EduGeek Classroom Control Toolbar (ECC) First Look

[ICTNUT]

Hi All,

 

Well now that the conf is over and after speaking with a few people down there including a long conversation with Dos_Box I have come up with a new Classroom Control Toolbar for Teachers, yes thats right Teachers.

 

What does it do I hear you all cry, well.....

 

1 - Allows Staff to turn on or off the internet on a classroom by classroom or PC by PC basis

2 - Allows delegated staff to change and /or force change students passwords

3 - Allows staff to logoff, restart, or shutdown whole classrooms or individual PCs in a given classrom

 

What does it look like I hear youall shout, well here are a couple of teaser screenshots.....

 

Toolbar:

http://www.opsoftware.net/ecc/toolbar.gif

 

Turn Internet On:

http://www.opsoftware.net/ecc/interneton.gif

 

Change Password 1:

http://www.opsoftware.net/ecc/password1.gif

 

Change Password 2:

http://www.opsoftware.net/ecc/password2.gif

 

About:

http://www.opsoftware.net/ecc/about.gif

 

Where can we get it?

 

It will be released in the coming week and most likely through the edugeek projects site but I will post an update here once it is out.

 

Just looking for feedback at the moment

[mossj]

Looks sweet in a office 2003 esk way, will be looking at installing it when it comes out!

 

Few questions

1. Does anything need to be deployed? Just teacher? whole class? or wack on share and forget?

 

2. Where does it pull the room lists/computer names from (I assume a text file but looking for confirmation)?

 

3. Can it do individual computers or only classrooms?

 

*Also your change password pictures aren't working

[ICTNUT]

3. Can it do individual computers or only classrooms?

 

It sure can, you just need to select an individual pc in that room and away you go.

 

2. Where does it pull the room lists/computer names from (I assume a text file but looking for confirmation)?

 

Its a simple text file with one pc name or IP per line, this way you can deploy the toolbar to a room with only that room list available. This will stop people doing stuff in other rooms, but for an admin you can have the full list of rooms

 

1. Does anything need to be deployed? Just teacher? whole class? or wack on share and forget?

 

All that is required is .Net 2.0 on each PC you wish to run this one, the app itself is lightweight coming in at 264k. The installer will check if you have the correct framework and if not propmt you to install it.

 

*Also your change password pictures aren't working

 

Fixing now......

[Sylv3r]

Looks good.

 

Is it possible to give staff access to disable the internet only and not restarting machines as well as changing passwords options?

 

Thanks

[Soulfish]

This looks great . Like Sylv3r I'd be interested to know if you can restrict the options teachers see?

[meastaugh1]

Yes, looks very useful if you don't currently have a solution to this common requirement. What change does it make to the clients to disable internet acccess?

[ICTNUT]

Looks good.

 

Is it possible to give staff access to disable the internet only and not restarting machines as well as changing passwords options?

 

Thanks

 

You can turn each of the options on or off, by default all are on but through a configuration file you can change that.

 

Just a note withregard to changing passwords you will need to delegate permssions to staff that you wish to allow to change passwords and you set the base OU at which the search is started, so if you have a students OU set the base to the and no other user (staff or otherwise) can have thier passwords changed.

[ICTNUT]

Yes, looks very useful if you don't currently have a solution to this common requirement. What change does it make to the clients to disable internet acccess?

 

Supports IE and Firefox at the moment and simply updates the proxy settings by adding 127.0.0.1 and port 1 for each of the browers.

[meastaugh1]

Supports IE and Firefox at the moment and simply updates the proxy settings by adding 127.0.0.1 and port 1 for each of the browers.

 

Makes sense, should that require a browser restart to take effect? I appreciate it doesn't when you change it interactively but not sure how it works if making the changes remotely.

[ICTNUT]

Makes sense, should that require a browser restart to take effect? I appreciate it doesn't when you change it interactively but not sure how it works if making the changes remotely.

 

Testing so far shows no restart required but this will need further testing in school once GPOs have been applied and restrictions put in place.

[Gatt]

Looks good..

 

How does settings the proxy to 127.0.0.1:1 cope with Group Policy refresh? As that wuld reset the new proxy settings to the GPO values... ?

[Sylv3r]

Testing so far shows no restart required but this will need further testing in school once GPOs have been applied and restrictions put in place.

 

Will staff have to remember to re-enable the internet for the machines at the end of the lesson or does this work automatically when the staff member logs off?

[ICTNUT]

Looks good..

 

How does settings the proxy to 127.0.0.1:1 cope with Group Policy refresh? As that wuld reset the new proxy settings to the GPO values... ?

 

Exactly that is it, further testing will need to be done on this very thing.

 

What I do know is that by default group policy refresh happens every 90 mins with a randomisation of period of between 0 mins and 24 hours so in theory it should not really come into play given the length of a normal lesson.

