How many computers do you have at Gisborne Intermediate?
We now have approximately 200 PCs in the school. Twenty are in the infotech room and 16 are in a second ICT suite. All classrooms have at least three PCs; some have four or five. All PCs are networked on our thin client system except various stand-alone multimedia machines. Cabling is Cat 5 with a gigabyte fibre optic backbone. All computers have 100Mb network cards

How many are Pentiums?
All of our computers are now Pentium class. They range from P75s with 16Mb RAM, to PII-233s with 64Mb RAM.

How many did you obtain as recycled machines?
All except the multimedia PCs, which we built from parts to reduce cost.

What applications software are you using?
Mainly Microsoft Office XP with the addition of Microsoft Publisher and Paint Shop Pro 7.

What activities and curriculum areas are you delivering with these machines?
All curriculum areas are addressed as appropriate. With our current applications, CD-ROM reference material and high speed internet connection, we are in a good position to develop ideas, present, publish and research a wide range of topics designed to allow students to challenge themselves and broaden their ICT horizons.

What is the basis of your thin client networking — are you using Citrix Metaframe?
We use Microsoft Windows 2000 — it's considerably cheaper than Citrix Metaframe and less complex to set up. Citrix would let us stream multimedia across the network, but we feel that a multimedia network is in the category of what we would 'like' rather than 'need'.

Our student network is now powered by three application servers:

1. Dual PIII 600 CPUs with 1Gb RAM
2. Dual PIII 800 CPUs with 1.5Gb RAM
3. Dual AMD 2000MP CPUs with 3Gb RAM

The domain controller which doubles as a file server, is a PIII 600 with 512Mb Ram.

We have moved to this configuration gradually, as both the number of computers in the school has increased, and the demands on them have grown

What made you go to thin client?
Affordability, scalability, not having to upgrade workstations, ease of administration.

What's the minimum number of terminals you'd put on a thin client network?
The break-even point between having standalones and a thin client network, in terms of the time and hassle in maintaining a school system, is probably about 6-7 user computers. We'd had six Acorns in a network, and it drove everyone crazy. We had only three Windows machines in the school before we started the thin client network — that was an advantage for us.

How easy was thin client to set up, and how easy is it to maintain? Should other schools be scared of it?
It's not scary at all. Just different. Running 200 standalone computers efficiently in a school would be impossible without multiple technical support staff.

We've had no major problems — just the odd bit of teething trouble. We do get minor day-to-day occurrences that are usually ironed out within five or ten minutes. The number of outages is vastly smaller than would be generated by the same number of stand-alone computers. This is the benefit of Windows 2000's centralised administration and security. Security is the really big advantage of the thin client approach. It's easier to prevent students messing things up. 680 of our students cause no trouble, but the mission in life for the last ten of them is to bring the system down!

As we now use a constantly available ADSL internet connection, we are more vulnerable to hackers and the like, so we have invested in Zone Alarm Pro firewall software.

We use F-Prot antivirus software as it seems at least as good as the better known brands, and costs only US$2 per school computer.

We still use the freeware program Analog X as a proxy server.

We have several CD writers for backup purposes.

How reliable has the system been?
The network runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and it's been very reliable. Perhaps once a month a glitch might take the whole network down. Currently our network allows about 180 simultaneous connections, and we have yet to reach that figure.

What about the cost of technical support — should that be a worry for schools thinking of going down the thin client path?
We talk to schools that are terrified of the cost of hiring a qualified technician. But the good news is that you don't always need a qualified technician. Every school has a pool of unemployed parents available to them, and several would jump at the chance of learning these skills, possibly with wage support from the Employment Service. All you need is an unemployed person, probably with a home computer, and a desire to upskill his or herself. The skills required to run a school network can be gained on the job.

Mike: My own story is an example of this. My son came home from school one day and mentioned that the computer teacher didn't have time to sort out computer problems, and that there were all sorts of difficulties because of this. I was on the dole with nothing to do, so I offered to help on the basis that, while I knew very little about it, I was willing to do what I could and learn as I went. I got an extra $5 a day from Income Support on top of the dole for the first six months, then a 50 per cent wage subsidy for the next six months. During this time the thin client system was installed.

It was a steep learning curve, but with goodwill from our local computer supplier, lots of reading at home, and patience from the students and staff, we managed. Three years later, I still sometimes have to grapple with basic concepts, but we are managing. I don't feel I'm anything particularly special, and if I can do it, anyone can. I was 49 years old when I started — so you don't have to be a young go-getter either.

