[phrontist]

Originally Posted by Dave Flowerday

I guess it's easy to say that the IT staff is "incompetent" and the policies are "draconian" when you're not the one who is responsible for keeping 100s or 1000s of laptops up and running with a whole bunch of students who think they know a thing or two trying to install their own software (or reformatting their hard drives, or running Linux because it's cool).

I don't follow this line of reasoning at all. If I'm understanding the situation correctly, the school district is giving each student a computer for use during the school year. This student, and only this student, will be using it that year. As long as I'm only modifying the laptop assigned to me, who am I potentially harming other than myself? At the end of each year all the laptops should be re-imaged anyway, and then the next student has a clean slate... what is the issue here?

Originally Posted by Dave Flowerday

You're not the one who gets the angry call from a parent when their son/daughter can't finish their homework on the school-supplied laptop because some friend installed some random junk software.

This is a red herring. We're not talking about altering any machine other than the one assigned to robotics student in question.

Originally Posted by Dave Flowerday

You're not the one who gets in trouble with the administration or school board because all these kids who have laptops now installed IM and are goofing off in class, or cheating, or teasing other kids with it.

How do you tease someone with a laptop?! I'm not sure what exactly is being described here, but it sounds as though these are actions that negatively impact the education of other students. This is not what is being described by any of the above posters. Any harm that could come out of the above actions would be self-inflicted.

Originally Posted by Dave Flowerday

The attitude from several people in this thread about the school policies is really bothering me. People, it's precisely because of actions like the ones being suggested in this thread that the laptops are locked down so tight. I can just about guarantee you that the IT personnel didn't go through all the effort to lock down those machines just because they thought it would be fun to get you guys all upset about it. They do it because if they don't, someone comes along and does exactly what you're suggesting (such as reformatting the hard drive) and then go back and complain to IT that the computer is screwed up, and now the IT people have to spend their precious time fixing the mess.

See, now that is a legitimate concern. It should, for all "official" purposes, be against the rules to do something like this. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, but rather that you shouldn't bother tech support when you get yourself in trouble. If you never come in contact with tech support, everyone is happy.

Originally Posted by Dave Flowerday

Anyone who purposely and knowingly disobeys district policies for the use of a district resource (yeah, that's what it is, just because you take it home with you doesn't change that fact) deserves to spend a semester answering the phone at their local IT helpdesk. You'll find out very quickly why IT departments have no choice but to put policies in place that can help prevent users from doing something stupid to their computers.

It's hard because you are trying to protect people from themselves, a policy which I have yet to hear a successful implentation of. See "The War on Drugs"

Originally Posted by Dave Flowerday

If you want to run Linux or install your own software or boot from a USB key, save up your money and buy your own machine.

While all of the above goes for installing linux on the HDD, I am still not advocating that. I'm advocating the entirely different practice of booting a CD and storing files on a USB key. This lives the computer totally immune from technical fowl up. There is simply no technical reason this should be of concern.

A computer is a tool like any other, why should it be treated differently? If I'm using this tool in such a way as to further the state's goal of educating me, and I'm not interfering with anybody else's ability to do the same, aren't I right in line with he intent of the elected officals who appropriated funds to my school district?

Originally Posted by Dave Flowerday

I meant to be done with this post already, but I'm adding one more thing: you better get used to these policies because you'll find similar ones when you go to college and when you graduate and get a job. Most companies do just about the same thing to their laptops and desktops as the schools do.

I've interned at a fairly large (300+ employee) aeronautics engineering firm. I arrived the first day expecting to spend a lot of time explaining to tech support why I would need various tools to do my project (writing UAV groundstation software, which required a lot of unusual software configurations for testing). I was pleasently suprised to find that IT simply managed the network and left engineers (and lowly interns) to do what they needed, helping when help was requested. I'd imagine most companies that value employee sanity would do the same. As long as I was doing my work (reaching deadlines) and not inhibiting fellow employees from doing the same (say, by playing Half Life 2 on my break and doing the Zombie Frag dance every five minutes) everything was copacetic.

I've also done tech support for a very small company (my father's), and conditions were similar. To some extent, I think we'll see a decreasing need for traditional IT departments as computer familiarity becomes nearly universal, which will happen in about 20 years.

Academia is a lost cause.