Any way to lock machines unless a teacher is present in the room?

[shadowx]

So, we all know what teachers and ICT equipment are like....

 

I want to have all of the student workstations to be locked unless a teacher is logged in to the teacher machine in the room, that way even if they send students into the room without supervision the students wont be able to use the machines. I am going to couple that with some custom logon logging stuff and get a more complete solution and if needbe start charging departments. Any ideas?

 

We use Impero so an obvious solution is to force the teacher to login and use the Unlock button, but the trick there is to get the machines to lock automatically.

[sted]

i did have a program that locked a pc if i walked away from it used bluetooth to my phone so walked out of range and it locked my laptop

 

it might be possible to code something to enable disable computer accounts in ad when teacher logs on / off but it sounds a bit liable to bork thngs

[JJonas]

So, we all know what teachers and ICT equipment are like....

 

I want to have all of the student workstations to be locked unless a teacher is logged in to the teacher machine in the room, that way even if they send students into the room without supervision the students wont be able to use the machines.

 

You know what will happen. Unsupervised students will be given the teachers log on and told to log that account onto the teachers machine first.

[sted]

very crude but should work

 

on teachers pc as a login script (granted if a pupil logged in to that pc it would work but that can be blocked in ad)

 

copy "c:\windows\enable.txt" "\\server\roomx$\enable.txt" /y

 

logoff script

 

del "\\server\roomx$\enable.txt" /q

 

 

logon script on pcs in that room

 

if not exist "\\server\roomx$\enable.txt" shutdown /l

[Dos_Box]

Moving to Networks and Classroom management forum.

[AngryTechnician]

You know what will happen. Unsupervised students will be given the teachers log on and told to log that account onto the teachers machine first.

 

This. Unfortunately you've fallen into the "let's solve everything with technology" trap. If staff are not supposed to send pupils in unsupervised, that is people problem and is for SMT to deal with. Apparently it's why they get paid more than us, so make the buggers earn it.

[strawberry]

Other problem you will face is the student's reaction to not being able to logon...

1. They will smash the room to bits in boredom or frustration or just because they're horrible

2. They will use not being able to logon as an excuse for everything.

 

Better to just keep them out of the room if they're not going to be able to logon anyway!.

[6Foot2]

...Better to just keep them out of the room if they're not going to be able to logon anyway!.

 

Agreed. However we have put measures in place to prevent access to a particular room that has been trashed here [putting things back in order during the half term break]

 

Measures include:

 

Changing the lock.

Combination keypad.

Check the room to make sure it is locked in the morning, at break and at lunch but somehow they still get in unsupervised?

[Ric_]

This. Unfortunately you've fallen into the "let's solve everything with technology" trap. If staff are not supposed to send pupils in unsupervised, that is people problem and is for SMT to deal with. Apparently it's why they get paid more than us, so make the buggers earn it.

 

I totally agree.

 

My solution would be a lock on the door.

[Geoff]

I'm confused, what's wrong with keeping the room locked and holding the teachers who use it responsible for when it's left unlocked? If you have issues with damage/vandalism fit CCTV, it'll probably pay for itself within a term.

[tmcd35]

Measures include:

 

Changing the lock.

Combination keypad.

 

We change combination lock codes every half term. Kids know the new code by the end of the week...

 

I totally agree.

 

My solution would be a lock on the door.

 

Doesn't work either kids learn the code (see above) or staff complain about having to walk to reception for the key.

 

If you have issues with damage/vandalism fit CCTV, it'll probably pay for itself within a term.

 

Mmmm, getting SMT to agree to this can be fun. They don't want to be accused of spying on teachers during lessons...

[Geoff]

If you can't trust your users you have no choice but to monitor them. CCTV the room and hand out detentions for kids getting in without a teacher. You can back up the CCTV footage with login session history too. Double bonus detentions for the kids who figure this out and log in as their friends.

[shadowx]

I'm confused, what's wrong with keeping the room locked and holding the teachers who use it responsible for when it's left unlocked? If you have issues with damage/vandalism fit CCTV, it'll probably pay for itself within a term.

 

A lot of you touched on the same "solution" which is to keep the room locked and make staff responsible, I say "solution" because we all know that in the real world it doesnt work. As it stands we have the keys to the ICT rooms and we are in one corridor with 3 out of the 4 IT rooms and then our office (The other IT room is on the other side of the building, but I digress) so staff usually send a kid to get the key, which we challenge and then ask them if the teacher is present and what not. Anyhoo.. The problem is that one of the IT rooms is largely un-timetabled so it gets booked out using the room booking system (Perhaps we should thoroughly enforce it... at the moment if it's free then any old teacher can just get the key, maybe we force them to go away and book it first, hmm..) the end result is that we don't always know who is in there, we also dont know for a fact that the teacher has actually turned up, or indeed that the teacher hasn't buggered off and left a handful of "good students" in the room alone to finish coursework.

 

And the other massive issue, as we all know, is getting staff to report problems immediately. I have just finished making a graphical room map based fault logging system and a nice little shortcut on their desktop for it and I will send an email around to tell them what to do but at the end of the day we all know it won't happen.