[ICTNUT]

Will staff have to remember to re-enable the internet for the machines at the end of the lesson or does this work automatically when the staff member logs off?

 

In essence no as the proxy settings are on a per user basis and as soon as the user logs of and on again the proxy settings would be rest as per GPO as these are applied at logon.

[FN-GM]

Exactly that is it, further testing will need to be done on this very thing.

 

What I do know is that by default group policy refresh happens every 90 mins with a randomisation of period of between 0 mins and 24 hours so in theory it should not really come into play given the length of a normal lesson.

 

Allot of IT lessons at our place are 2 and 3 hours at a time, this would pose as a problem?

 

Wouldn't editing the localhost file be better as we talked about at the conf?

 

I know i am jumping the Gun here but i have some ideas for new features.

 

Website banning - Ban websites form the control machine by editing the localhost file on the clients.

 

Internet banning - Allows teachers to ban a students internet. The app could add the to an AD group that has no internet wither using group policy or webfilter. - Also possibly something on the DC to un-ban them after a certain amount of time.

 

Locked out accounts - Allow staff to unlock students accounts that are locked out.

Edited May 31, 2009 by FN-GM

[ICTNUT]

Allot of IT lessons at our place are 2 and 3 hours at a time, this would pose as a problem?

 

Wouldn't editing the localhost file be better as we talked about at the conf?

 

This issue with editing the local hosts file is this would block all internet access. In some schools that I manage they have internal VLEs that would also be blocked by this action so the proxy option was a better one unless someone can tell me otherwise?

 

Remember HOSTS files do not support wildcards i.e. 127.0.0.1 *

[ICTNUT]

Allot of IT lessons at our place are 2 and 3 hours at a time, this would pose as a problem?

 

Wouldn't editing the localhost file be better as we talked about at the conf?

 

I know i am jumping the Gun here but i have some ideas for new features.

 

Website banning - Ban websites form the control machine by editing the localhost file on the clients.

 

Internet banning - Allows teachers to ban a students internet. The app could add the to an AD group that has no internet wither using group policy or webfilter. - Also possibly something on the DC to un-ban them after a certain amount of time.

 

Locked out accounts - Allow staff to unlock students accounts that are locked out.

 

The idea is to try and keep it as simple as possible and as it stands now the app requires no client installed on the PCs for it to work.

 

Internet banning is easy if it is just a case of adding the user to a banned group in AD although will need to look into what staff delegation in AD is required over and above password changes, this would also be the same for locked accounts.

 

As far as the HOSTS file is concerned if you start to do this then you will have hosts files littered with entries and what happens if the wrong website is added? remember these are machine wide or are we talking about resetting thefile at the end of each session?

[PEO]

another idea, adm template that is set for each computer room so the teacher machine only picks up the machines in that classroom. That way they can't accidently take over the whole school by mistake.

[ICTNUT]

another idea, adm template that is set for each computer room so the teacher machine only picks up the machines in that classroom. That way they can't accidently take over the whole school by mistake.

 

Already there, where the application is installed is a folder called rooms and within this can be placed any text file with a PC per line in it. Simpy only add the text file for the room you install the app into.

[FN-GM]

The idea is to try and keep it as simple as possible and as it stands now the app requires no client installed on the PCs for it to work.

 

Internet banning is easy if it is just a case of adding the user to a banned group in AD although will need to look into what staff delegation in AD is required over and above password changes, this would also be the same for locked accounts.

 

As far as the HOSTS file is concerned if you start to do this then you will have hosts files littered with entries and what happens if the wrong website is added? remember these are machine wide or are we talking about resetting thefile at the end of each session?

 

Good point, but the group banning and account unlock will be a feature we would use allot.

[john]

Looks a really good tool, fine we have range in at present, but this could give better and easier functionality over Ranger as staff often say things like its Internet block doesn't work correctly. I take it for password reset staff just need the change password delegation on AD?

[tom_newton]

Using hosts file probably won't work reliably - if you are using an upstream proxy, that will perform DNS lookups.

 

We SmoothWall folks will be adding "teacher controlled room blocking" in october (FP3) using the teachers' ad credentials. Wonder if Oz might be able to add a "Smoothie control" mode... hmm

[john]

Using hosts file probably won't work reliably - if you are using an upstream proxy, that will perform DNS lookups.

 

We SmoothWall folks will be adding "teacher controlled room blocking" in october (FP3) using the teachers' ad credentials. Wonder if Oz might be able to add a "Smoothie control" mode... hmm

Sounds good but will it need a proxy restart to take effect like the current room filtering does?

[EduTech]

Great work Ozan!! :-) This will come in very useful

 

Look forward to testing it out

 

James.

[rh91uk]

I like this a lot - really looking forward to hopefully testing this!