johnnyreb

Many thanks for your prompt reply. I am definitely not the latter and am relishing setting this up.

Hi, I am looking to put in some access points in my school. This is my first time to hear about ubiquiti. It sounds almost too good to be true. I have a 32 bay laptop trolley, a 16 bay laptops trolley and a 16 bay iPad 2 trolley with more to come, all travelling from classroom to classroom (20 rooms). Would you recommend the standard or PRO APs? I would have a concern about the standard ones not being dual band and having no gigabit ports. The children would be using google earth, online flash games (sumdog, mangahigh etc.). Until i make a decision i am just using old wireless routers i had around the place but these are creaking under the pressure of too many clients (no surprise!). any info greatly appreciated, john

Hi, I need to add access points to my school network. How do you find the speed of these for things other than browsing, e.g. google earth? I am concerned that there is no gigabit ethernet ports on these and there could be a bottleneck with 30 laptops connected to one access point for example. many thanks, john

Great maybe you could pass me in those details. Thanks. John

thanks grumbledook,I would prefer to be doing more strategic work. I have a lot of thinking to do...

thanks David, I tried out wpkgbefore and had problems getting it working, was quicker to install the software rather than waste time and hope I would get it working.

dead right plexer,there is always software that you can't plan for and that it will be awkward to install.

thanks Penfold,you make a lot of sense, feel like I'm not doing either job to my best ability. QUOTE=penfold;732287]Personally I think it is better to hand it over to someone else. You can then get on with what you should be doing knowing you are doing a good job rather than doing 2 jobs half as good as it should be done. As for letting users install their own software, you will need to look at how good your staff are using computers and taking responsibility for their own equipment. If it is still only you on site who deals with the IT you will still be called when any problems occur. This could increase if users install random software which causes machines to run slow/crash, but if they are careful could allow you more time to get on with your teaching role. But I still think you would be better with a dedicated person looking after the computers while you were able to get on with teaching. I think the school would be getting better value for money having you do your job well with a Tech(part time if need be) maintaining the equipment used through the school.

Thanks to everyone for your replies, was feeling a bit unloved (typical sysadmin feeling!) We only have 18 teachers in our school of 500 pupils, none of them have admin access to their pcs. I am the only one installing software. Does anyone in this situation just give them install access along with a strong AUP warning them of the implications of installing software and asking them to look for approval first? i know it goes against best practice but if you don't have more IT staff then it might make sense. Otherwise you have to pay someone to come in and do it. I know a lot can be done with scripts and repackaging etc. but when you are a teacher and have a family you can't spend hours messing about with that stuff. I am worried about buying something like specops deploy as it may not work for all installs and because i might not have the time to set up the packages etc. I'm thinking it might be just better all round for me to take a step back and do what an ICT Post holder should do - like drive ICT in Education issues in the school and not be the IT guy/dogsbody. Outsource the support to an outside company. what do you guys think?thanks again.john

Thanks for reply. Do the school give you time off for IT stuff? How does it work for you. I got one hour a week last year which was so small, I could hardly get a thing done. They can't really pay me as it's a conflict of interest. I have the ICT post in the school which carries a very small extra payment but to be honest the ICT post holder is not meant to be the sysadmin and support.

In an ideal world you are right but in reality I may just do it. In a lot of schools i go into they dont even use user accounts!Appreciate the advice and support Thanks.

A day a week sounds good. As long as he did things the way I wanted them shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks Ben. Good point. I suppose I quite enjoy the work to a point. Now it's getting too much though.

Hi, sorry for the melodramatic title! i am a former sysadmin in a private company (9 years) turned teacher. I took over the school network in my primary school when i started teaching 5 years ago. I basically set about implementing best practices with standard images, server, AD, security etc. We have about 50 computers - 18 teacher laptops (win7) for IWBs, 20 old PCs (XP) in classrooms, 2 old xp pcs in the secretary's office. I have one Windows 2008 R2 server, about 2 years old now. We will be getting a trolley with 30 laptops in a few months. I am a complete one man band, no other outside IT support, i fix everything! crazy! and teach! I have everything locked down except some of the older classroom pcs that are not even joined to the domain. Teachers don't have local admin rights on their laptops. I try to roll out software using AD but as we all know most software doesn't come with msi, especially educational software! I had plenty of time in my old job to spend on repackaging/testing but not now.I am a teacher in the school and spend many hours outside of school troubleshooting, installing software, changing projector lamps, and all the usual things that an IT dept would do. It is reaching a point now where i don't really have the time for a lot of the work. I was considering giving the teachers local admin rights to their laptops. The thinking is that at least i wouldn't have to visit them to install software. I know the risks that come with this. I have symantec antivirus and firewall that can be locked down separately and controlled centrally and i can still control a lot with GPO. I could use the school AUP to warn them of the dangers of installing software etc. and maybe warn them that if i have to spend anymore than 30 mins fixing their laptop, i will reimage it and they will have to install anything else themselves. Another thought i had was something like specops which allegedly allows for easy installation of legacy apps. I'm seeing the laptop trolley with the extra 30 machines coming soon and this will increase my workload. i'm sure situations will arise where software will need to be installed on these machines and i won't have the time to do 30 after school! Your thoughts are appreciated fellow sysadmins :-) thanks in advance. john

Hi, I'm going to buy a few ipod touchs for children to use in school. Has anyone experience of managing these devices? I presume that i can control the installation of apps and make other restrictions. There seems to be a configuration tool available from apple for network management. Also, would you need to sync all the devices from one computer? Any advice on this or any other aspect of ipod touchs appreciated. thanks, john.