been teaching it for three years now, but the teacher running it still hasn't decided what software they need for it to be completely successful. I've asked numerous times what software they require, but they just respond 'I don't know, programming and code don't really interest me to be honest'. An odd response from someone supposed to be teaching the thing, but enough of my moaning.

 

What I have set up is:

 

Windows 7 hosts computers, on the network with all the usual group policy restrictions in place.

VirtualBox installed on each PC with a Windows 7 VM configured. The VMs are not connected to the internet or the school network, they have their network cards disabled, but students log on to Windows with admin accounts.

Installed on the VirtualBox VMs are .net framework, C# developer and python.

If a student does anything untoward on one of the VMs or installs anything they shouldn't, we just delete the VM and copy over a fresh one for them.

 

The problem I have got is that our students want to use Visual Studio to put a nice front end on things. Whilst I can install it for them, it requires connectivity to the internet in order to launch each time. Given that these VM's are unrestricted, so that students can create and run their own code and batch files etc, the last thing I want to do is join them to my network or allow them out onto the internet.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions or decent free alternatives to Visual Studio?

 

thanks in advance.

[peterp]

I run Virtual PC with no network too. Visual Studio 2013 runs without issue on it.

It cannot download the latest news, but everything else works fine.

 

We also put Python, IIS, Wamp, Lazarus (pascal with IDE), Java and a couple of other things on it.

We set up the VM to have immutable disks, and hide the manager program so they cant run it via that. Only a script that keeps it locked down. Every time it's started it's in the same condition as 1st time.

They use a mapped drive (\\vboxsvr\N_Drive) to access their school MY Documents from the host.

[mshill]

Hi

 

Could I ask what spec you are giving the virtual machine, as we are having performance issues when running Visual Studio.

 

Regards

[peterp]

The host machine is a Dell with a core i5-4590 @ 3.3Ghz, Windows 7 64bit, and 8Gb of ram.

The virtual machine is Windows 7 enterprise 4Gb ram, 1 processor, 100% executioncap. The emulated graphics card has 32meg, 1 monitor and 3d accel turned on.

Storage is Immutable VDI 60GB.

 

The host computer has Virtual Machine Acceleration (VT-x) turned on in the bios.

[mshill]

Hi Peter

 

Have you had any issues with the performance of Visual Studio on the Virtual Box.

 

Regards

[peterp]

None reported. Everything appears to run just fine.