1:1 Initiative
About the Initiative
All students in grades 1-12 are assigned a Chromebook, which will be collected back at the end of each year. Chromebooks will be used daily throughout the school year and were chosen for the excellence they provide in the learning environment, the increased communication and correspondence between students and teachers, and the proven security that a school-issued Chromebook provides.
Digital Citizenship
As technology and the internet become more pervasive, its reach extends further into the lives of our children. The reality is that the number of jobs that do not involve the use of technology is shrinking all the time. Couple that with the use of devices like smartphones, and it becomes essential that we teach our children how to use technology responsibly, ethically, and safely. This is the heart of what is known as digital citizenship.
With the advent of 1:1 in our schools, digital citizenship topics will be finding their way into the curriculum at all levels. As we use Chromebooks to open the digital world to our students, it is an absolute necessity that we do all we can to keep them safe.
Here, we are asking for your help. The skills of digital citizenship are most effectively learned when they are taught and reinforced at home as well as school. Having conversations with your children about safe and responsible behavior online is extremely important.
We understand that the topic can be complex, confusing, and sometimes uncomfortable. Common Sense Media is a non-profit organization whose mission is to help kids be safe and thrive in the modern technological world. If you visit their website, www.commonsensemedia.org, they have dozens of parent guides on topics like internet safety and privacy. Their site can help you become more informed about the skills of digital citizenship, and give you resources and ideas for how to approach the topic with your child.
Using a Chromebook without Internet Access
Offline Use of Drive
Your child can still work on files and documents in their Drive even if they are somewhere without internet access. In order to do so, they need to do the following steps on their Chromebooks while connected to the internet.
Open Google Drive (drive.google.com).
Click on the gear in the upper right corner and select “Settings.”
In the window that pops up, check the box
By following these steps, the contents of your child’s Drive will be saved on the Chromebook so they can be accessed and edited offline. If he or she opens a file and edits it, or starts a new document, all changes will automatically sync to their online Drive as soon as the Chromebook has a wireless connection again.
NOTE: If your child gets an assignment from a teacher through Classroom, or a document that is shared with them by someone else, and he/she wishes to work on it offline, it must be opened while the Chromebook still has an internet connection. If it is not opened, it cannot be saved to the Chromebook for offline use.
Assignments
Your child’s teachers are aware of the fact that not all students will have internet access for their Chromebooks outside of school, and have been asked to plan assignments accordingly. Assignments that specifically require internet use, and which cannot be done using the offline capabilities of Drive alone, should be planned so as to allow students without access time in school to complete the work.
If you find this to be a problem for your child, we would first encourage you to contact the teacher, and explain the situation. The vast majority of the time, the issue can be solved right there. If, however, lack of internet access continues to be an issue in assignments, please contact the building principal.
Reporting Damage
Please report any damage to your building library. The student will complete a damage report and get a temporary replacement device from the Librarian.
Questions? Contact our Technology Integration Specialist at merrihejos@slcs.org.