School Netbooks are here! (1 Viewer)

[Bemboka]

My IT teacher brought his to class today...
You need to login to the computer through the DET portal through some ridiculous user name (e.g john.smith12@DETNSW.) No other programs can be installed on the PC... (but u can still install them provided the destination folder is not "Program Files.")
His netbook did not come with Dreamweaver or CS4 installed as mentioned in a recent news release... not that these (or any) program would be effective on a resolution of 800 x 600. All the Windows 7 effects (aero, new taskbar etc.) had been disabled by him because he could not put up with the lagginess of the netbook. Looks like windows 2K but with crisper font lol (but i doubt students will get the privilages to the Cntrol Panal to change it anyway.
Takes 45 Seconds to open microsoft word.
Also had iTunes on it... Have no idea why, no CD Drive and limited Storage Space... will have nothing to play on it lol.
But i did find a added "plus" in the netbook... instead of 1GB, of RAM it has 2!!! not that this would help the speed very much because the processor is so slow!

 

[bigboyjames01]

lol its going to end up being used as a pornbook.

 

[Bemboka]

lol its going to end up being used as a pornbook.

lol... They can't even be used for that; Have to login through the DET Proxy to access the internet. Defeats the FKN purpose of having them!!!

 

[JakeFFS]

The part I hate most is the fact that Rudd can't lose over this. If people criticise it, they're jeopardising the future of Australian children. I think that most kids are perfectly well equipped to learn basic computer skills by themselves - If anything, (in my experience at least) Australian teachers will be a hindrance rather than a help. This isnt a state of the art education revolution by any means.

 

[Kozak92]

id still want a free laptop and theres a chance at my school since its a year 11/12 school and we still get around 200 laptops.

 

[Serius]

The part I hate most is the fact that Rudd can't lose over this. If people criticise it, they're jeopardising the future of Australian children. I think that most kids are perfectly well equipped to learn basic computer skills by themselves - If anything, (in my experience at least) Australian teachers will be a hindrance rather than a help. This isnt a state of the art education revolution by any means.

Thats pretty much his theme for every controversial religious bullshit he wants to push.

Alcopops tax? its to protect the children! never mind the fact that sales of hard liquer more than doubled overnight when he brought it in....the kids arent that dumb, they now just buy a bottle of vodka and drink till they pass out because its about the price of a 4 pack of cruisers now.

filtering our internet? why are you complaining, do you not care about the children? they could be looking at PORN or PRO ANOREXIA SITES, and you honnestly arent going to defend a pedophile who wants to watch child porn are you?

those are the only two i can think of right now, but theres been at least half a dozen.

 

[spyborg]

apparently the yr9's r getting em in my school and not yr11... btw anything dat can run cs1.6 is fine with me.

 

[hermand]

Why the heck is it getting CS4? Surely Elements would be sufficient for most school use!

had a look at one and it's full adobe suite, but all elements. and how can you photoshop anything properly on that screen!?!?

 

[SylviaB]

Millions spent on shitty netbooks that will realistically do shit all to actually improve education.

Meanwhile, thousands of uni students struggle to find and afford accomodation, live frighteningly close to poverty line.

 

[Mu5hi]

Rudd fail, i can just see the images of kids in a few weeks using the as weapons and throwing them around, Why? because for them its free. Biggest failure, millions wasted, also who ever is in charge of DET, IT department needs to get his head out of a vagina. I m glad i m not getting that piece of junk. Make more sense to use the cash to give uni students laptops.

 

[Sprangler]

lol... They can't even be used for that; Have to login through the DET Proxy to access the internet. Defeats the FKN purpose of having them!!!

What are you talking about? The internet access is meant for research and school-related activities (E-mailing work to teachers etc.). Logging in to a DET owned network portal defeats the purpose how..?

 

[TheElite]

The real issue here is that this is a big fkn waste of money.

 

[SnowFox]

We were having a look at them a few days ago.

