So I have the opposite problem with a Chromebook from everyone else online, and haven’t been able to find any info ….
How would school management work on a personal Chromebook?
My teen is starting at a new school and they provide a free Chromebook, managed by the school. They do warn that it’s restricted and logged so he should keep personal use on a personal device.
That’s fine but he got his free Chromebook today and is seriously disappointed. The “new” school one is crap compared to his 4 or 5 year old personal Chromebook that I had to buy for his previous school. He wants to use his old one.
However what does that mean for school management? Can he even use his school account or only if he enrolls his personal device? Is management tied to the device or account? Since it’s his personal device, can he just create multiple logins and switch between them, or will the school see all and restrict all?
I think I’m eligible to weigh in on this since I was issued a MacBook in high school and then went on to work IT later.
Do not, ever, under any circumstance, for any reason, use your personal device for business. Whatsoever. This includes school. If your job requires you to install an application on your phone, they better provide you a phone with it installed. If your school wants you to use a chromebook they will provide you one and you will use it. It is never a good idea to put these things on your personal device for convenience. The reason for this often comes down to security. For employers, they want to make sure their data is secure, and will retain the rights and the ability to remotely wipe or disable your device. If that’s the work phone, who gives a shit. If that’s your personal phone, suddenly you are the one who very much gives a shit. For schools, they want to make sure their students are properly monitored and cannot cheat or get up to illegal shenanigans, so the devices will be locked down tighter than Alcatraz and they will likewise retain the rights and the ability to remotely wipe, disable, or take control of the device. And some of those lockdown programs they install will put entries in your registry or something that causes them to be pretty goddamn near impossible to ever get rid of without a full wipe and reinstall, and frequently make it extremely difficult to wipe and reinstall without the assistance of the administrator. School IT would be able to fix this for you once school is letting out, but probably the only way they do it is by wiping your whole hard drive, or at best, restoring an image from before the beginning of the school year.
And that’s not even getting to the point where if all the students have a standard issue chromebook and one person has a much nicer one, it’s not a matter of “if” but “when” it will be stolen or broken.
Honest to God you are both going to be miles better off just putting up with the shitty one and keeping the good one at home. I promise with every shred of my cold shriveled ex-IT heart that that’s in your best interest.
Edit: Just realizing, chromebooks don’t really keep shit on their hard drive do they? My prior warnings still apply, but if there’s nothing on there you’re really worried about and you don’t mind if the chromebook gets nuked and resurrected, go for it I guess. This warning was mostly in the perspective of the MacBook that I used personally, or phones for employers which is relatively common. Just be aware that you’re handing the school IT the keys to the kingdom for a while, and they’ll pretty likely be able to spy on anything you ever do on that device.
ex-IT? what do you do now?
I heard so many stories about school IT, I’ve never been on one though. the most baffling thing I heard from coworkers that came from usual office IT and moved to school IT was that there was no respect for the profession and the amount of entitlement from users are really un imaginable.
These days I fix cars for a living. Same shit different setting really. You’re still chasing gremlins while the end user stares at you through the window. I find vehicle repair more enjoyable and more fulfilling than printer repair though. At least here I get to meet a person and directly improve their life in a measurable way instead of just generally keeping the rat race running at Corpo Inc.
I never did school IT, only corporate, though I did sort of hang around the guys who did in high school. I didn’t really see the inside politics of that though, since they weren’t students, they didn’t tell me much about that.
Chromebooks don’t keep any data or programs local, so mostly not a data problem. Chromebooks are inexpensive, certainly compared to MacBooks, and the “good” one is old. Also, unlike MacBooks, they’re really not in demand for personal use. If someone wants to steal a 5 year old MacBook they have no personal use for and that has no value to me, they’re an idiot. Since there would still be the free one, I wouldn’t replace it, soo lose nothing. The kid is stuck until he graduates.
I’m more concerned about privacy from the school, and accidentally violating school policy on a personal account