Network topology and Infrastructure:

Brauer College has a whole school network with network terminals in almost every room. The IT department has three networked rooms and there are a number of "Breakout rooms" available in sites around the school for pupil access from normal classrooms.

Hub in corridor	Breakout room

Category5 cabling is used throughout, but the network runs at 10Mb. It is currently not possible to connect all machines to the network simultaneously (if lap-tops are included) as there are not enough network points and not enough IP addresses. This will be remedied shortly, either by installing a router, or by purchasing another block of Category C IP addresses.

The IT department experimented with Citrix and Winframe (486 machines used as network terminals on a high specification server) but were not happy with the software, and the fact that they still had to maintain the old machines it ran on. They no longer use this system.

There are 4 NT servers on the network, acting as separate file, proxy, backup and mail servers. Pupil workspace is stored on three 9 GB disks (using RAID storage) with no space restrictions. The user log-on is raw windows networking with many of the network management tools written in-house using Delphi. User profiles are not used as these cause problems when laptop computers are connected to the system. The decision not to use network user and machine management software was considered to be a cost effective one given the level of technical support and expertise available. All applications are installed locally, and Norton Ghost is used to reconfigure machines if there are problems. Due to there being a number of different machine configurations, several Ghost images need to be kept on the server. Ghost is capable of multicasting, so a room of machines can be configured simultaneously. Having applications installed locally reduces the load on the server, but means that software cannot retain individual user settings and can result in an inconsistent interface from one machine to another. Brauer has enough technicians on hand to cope with problems like these.

Printer costs are controlled by monitoring and charging for their use. Pupils are given printer credits: Y7&8 are given 60 pages Y9&10 are given 80 pages Y11 are given 120 pages and Y12 are given 150 pages. Charges are 4c per page. ($1 Au =£0.42) Printer accounts are administered by the department, but pupils are required to ensure that they have sufficient printing and internet resources available for any classes they attend.

Pupils have unrestricted (but logged via MS proxy server) access to the Internet. There have been no serious problems with access to unsuitable material as yet. The AUP is published in the school diary and all pupils are made aware of it when they start5 school. The school has a 2Mb-microwave link to their service provider shared with several other schools. The school is charged by amount of data transferred rather than by time on line. The school has its own Web server which does not have a separate Intranet yet, but there are plan to implement this. Pupils are allocated an Internet data down-load quota and then charged at going rate (39c per Mb) Y7&8 are allocated 20Mb Y9&10 are allocated 25Mb and Y11&12 are allocated 30 Mb All exe and zip files are deleted from pupil areas regularly.

All pupils have access to e-mail account linked to their school account (using NT mail) Some pupils still prefer to have their own accounts on web-based e-mail systems like yahoo Hotmail etc. since these accounts can be accesed from home as well. Internet Chat, Usenet and FTP are not available to pupils.

The School Web site was created by a member of the secretarial staff working full time for the IT department. The department is currently responsible for creating the school intranet and have plans for subject departments to create their own departmental home pages. Library staff will be encouraged to create resources for departments containing curricular materials, links to internet sites etc. The library catalogue system is in the process of being computerised and there are plans to link this with the intranet.

There are plans for the Intranet to be used as "front end" to school network. There is not much pupil generated material on the school intranet yet, but there are plans to expand this. There are also plans to implement a school calendar (ICAL) on Internet/Intranet.

http://www.brauer.vic.edu.au/

School web site

There are no VNC (Victoria National Certificate) computing studies courses currently running as pupil uptake is not high enough (In Brauer, classes need 15 or more pupils taking a course before they run)

The curriculum is much more flexible in Victoria, with a number of Elective courses running for each year group

Year 9 Computer animation class: using Macromedia Director.

Year 9 Computer graphics class using Photoshop

Tear 9 Computer Graphics class using Corel Draw.

Year 11 Information Technology class creating a web site using Front Page

Year 7 computer maintenance and systems class – pupils repaired and stripped old machines – many were competent in fault diagnosis (log kept) The fact that there is no real network security installed at machine level meant that pupils could investigate control panel, device driver settings etc.

