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I spent days researching a sub-string problem like this six years ago:

http://irolo.net/mambo_and_sex

I've often heard it said that open source experience is useless on resumes, because then employers of developers for closed source projects (regrettably the majority of software jobs) will think you are so kind of hippie rebel and they won't trust you keeping their code under wraps.

I write technical articles about, among other things, using and modifying Open Source Projects on my website, and I was just hired by a closed-source house. Part of the reason they hired me is because of those articles. My articles demonstrated that I could read, understand, modify and improve someone else's code. Seriously, if you like working with open source and a potential employer has a problem with that, don't work for them. In fact if you do enough work on a OSS project, make sure to give back your code and (even better) support and documentation, you will quickly get a reputation and can probably get enough work as a consultant to keep you busy for the rest of your life.

All of the high-rated comments are suggesting technical solutions. However, the person asking appears to be a teacher, not an IT person. I have been responsible for several computer labs, and I always start from the other end. I make sure the students know what is acceptable, and what the consequences are for unacceptable behavior. Then I implement what solutions I have time for, and can afford.

First, don't even let the students even turn on a computer until they understand the Acceptable Use Policy. Here are two that I have written, feel free to use or modify them:

• For Pre-K - 8th grade.
• For High School

Don't just hand these out and collect them. I always spent the first class going over it and giving concrete examples. I found that a great way to introduce the subject was to ask the students what they should and shouldn't do with computers. I would write their answers on the board, and by the end we would have almost the exact same things as those that are on the policy. Make sure to emphasize positive things as well, like research, games, asking questions, and telling someone about problems.

After that you are going to at least need some sort of imaging software. I always used Ghost, but several other programs were recommended in other posts.

Next, make sure you have security software. Firewall, anti-spam, anti-virus, and content filtering. If you don't have it, mention it often. Politely make sure that every teacher, administrator, and parent that you meet knows that the school refuses to protect the children. I eventually got eTrust from Computer Associates for a good price, and I'm sure Symantec would also be willing to give you a volume/educational discount, maybe to go with that networked version of Ghost.

Last, set boundaries. If you are a teacher, your time should be spent teaching. Of course you have to do some administrative work, but don't accept responsibilities that are not yours (i.e making accounts for hundreds of students, or setting up network hardware and software). Use what you have, and if things outside of your job description go wrong, politely remind people that it is not your fault, and not your job.

I have taught programming as low as 5th grade. I always started with HTML. It can be written on any computer that has a text editor. I can be tested on any computer that has a browser. Although it is not really "programming," it does introduce all the basics.

I started with a lecture on giving computers "special codes" to start and stop doing something, and then introduced the basic tags html, head, title, body, h1, and p. On the first day, they were able to type in something incredibly simple, and get instantaneous feedback. So, they were learning the Edit, Save, [Upload], Review cycle.

They got a lecture on documents (files), programs (executables), folders, and shortcuts, and then they were introduced to a and img. This also introduced them to attributes, and I mentioned that in other languages attributes were called properties.

They also got a lecture on nesting, whitespace and indenting, which would help them later on with control structures. After, that it was on to Javascript, and non-linear concepts. Some of my lesson plans are still at:

http://www.irolo.net/school/archive/saintmary/6th/ index.htm

Good luck!

It looks even better here.

Oh, the irony....

While I was reading this article I noticed Norton Internet Security was flashing a little icon. Guess what? A site called techreview.127.2o7.net (216.52.17.116) screenshot here was sending packages that appeared to be a Perl script overflow. Although I'm pretty sure this was a false hit (a few minutes later I got the same warning of an attack from 127.0.0.1), it's still ironic that this would happen when I was looking at an article about computer security.

I am a big fan of online comics, but I have trouble with UComics' site layout. Sites like comics.com have a link above each comic that says "NEXT." So if I want to I can browse through all the comics.
Ucomics, on the other hand only lists their comics in an index. If you want to read several comics, you have to constantly use the back button, or sign up for their My Comics page, and therefore give information to marketers.
This annoyed me so much, in fact, that I made my own comics page on my website, just so I didn't have to put up with this.
However, I probably will sign up with UComics. There is no way I will miss one of my favorite comics of all time.