 

I'm past the actual giving a monkey's stage, I don't really care other than it really annoys me when staff moan all day about something not working when it's THEIR fault in the first place! I need to teach them responsibility!

 

I like the simple logon script idea that checks for the existence of a file... I would need to make a few tweaks so that the file becomes invalid after X amount of time and then have it so that when the students try to login it simply logs them off again rather than restarting but it's a great idea!

 

As for teachers giving out their passwords that's not my problem! If a teacher gives out their password I will simply disable their account on the AD and refuse to enable it until management tell me to (which means the teacher has to admit their stupidity to management).

 

I don't really think any of this will solve the issue as such, it will help and at the end of the day give me a legitimate reason to shrug my shoulders and ignore the complaints.

 

I've already made a system to capture logins which is pretty useful (And it also captures double logins or suspicious logins and flags them up which is handy ) and CCTV monitors the corridor outside. The problem is, staff don't see it as cause and effect, they see it that the next teacher will sort the problem out and then next time they use the room magically everything is working again.

[Geoff]

I think you need to document when and how this room has 'issues'. I suggest you physically inspect it at lunch, breaks, after school, etc. You can maybe determine a pattern and start pointing fingers or if you are not comfortable with that then you have a large wedge of evidence to fall back on if the SMT come knocking wondering why half the IT maintainence budget disappeared fixing up one room repeatedly.

[6Foot2]

I think you need to document when and how this room has 'issues'. I suggest you physically inspect it at lunch, breaks, after school, etc...

 

We have done this in the past and we are doing it again now.

 

...SMT come knocking wondering why half the IT maintainence budget disappeared fixing up one room repeatedly.

 

Been there already too. Nothing changes.

[ADMaster]

I've already made a system to capture logins which is pretty useful (And it also captures double logins or suspicious logins and flags them up which is handy )

 

@shadowx

 

Not to hijack your thread, but would you mind sharing this. I currently have a logon and log off script that write date/time username ip address mac address and computer name to a file. It does not flag anything and is pretty basic.

I would like to look at your solution.

 

Thanks

[shadowx]

Certainly, when I say it "flags them up" it's basically a feature of the search, I use login/out scripts that insert an IN and an OUT type record into MySql, the PHP page I use for searching then has an option to show "incomplete logins" this basically shows up all IN records that don't have an associated OUT record Eg a student logged in twice before he logged out, thus meaning he logged on to two different machines at the same time OR that the student is still actively logged in which means when they come up and say "it says I can't get on the internet" I can check if they are logged in elsewhere.

 

I will go through my code, make sure there's nothing identifiable in there and attach it to this thread, I am a firm believer in Open Source

[shadowx]

As promised I have attached the files in a ZIP file.

 

The login.out VBSscript is:

Dim info
Dim connection

Set info = CreateObject("Wscript.Network")
computer = info.ComputerName
user = info.UserName

Set connection = CreateObject("MSXML2.XMLHTTP")
connection.open "GET", "http://prologue.intranet/logit.php?pc="&computer&"&user="&user&"&type=login", FALSE
connection.send

 

Just change the second to last line from "type=login" to "type=logout"

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Obligatory Disclaimer:

I accept literally zero responsibility for that ZIP file or what you do with it or what happens to stuff when you use it. From the moment you start the download the ZIP file becomes your responsibility. I don't foresee anything bad coming of it but if something does happen then it's your responsibility!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Anyhoo.. It's a pretty simple system, you put the login/out scripts into a GPO, they will need to be modified to point at your own server of course. They then call up a PHP page silently and pass GET variables to the PHP. The PHP checks the values for dodgy stuff and puts them into a database. If an IN record exists for that username and computer conbination then it adds an OUT record and considers that login "complete", if it doesnt find an associated IN record then it just creates another IN record.

 

This then leaves you with something like:

______________________________________

User1 -- PC12 -- 23rd Oct -- IN -- Incomplete | **

User1 -- PC74 -- 23rd Oct -- IN -- Incomplete | **

User2 -- PC14 -- 23rd Oct -- IN -- Ccomplete | ##

User2 -- PC14 -- 23rd Oct -- OUT -- Complete | ##

_____________________________________ |

 

** These records show a double login, the same username logged into two machines without logging out. It could be that the user forced the pc to shutdown with the power button or that they shared their login with someone else

## These records show a completed login, an IN and an OUT record exist for the same user on the same machine. So for simplicity we assume it is a complete login-logout

 

The code is supplied as-is and isn't publication quality so it can easily be improved and it's also written in my own "unique" style It's published under the license that you can do what you want with it except profit from it so feel free to edit it, pass it on etc... just dont make a profit (If you do then we would have to talk about sharing the riches!) And like I said, I accept no responsibility for the ZIP file, it's contents, it's use or what happens from it's use.

prologue.zip

[oxide54]

The problem is, staff don't see it as cause and effect, they see it that the next teacher will sort the problem out and then next time they use the room magically everything is working again.

 

^^^^^^

[6Foot2]

I remembered this evening creating this thread a while ago: Link: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/how-do-you-do/47506-lock-your-laptop-automatically-when-you-leave.html