Students have never been allowed to "tinker" with school-owned computers. I have been involved in educational programs that relied on school-owned laptops at the college level. In my experience having a locked-down machine is really the only way to make this sort of thing work well.
Unless you're teaching CS or networking or something along those lines there is just no benefit to allowing students fiddle with the computers that isn't completely overwhelmed by the negative effects of students accidentally hosing the machines.
I guess in a perfect world we would let everyone tinker with everything. You never know where the next brilliant idea will come from and all that. But in the world we live in, there are costs and there are benefits. When the costs of something dwarf the benefits of that thing you don't do it.
Yeah, and that's fine. What I'm saying is that when the computer is a primary mode of delivering course material or is otherwise absolutely necessary for the curriculum, malfunctions, whether caused by user error or otherwise, are unacceptable. Most schools just don't have the resources to support "real" computers in the hands of the students.
Yes they do. Most of them are contracted out to companies which have state restoration software on, so if someone screws it up, they can re-image it instantly.
Unless you're teaching CS or networking or something along those lines there is just no benefit to allowing students fiddle with the computers that isn't completely overwhelmed by the negative effects of students accidentally hosing the machines.
I guess in a perfect world we would let everyone tinker with everything. You never know where the next brilliant idea will come from and all that. But in the world we live in, there are costs and there are benefits. When the costs of something dwarf the benefits of that thing you don't do it.