What range of client machines do you have in your thin client network, in terms of processor speed?
All are Pentiums — ranging from P75s to PII 233s, Ram ranges from 16Mb to 64Mb.They run Windows 98 as their base operating system, on about 1Gb hard drives. They use 100M network cards and use a video resolution of 800x600 at 256 colours.

What effective speed are your student terminals running software like MS Office?
On the PII 233 computers MS Word is ready to use before you finish double clicking on the icon.  The P75 computers take a little longer.

What are Gisborne Intermediate's future plans for improving the value/use of ICT?

• Our aim is to give students opportunities to investigate and further develop the skills and abilities they'll require in the 21st century.
• We'll continue helping teachers upgrade their ICT skills, and improve their ability to incorporate a smorgasbord of ICT related activities within the day-to-day curriculum.
• We plan to further develop our TV network and  digital video editing suite.
• We're developing an interactive website that will let students and staff access appropriate information from home, for homework etc.

Something of a change from past equipment at Gisborne Intermediate!
Mike: I went to Gisborne Intermediate when I was a kid, and it certainly isn't the school I used to know! Our principal, Bruce Topham, (btopham@gisint.co.nz), is right behind ICT and without his support, foresight and drive, we couldn't have achieved anything. Our ICT teacher, Tamati Elers (telers@gisint.co.nz), has really grown into the job. Among us we have administrative, educative and technical viewpoints working together towards the same end, and this is probably the most important part of our recipe. The team works well.

Do you have any tips that would help other schools set up and use a thin client network?

• Start small (in the ICT room perhaps) and work out how to use and maintain it before spreading through the school. The start-up system could have, say, six client machines and a single CPU server with perhaps 1GB Ram.
• Don't try to fit a thin client system around existing PCs. Fit existing PCs into a properly planned thin client system.
• Audit what resources you already have, work out what you need your system to do, and design a plan to get from where you are to where you want to be, probably in several stages. But don't be bullied into setting a five year plan in concrete — in the computer world nobody knows what's going to happen in six months, let alone several years.
• Build part or full time technical support into your budget.
• Don't put network connections below desktop level — kids can't resist kicking them.
• Don't install computers in back rooms out of the way. Put them in full view.
• Allow plenty of server capacity — students adapt to multi-tasking amazingly quickly and modern programs are increasingly resource hungry. If you haven't planned for it, your network will slow to a crawl, or crash. Five years ago, a single processor server with 256Mb RAM would run 30 workstations. After the students discovered multi-tasking, a single processor server with 256Mb of RAM handled approximately 20 workstations. As of September 2003, 3 dual processor servers with a total of 5.5Gb Ram are happily running around 200 workstations.
• Use a file server to reduce the load on the Applications Server(s). If you are running several Application Servers, use the File Server as the Domain Controller.
• Get a decent UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply). Some modern versions can shut down servers in an orderly fashion after a predetermined 'no power' period.

Summary of Gisborne Intermediate's network and ICT resources

• 3 domains: 1 for students, 1 for the library, 1 for administration.
• 3 terminal servers in the students domain:

1.         Dual PIII 600 CPUs with 1Gb RAM

2.         Dual PIII 800 CPUs with 1.5Gb RAM

3.         Dual AMD 2000MP CPUs with 3Gb RAM

The domain controller, which doubles as a file server, is a PIII 600 with 512Mb RAM.

• 1 Liebert UPS station GXT.
• 1 CDROM tower — 7 SCSI CDs — Encarta, TVNZ Encyclopaedia, Dangerous Creatures etc. hosted on file server and accessible from all workstations.
• Around 200 workstations: All Pentiums
• ADSL Jetstream Internet connection – shared through Analog X proxy server.
• 8 digital cameras (6 Sony Mavicas, 1 Kodak DC280 and 1 Nikon 5700)
• 1 HP 4100 laser printer: all classrooms print here.
• 1 HP6P laser printer: infotech room printer.
• 1 HP 690 inkjet printer in the infotech room — restricted use.
• 1 Minolta Magicolor II desklaser: used on cost recovery basis from the infotech room. (For instance students pay to get have personal digital camera photos printed.)
• 4 standalone computers ranging from Celeron 600 to Duron 1300 with A4 scanner in the infotech room.
• Standalone Celeron 600 in the art room with A3 scanner and touchpad.
• Standalone Celeron 600 in the music room running Sibelius notation software.
• Three standalone video editing computers (AMD 1600 and similar)
• Multimedia projector used for tuition in the infotech room, PowerPoint presentations in classrooms and the school hall, and projecting videos onto a 2.4 metre screen in the hall. (Linked to PA system.)
• 29 inch computer monitor in the infotech room for tuition.