Just because CutCutCut's topic below is locked, I thought I'd share my experience with a Chromebook BYOD policy at school.

 

 

Got my kid a Chromebook last year. She loved it, used it to do homework and other stuff like Storybird, Tynker, and so on, and for an occasional cartoon on Youtube. She didn't actually need it at school at that stage, so it was her personal laptop.

 

 

This year they started using Chromebooks at school, with optional BYOD (or you could use the Chromebooks the school provided, but why do that when she has her own). Sounded great, so I signed the BYOD enrolment letter and got her to take the Chromebook to school to have the school account management set up... Those who've read CutCutCut's post know what happened next.

 

The Chromebook is now fully managed by the school. Her personal user credentials, browser settings and plugins all gone. There's only the school user login. And the school manages her Chromebook at all time.

 

 

How could this happen, and how is this acceptable?

 

 

Well, the answer is - the school just doesn't know any better. They have an "IT manager" who is trained in setting up Chromebooks, so that's the way she does it. It didn't even occur to them to mention to the parents that once enrolled in the BYOD programme they could no longer use it as a personal device. Or that the OS will be refreshed, wiping all settings.

 

 

So, a word of caution. If your school has a Chromebook BYOD programme, you're effectively buying a Chromebook that can be used for school work only.