There was a wide selection of software installed on machines available for student use. The most commonly used titles were: MS Office, Touch Typing tutor, Director (Multimedia), Corel Draw, Corel Paint, Paintshop Pro, Photoshop, Sound Forge, Visual Basic 4. Geometers Sketchpad

Most classrooms are equipped with large screen display TV which can be plugged into teacher’s laptop, quality is not good enough to read text (unless zoom is used) but can be used to demonstrate software or show graphics. There is a display video projector in the school lecture theatre.

Sample: Warrnambool East primary school. 550 pupils. All classrooms have a networked PC with Office, publisher etc installed. All have access to Encarta and a number of other subject specific CDs. The library has a number of machines available for pupil use and has its catalogue available on-line, so pupils can look up to find out whether a book is available from any machine in the building. There are no network Ids used, merely a directory structure which mirrors the classes and their pupils. The school uses a staff rotation system to give pupils access to specialist teachers including an IT specialist. All staff get 4 to 5 days in-service per year. Pupils had used Powerpoint to make personal profiles. There were plans to take 5 pupils per primary school to the secondary school to train them in web publishing. Those pupils would then be used to train other pupils in their primary classes.

Remote log–in and Internet log-in are in the process of being implemented. There are plans to use resources to generate income by offering high level training courses to local industry, health boards etc. On-line courses are also being considered. The problem with both of these options is that time is not available to develop them.

The head of IT, Mr Tony Austin had a reduced timetable in order to give him time to co-ordinate and manage the network. In addition he was responsible for delivering staff IT training and managing the three full time technical support staff. The department had one other full time staff member and a number of staff from the Design and Technology departments who taught IT.

School has a high degree of autonomy. Pupil/computer ratio is low because parents pay for laptops. The state pays 25% of computer purchases but does not contribute to infrastructure costs.

Brauer College provides its own technical support, (3 full time tech support/ 1 full time secretarial) State provision of technical support is minimal.

Administrative and curricular ICT integration:

There is no integration other than via e-mail. (state-mail can be accessed via the web however but is very slow) The school administration network is entirely separate) The state network bandwidth is poor and expensive (64kb ISDN line) Security is cited as the reason for not allowing the two networks to be connected together. Pupil data is transferred between the two systems by disk. The school has had to keep the two systems separate because if the networks were integrated they would be forced to use the 64Kb ISDN connection for Internet access, and pay for any additional bandwidth at a very uneconomic rate. They prefer the arrangement negotiated with their local service provider (2Mb satellite link)

Pupil database, resource management, personnel management and inventory software is all provided by local authority. It is not integrated with the curriculum network in any way.

The school is very independent, and seems to have full control over its own finances. The school is responsible for staff wages. Parents pay school fees (called "costs and charges" for legal reasons) and many donate large amounts for projects. There is no legal requirement for parents to pay fees, though a very high proportion of them do (98%)

400 computers for 1700 pupils, all running NT workstation. (no "feral" laptops allowed) Separate servers for Mail, Internet Proxy, Web server, Student file and printer server, news, and library services. 5Mb satellite link for downloading 2Mb radio link for uploading.

Some IT rooms, most classrooms have 5 or 6 machines. Every member of staff was given a laptop. "It was important to get everyone on-board as soon as possible" All equipment is resourced centrally (nothing belongs individually to a department)

Average use 21 hours per week per machine. 170 different pieces of software used. Technology in every room. Key access is used to monitor application and machine use.

School is now a service provider (1000 customers currently) and plan to offer e-commerce and web development services, employing ex students and others. Plans to replace machines every two years. They would have a CDRom drive fitted and be sold with internet access as a package. All machines were on 3 years on-site warranty.

$250,000 per annum on support staff, $250,000 per annum on equipment =

8% of school turnover.

The library has 3.3 teacher librarians and 1.6 other staff. They administer an on-line searchable catalogue of library books and Internet sites. (Software used is Metamarc which allows transparent web access to catalogue and links.) The library index is available from the college web site.

http://exodus.bssc.edu.au:8000/metamarc/library.htm

Every department publishes course information and worksheets etc. in a ready made directory structure. Worksheets are in Powerpoint or Word format. 1 hour per week is spent on staff development, giving staff the skills to develop intranet resources. Departments are encouraged to use a team based approach to developing these resources as many have relevance across a number of curricular areas.

