Teacher Discussion Forums

Our training cordinator assigned one of the ICT facilitators in our school to network our three computer labs and the administration block. The three labs have 20 computers for learners in each room and one computer for the facilitator which is the one connected to the printer. This computer is used by learners when they print their documents. the administration block has an office for the Principal, the office for the receptionist, the staff room and an extention that will b e used as a server room. the staffroom has 8 computers and one of the computers is the one connected to the printer. Each of the remaining offices has one computer and they are using either the staff room or the Principal's office to print their documents. this ICT person asked me to assist him to come up with the network plan and resources that we will use to network our school, so i am asking from you, how can we do these?

It took me a couple of reads to get the picture, but my suggestions are:

1. Physically buy the wiring and ethernet adaptors to network all the PCs together

2. Create a PC that is going to be the server. It can be a standard PC with the appropriate software. Make sure it has a RAID array on it, plenty of memory and a fairly good processing speed. Also make sure you have a backup system in place. I'd suggest Tape Streamers and DVD-R / CD-R for backing up important information.

3. Arrange priveledges so that ONLY the supervisor in each room and staff PCs can print. (Students have to ask to print their documents, which can be done easily when they save to the network)

Make sure you either get Windows XP/NT for all PCs or if you want to save costs and have a competent IT guy, then buy Linux because it gives you much more control over access rights and most of the software is free. (You'll save a lot of cash on buying software and have a lot less problems with viruses)

To prevent viruses, take out ALL Floppy Disk drives and disable Pen drives from accessing the student PCs and make sure you buy a good virus checker and both software and hardware firewalls, because viruses can easily come in from the Internet. You may also want to invest in Nanny software to make sure students don't access inappropriate Websites.

I think that should get you started, but if any of that doesn't make sense, I'd talk to some professionals, because it does require good IT skills to get this done properly.

James
http://www.jamesabela.co.uk/