STM Parent and Families,
I know everyone has been eagerly awaiting news about Chromebooks and the timeline for when we would like them in school. Wait no longer! Please read below for details regarding Chromebooks and GoGuardian!
Chromebooks
Starting this week, students may bring in their Chromebooks to school; however, know that the Chromebooks will NOT be used until the security software is installed in early October. If your child brings in their device, it will be locked and not be given back to the students until the 2nd week of October. Please think about this before sending it to school. We will, however, be REQUIRING all Chromebooks be brought in by October 1. At that point, the IT department will be installing the security software on all devices and the devices will be returned to the students on October 12.
All Chromebooks must be given to your child's homebase teacher. We are asking 4 things from you. These are:
- Chromebook is clearly labeled (a post-it taped to the device will work) with the student name, grade, teacher.
- The power cord is with the computer and labeled with the student name and teacher.
- Please change the lock screen password to "kids" temporarily to allow for the efficient install of security software. These can be changed back when returned to the student.
- Email specs of student computers to Ms. Ryan (brigidr@stmcatholic) if your child is in 3rd - 5th grades and Mr. Jackson (mikej@stmcatholic) if your child is in 6th - 8th grade.
For those who are "checking out" a Chromebook from the school, we will be contacting you separately with details.
GoGuardian - Security Software Information
From the school’s perspective, this is one of the very first issues we tackled after we started looking at Chromebooks in the school. We have spent a good bit of time looking at security/safety software options and ultimately decided on the GoGuardian Suite of applications. While in school, this suite of applications will allow us to do several things:
- Set “school hours” where the school’s technology policies will dictate what the Chromebooks can access. For the sake of this communication, let’s assume 7:00am to 4:00pm. During these hours, all policies set by the school will control website access, as well as the ability for teachers to block/close/disable websites, etc. We will also be able to monitor, both in real-time and via reports, the activity of the school and of individual students.
- GoGuardian has a built-in content filter that is continuously updated that will block traffic to inappropriate sites and do so by more than blocking an individual site. They can also block categories (drugs/alcohol, explicit content, etc). The school will also be able to add our filter on top of this if we desire. This will be helpful if we notice a trend of students accessing sites that are deemed outside the appropriate use of the device. We can do this in near real-time.
- Teachers will have the ability to “lock” students into one browser tab or one website if they want. They can also “green light” certain sites or categories if students are doing research for a paper or something similar.
- With respect to a very real and pointed concern about YouTube, GoGuardian allows us to do a few things. We can limit students to only the video being shown by the teacher. The software also allows teachers to “freeze” or pause a student’s device at any time since we can see live thumbnails of what they are viewing/reading. We will also be blocking/removing the ability for students to see YouTube chat and comments since that is not going to be part of our curriculum and is definitely a potential source of inappropriate content.
Finally, and possibly the most important piece of this is the GoGuardian Parent App. This is included in our purchase and will allow you to do a few things. You can see reports of what your students are browsing, see how many times a teacher has intervened on their device, and more. The biggest one is that you will have the option to control what access your student has after the school hours. In our example above, parental control would begin at 4:00pm and go until 7:00am the next day. You would be able to block individual sites (YouTube, etc.) and also set timers for when internet access is disabled. I would encourage you to visit the link below for a video on some of these features.
The GoGuardian software will be installed on your child's device here at school during the first weeks in October.
