Tech Support

Having Technical Problems?

First, try these Self-Help Trouble Shooting Strategies -->

Next, try deactivating all Chrome extensions. If this works reactivate them one by one to find the one causing the problem.

Tips for home wifi usage when the entire family is working from home.

Check out these tips and pointers if your access to systems is slow.

Still struggling?

Email IT Support: ITsupport@uwcsea.edu.sg

We will continue to provide IT Support throughout the home learning period.

The team will be monitoring this email constantly during office hours and will respond as quickly as they are able during office hours. Where necessary we will connect via video calls and can provide remote trouble-shooting if required.

We will continue to try and provide hardware repairs and loan computers, subject to the government restrictions. These services will be strictly via appointment, organised through the IT support process above.

Self-Help Strategies

Safe Surfing at Home

How Can I Manage My Childrens Internet Use

The devices used by primary students that have been bought home do not have any internet filtering on the devices or parental controls enabled on them. The devices are configured for use on campus, where we exercise control and safeguards at the network level and through teacher supervision. The following are suggestions about how parents can exercise more control over internet access if they feel it is required with their children. The options become more technical as you work down the list:

Active supervision
Check that Restricted Mode for Youtube is swtiched on
Enable and use the "Focus" App installed on the laptops
Check with your internet provider (ISP) on the options they provide
Check the capabilities on your home router
Set up a DNS to manage home internet traffic

Please note that we are not endorsing the products mentioned here and apart from the "Focus" app and we cannot provide support with these products. Please make sure that you research carefully any products before purchasing.

Active Supervision

We do suggest that you designate the school devices for use only during school time and for school work. You should not let your children use their school machine during their leisure time for other uses. When they are using the devices, have them do so in a shared space, where you or other family members are also working. Make sure that their screen is visible to others and that you check in with them regularly about what they are doing.

YouTube Restricted Mode

Restricted Mode limits the content that YouTube will display. You should enable this on the laptop browsers (both Chrome and Safari) and also in the iPad YouTube app. Please see here for the complete details about restricted mode and how to activate it.

Use the Focus App

The College laptops have an app called "Focus" installed on them. This can be used to limit what the students can do on the laptop, including blocking internet access for a specified time. Please see this presentation about using "Focus" for more information.

Check with your ISP

Most of the internet providers in Singapore have add-ons to their broadband plans that allow you to provide parental controls on either the connection or at a device level. Check with your provider and see what the options are they offer. Please note that you will not be able install new software on to the College laptops, so the solution needs to work at the network level. You can add apps to the iPads.

Home Router Options

The router is the box in the corner of your room that provides your wifi and other internet access around the home. Many routers, particularly new ones, have parental control options built in. Check the manual that came with your router or try searching for "parental controls <model name>". Alternatively, have a look a this app that allows to programme a range of routers from your laptop. Please read the details carefully to make sure that this will work with your router before purchasing.

Set-up a DNS for your Home

All requests to the internet to provide content from your home are directed through something called "DNS servers". You can set-up your own DNS server to control what can be accessed on your home internet relatively easily. One well known product for doing this is OpenDNS from Cisco. Please see this article for more information about OpenDNS and how to set it up.

Other Home Based Learning Apps

FlipGrid

Allows for easy to create, face to face personal interactions with your peers, even when not online at the same time

Padlet

Flexible online pin board that allows users to capture their thinking, collaborate with others and organise resources and ideas

Google Workspace

Our students use Google Workspace for Education regularly when creating and collaborating digitally

Students can access Google Workspace apps via their chrome browser so long as they are signed in using their College gapps accounts

This site was created with the support of those schools who have gone before us in this journey. A special thank you to Yokohama International School for sharing their family site with us. Thank you to all the teachers and schools around the world for sharing their thinking, experience, and resources.

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