1:1 Chromebook Advice

[MarkBerridge]

Hello everyone, I hope this is the right place to ask this and I hope its OK to do.

 

I have a secondary School I support who want to roll out Chromebooks 1:1. Can anyone help me get in touch with another School in the Midlands area who have already achieved this? Preferably a school with high levels of EAL and Pupil premium students which is similar to the school asking? I would like to know any thoughts and advice on there experiences that could help us?

 

Thanks for any help

[Alis_Klar]

Firstly GOOD CHOICE. Chromebooks are by far the easiest device to deploy in bulk.

 

Be prepared for repairs and damaged Chromebooks to be a big part of your job.

 

We rolled out 1:1 during covid lock down. Trust paid for them centrally (over 2500 units!) with no contribution from parents.

 

We got the bulk of them in one batch which may have been a problem as we seem to have suffered from a dodgy lockdown batch from Acer. Out of 400 we have sent 20+ back for repair. This may have just been a transitory issue as a few years ago Acer made the best Chromebooks on the market. Our other Chromebooks DELL, HP Samsung have been fine.

 

We had Acer C733U-C2XV model the issue was they would refuse to charge. When they come back from Acer they are diagnosed as faulty battery or faulty motherboard.

 

Have a water tight policy for damages and keep good records if they are returned to you for repair. We had some smashed screens which are very easy to fix your self if you order the LCD. Don't send broken scrrens off for repair as it really easy to do the fix in house and much cheaper too. We charged the parents £50 for the cost of the screen. We had 1 or 2 with picked off keys. Thankfully only 1 with proven water damage which is totally unrepairable.

 

Buy some spare USB-C laptop chargers (all new Chromebooks are USB-C) so if you get different makes you don't have to worry about mixed up chargers.

Edited May 21, 2021 by Alis_Klar

[kingoranks]

Why the midlands? why not the whole of UK?

[Alis_Klar]

Very important to have the lockdown policies correct in Google Admin. Also you will need a Chromebook compatible Safeguarding solution. We used SecURLy which is a bit US orientated but is a rock solid filtering solution which occurs on the device so filters at home too. It also can send alerts if its A.I. detects concerning activity. It does not take a screenshot like some UK based solutions for PCs. Not sure if any Chromebook solution can take screenshots. Edited May 21, 2021 by Alis_Klar

[MarkBerridge]

That's great advice thank you! We have quite a few Chromebooks from DFE and setup SSO with Azure and Google etc but luckily not had any breakages yet!

[MarkBerridge]

I would like to organize a visit and don't really want to travel to far. I'm a bit old school like that.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

We have setup Smoothwall Cloud Filtering and that seems to be working great!

[paulkerton]

Not sure if any Chromebook solution can take screenshots.

 

Nope. They can't. Google's APIs (quite rightly) currently don't allow for screenshots to be taken without the user being aware and approving the screenshot being taken.

[dhicks]

I would like to know any thoughts and advice on there experiences that could help us?

 

How / where will the Chromebooks be charged? We have limited space in our main building, with a compact storage / charging unit in each form room - if you have a bit more room you might have a locker area or similar which you might prefer to put storage in. Check you have enough power in each location, and (if you are storing devices on-site overnight) check what your insurance company requires by way of security. We found ours required the storage units to be bolted to the floor, so there was that to consider during installation (and any subsequent moving of units around).

 

As pointed out above, most new Chromebooks will come with USB-C charging ports. If you have children bring in phones to be held at school you could have them swap their phone for a Chromebook, with the phone left on charge during the day - this would probably need to be closly supervised, though. Something we've recently found: better to put a short USB-C extension on the end of the original power connector, ideally just long enough (and possible a right-angle connector) to reach the charging port of a single device, otherwise you wind up with a tangle of cables everywhere. Having a detachable extension means you can replace it easily if it gets mangled in a door or similar.