Newspaper clippings relevant to courses and topics are collected, scanned in and catalogued. The scanned clippings are transferred to CDRom at the end of each year.

The Intranet features a "Virtual librarian" system where the librarian can be e-mailed with requests for information on specific topics from a list of courses.

The library has purchased Ebsco World Magazine bank CD which has replaced a large number of journals which were purchased previously.

The exchange so far has been very successful. I have made a number of useful contacts and have been able to see a number of different ICT network solutions in action.

Both Bendigo Senior Secondary College and Brauer College are regarded as world-wide centres of excellence with regard to their ICT provision. They have achieved this by investing adequately in infrastructure and hardware, and have by being prepared to give their IT staff appropriate time and technical support to set up and maintain their systems. Both institutions recognise that this investment must be both ongoing and sufficiently stable to enable their staff to plan for the future. With a few notable exceptions, ICT in Scottish Education has been chronically under-funded for many years. Unless this issue is addressed as a matter of urgency, we are unlikely ever to be able to offer our pupils the kind of ICT resources I believe they deserve.

 

Short IT courses on topics like Computer Graphics, Animation, Web Authoring etc. are very popular with students who are not necessarily wanting to take a complete Computing Studies course. At present the only area of the curriculum where these topics can be offered are in S1, or possibly as Scot-Vec modules in S5 and S6

Within the primary sector it was notable that specialist word processing, DTP or presentation software was not used. Pupils were perfectly capable of learning to use mainstream applications such as Word 97, Microsoft Publisher and PowerPoint. I believe that the current policy of using Acorn software ported across to the PC platform is likely to prove unhelpful in the long run.

The integration of the Intranet and the Library service in Bendigo Senior College could be implemented as part of the Kelso High School Intranet. The full implementation requires the library service to be networked, but the departmental Intranet can be developed independently It is important however that departments are given proper support in developing their curriculum areas.

Both Brauer and Bendigo believe that the benefits of unrestricted Internet access outweigh the disadvantages, and use a logging and monitoring system to control access to unsuitable material. We use a similar system in Kelso High School and believe it to be a workable one.

 

Both Brauer College and Bendigo Senior College have given their network managers reduced teaching loads (Bendigo has 2 full time network managers) in order to manage the system. They have also a large number of dedicated technical support staff. If we wish to develop the use of ICT within schools in the Borders, then this problem will have to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

Brauer College and Bendigo Senior College suffer from the same Administrative / Curricular difficulties as Kelso High School. In all three cases the problems arise from the fact that the school network is more advanced than the administrative system implemented by the local authority, and would suffer a degradation in service if managed by them. The solution used in Bendigo was to link the two systems using a trust relationship between servers. This could be easily be set up in Kelso High School as has been documented elsewhere.

 

Both Brauer College and Bendigo Senior College spread the networking load (Email, Intranet, News, File server, Web server) over a number of different machines. This reduces the dependence on any one machine and makes maintenance and upgrading much easier. We have also taken this approach in Kelso High School and believe it to be a sensible one.

Both schools had set up their own web server so that pupils could log on remotely, access files on the network, email homework to staff etc. I would like to implement a similar system in Kelso High School as soon as possible.

Brauer and Bendigo have taken quite different approaches to network security. Bendigo have a relaxed attitude which has been successful due to the high level of expertise and time available to the technical staff. Bendigo have taken a much stricter (and more expensive) approach appropriate to their client group which is entirely year 11 and 12 students, many of whom have a sophisticated knowledge of computer systems. Bendigo have employed a former school "hacker" as one of their network managers, a decision which was questioned at the time, but which has proved extremely beneficial to the school. The current security position in Kelso is closer to that of Bendigo due to staffing levels.

 

High quality display technology is important when delivering IT. Lessons can be developed using Power-Point and software can be demonstrated using the same system. Brauer college uses large screen monitors, but I believe that projection technology has now become an economic alternative.

Brauer college used the traditional model of networked computer rooms and local concentrations of machines. Bendigo favoured an even distribution of machines throughout classrooms with less network rooms. Given that we still have to deliver IT skills to large numbers of pupils simultaneously, It is better that we follow the traditional model.

 

 

 

Brauer College: http://www.brauer.vic.edu.au/

Bendigo Senior Secondary Collge http://www.bssc.edu.au/