The students are locked out of the laptop apart for internet access and programs already installed onto the HDD.
Internet can be accessed from school via Routers designed to reach only 4x4meters.
Internet can be also accessed at home via WIRED only since wireless would require the WEP/WAP code and im sure any person knows not to hand those out.
A full time IT technician from the Government is going to be placed in each school and is the only person who can fix/replace/install anything on the laptop.

I think that last part is a load of shit, majority of schools have IT/ IPT classes which can easily fix these frisbees, why pay for a techy when u have classes of them studying for this exact purpose.

 

[roker]

well i spent most of today commissioning these machines and their not too bad, and aside from what the 1st post says they have 2 gigs of ram not 1, they were upgraded as a last resort, also the machines come with the whole cs4 suit, aside from premier and photoshop, those 2 are only elements. these machines do have lockouts and I'm proud to say not one machine i commissioned got locked out making my school the 1st to not lock out a machine.
as a side note these small net books would probably currently retail around 650-700, so that's 65,000 per grade of 100 students wasted.
the trial group of students these were tested on took 5 weeks to crack them, and basically there is barely any security (I'm not 100% sure about eeproms or the like but all the security is software based so i don't really need to spell this one out for you). the main security concern was the bluetooth, students were using it to take control of the teachers computer via a outdated version of vnc server.

as far as whats on these machines, as stated before its windows 7 and actually a lot of freeware has been used aside from industry standards such as MS office and the adobe suit, from what i remember there were programs such as zip-7 on it and i noticed a gtk runtime, so some linux apps were on them, there was a very long list to put things simply. as far as physical security goes as well i believe there is some sort of tracking technology on these machines, as the bottom is printed with DET propaganda saying that the machines are trackable by nsw police which lead me to believe that they have some sort of microdot technology on them Microdot - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia see modern usage.

also classroom plans for these machines are the classroom will be fitted with a circular table that students sit around to give teachers an easier field of vision when teaching.

edit: forgot to add, they are 3g capable and take sim cards on the underside, and have wireless n standard cards installed.

 

[Riet]

millions spent on shitty netbooks that will realistically do shit all to actually improve education.

Meanwhile, thousands of uni students struggle to find and afford accomodation, live frighteningly close to poverty line.

+1000000000000

 

[newmz89]

Why the heck is it getting CS4? Surely Elements would be sufficient for most school use!

Yeah our school just had Elements on our iBooks.

 

[Bemboka]

What are you talking about? The internet access is meant for research and school-related activities (E-mailing work to teachers etc.). Logging in to a DET owned network portal defeats the purpose how..?

Well... the main purpose of a netbook is to surf the net. So, Whats the point of having one if you can't do anything on there anyway???

 

[Uncle]

GIMP is open source.
get linux if ultimate cheapass govment.

Well... the main purpose of a netbook is to surf the net. So, Whats the point of having one if you can't do anything on there anyway???

jack off to some pics u took and download to youre computa

 

[Nª!j∂♫]

haha my ancient teacher pulled one out the other day- they're SO CUTE!
redonkulously tiny!
it's sooo unfair that the students that are currently studying for their major exams, (hsc OR sc)
will get absolutely NO benefit from anything like this.
i feel especially sorry for people like my sister, (current yr 10)
who have had to do LOADS of experimental tests, and then shitty little yr 9's get all these kinds of benefits.
i mean, not that they're really gonna be THAT useful, overall.. but still.
All they did to deserve them is simply come into existence slightly later.
rawrr.

xxx

 

[Sprangler]

Well... the main purpose of a netbook is to surf the net. So, Whats the point of having one if you can't do anything on there anyway???

Read the original post you quoted, you dolt:

lol its going to end up being used as a pornbook.

DERP ALL THE PORN WEBSITES ARE BLOCKED SO I CAN'T USE THE INTERNET TO DO SCHOOLWORK.