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Photo by Matthew Reed

How to Set Up Your Child’s BYOD Chromebook

Matthew Reed —

BYOD - Bring Your Own Chromebook To Oaklands Te Kura o Ōwaka

We ask that, if at all possible, your child in Year 4 - 8 brings a Chromebook to Oaklands Te Kura o Ōwaka to support them with their classroom learning. Chromebooks are robust, have a battery that will last all day and are designed to work perfectly with the Google Accounts for Education that each child is given to do their school work on. We recommend either Acer (the most reliable in our experience) or HP Chromebooks. All Chromebooks need to have 4GB of RAM. Many electronics retailers will stock them and while it’s always worth comparing prices we have found PB Tech to have excellent pricing.

If you are unable to provide a Chromebook for your child we have a small number of school Chromebooks that students may use.

While high schools may ask for different devices as their preference we have not found any issues with students using their Chromebooks for years 9 & 10. They may need a more powerful device to run specialist software after this time but at that stage you will have hopefully gotten 6+ years of daily use out of the Chromebook.

Setting Up a New Chromebook

When you get a brand new Chromebook the first account you sign in with will be the ‘owner’ of the device. This will usually need to be a @gmail.com type of account. You may want to use a parents account or your child’s own @gmail account to do this - for example joebloggs@gmail.com.

When your child comes to Oaklands Te Kura o Ōwaka, and once you have signed and returned your ICT User agreement, they will be issued with an Oaklands Te Kura o Ōwaka Google account that they will then use for all their school related work - for example joebloggs@oaklands.school.nz.

Students should not leave their devices at school and need to make sure they are fully charged each night.

Restrictions/Security

Some families and some previous schools may have loaded extra apps that ‘lock down’ the Chromebook and may make it impossible for the student to load or use an account such as their school account. If this comes from another school you will need to contact them - often they will need to ‘unhook’ your device from their school Chrome Management Console to allow you to use it.

You may need to ‘powerwash’ the chromebook following these instructions or as listed below. If you powerwash a chromebook make sure the first time you sign in again you use a non-school, standard @gmail.com type of account as this will become the owner account.

Powerwashing your Chromebook

  1. Sign out of your Chromebook.
  2. Press and hold Ctrl + Alt + Shift + r.
  3. Select Restart.
  4. In the box that appears, select Powerwash Continue.
  5. Follow the steps that appear and sign in with your Google Account.
  6. Note: The account you sign in with after you reset your Chromebook will be the owner account.
  7. Once you've reset your Chromebook:
  • Follow the onscreen instructions to set up your Chromebook
  • The Chromebook will now powerwash and reset itself. Note: The account you sign in with after you reset your Chromebook will be the owner account.

Family Link Asking For a Code

Image by: Matthew Reed

If you are using Google’s own Family Link app you will need to go through the parent app and check what restrictions you have put in place on their device. The common one we see where it asks the child for a code from the parent every time they want to sign in.

To solve this open the Family Link app on the parent phone and:

  • Select your child
  • Account Settings
  • Controls for signing in
  • Change the tick from
    • Yes, ask me every time, to
    • No, let (child's name) sign in without me

Once this has been selected you may be asked for a code one more time and you may have to powerwash the Chromebook before they can sign in.

Problem Solving Chromebook Issues