ManageGroups
Figure out how to easily manage student's access to applications, printers and files:
Description: As a teacher one of our primary responsibilities is to manage student behavior. This is accomplished through everything we do, not only our curriculum and our choice of classroom activities, but also things like the physical layout of the classroom, what we have posted on the walls, the way we interact and feel about our students, our limit setting procedures i.e. how we handle accountability to classroom rules, and etc. It is this last parameter that management software can support.
Procedure:
- Earning privileges
- A common way of bringing a new person into a community is by giving them an initial set of limited privileges, and as the person shows themselves to be a responsible member of that community limits are removed i.e. privileges increased. In the classroom this could take the form of managing 4 sets of group privileges and then assigning students to these groups. After a certain amount of time, say a week, that students have demonstrated respect for the classroom computer norms they would move to the next level. However, if they broke that trust, their level number tumbles back to level 1 and they start over...
Level 1 group allows a student to login to their account, explore the computer's possibilities in such a way that nothing can be damaged either out of ignorance nor malice. you it also allows for using a limited set of applications such as, Open Office and CmapTools running under local account, not using the Internet CmapServers.
- Level 2 group allows a student to also access a limited set of interactive sites on the Internet as well as the ability to go to some sites such as Wikipedia. Printing on the network might also be enabled for this group. Allowing students to customize their desktop background image from a limited set of choices would be great, here.
- Level 3 group would open up the internet to all sites as well as allow students to choose their own image for their desktop background.
- Level 4 group would allow students to also play any game on the computer (for those community-earned 'fun time' events)
- A common way of bringing a new person into a community is by giving them an initial set of limited privileges, and as the person shows themselves to be a responsible member of that community limits are removed i.e. privileges increased. In the classroom this could take the form of managing 4 sets of group privileges and then assigning students to these groups. After a certain amount of time, say a week, that students have demonstrated respect for the classroom computer norms they would move to the next level. However, if they broke that trust, their level number tumbles back to level 1 and they start over...
Ideas for group management:
v1
Sabayon is an excellent candidate but has a few, show-stopper bugs.
v2
Edubuntu-menus is also a great possiblity, but their isn't a GUI for it yet, and also a person can right-click and access the ability to open a file with programs that one doesn't want accessed at a certain level.
v3
Another option
m1
m2