Franklin-Chromebook-Questions-Responses-v1

A student can delete a account (Gavin (another tech) said there was no way to change this).​ Is this true?​

Where is the account being deleted from?  I’m guessing (and please correct me if I’m wrong) that students are deleting other students’ profiles/accounts on the login screen.

Do your Chromebook login screens look like this?

I saw in the Admin Console that you have “Always Show user names and Photos” selected. Turning this off is way to prevent it. Some districts have done it too as a way to keep the login screens from getting too cluttered.

You can also set the domain autocomplete so students wouldn’t have to type in the whole FQDN (franklin.k12.ga.us) to login.

Here are settings (and their respective locations) that can be made per OU:

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Student can turn on high contrast mode, magnifier,​ large cursor, ​keyboard​, etc​ and it ​will apply to the entire cart. It is not simultaneously, but it will eventually hit every Chromebook.

It sounds like there may be a couple of issues where.

First, do students use one assigned Chromebook, or do they use multiple Chromebooks? I ask because I’m wondering if the setting you are seeing is following students on each device.

Normally settings are applied via Admin Console policies or settings that staff/students change to customize their own profiles. Settings that one student changes should not impact all other students/Chromebooks.

I have not been able to replicate the propagation of these settings between my Chromebooks in my domain.

I see that you have “Turn off accessibility options on sign-in screen upon logout” checked in the Admin Console. That is a great start but doesn’t quite stop access to making Accessibility changes.

Second, turning off accessibility has been a discussion for a while. Many districts have echoed the same comments.  There are some ADA issues surrounding turning-off accessibility for students/staff/teachers that may need to use the features on the fly.  From what I’ve been told and hear, this is the reason Google hasn’t implemented the functionality in the Admin Console.

The most comprehensive way to keep these settings from being changed is to block access to all settings. You can do that by blocking access to: chrome://settings-frame

There is a screen image below where to make these changes by OU in Device Management > Chrome > User Settings > URL Blocking > URL Blacklist. You would add chrome://settings-frame

When students want to access settings they would see a “Page blocked” message.

As an FYI - you can view all the chrome:// links and URLs by going to: chrome://about/

These other URLs could also be blocked using the same method.

As another FYI - chrome://policies is a helpful diagnostic tool to see what the Chromebooks “sees” about the Admin Console policies.

This does also apply to PC/Mac browsers too.

Conceivably, you could/may need to create OUs for students/staff/teachers that need these Accessibility features.

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​Within the Chrome web browser, a student can alt-click and bring up a menu screen, and they can click inspect element. This brings up the web content in HTML format. A student was able to delete and change things, and it started to apply to other Chromebooks if they were logged in. The students exact words, "I am able to hack into the Chromebook".

Inspect is pretty powerful. I use it while coding.

This can be shut-off by OU in the Admin Console under Device Management > Chrome > User Settings > Developer Tools.

Turning it off still will allow students to view a page source (just static code), but they will not be able to choose “Inspect”. It will be grayed out.  

This will also apply to PC/Macs that the students use with Chrome since it is a User Setting.

Here is screen image showing that setting:

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Students have ​also clicked on "enable auto repeat". When this is clicked on, students complain about the keys sticking. For example, if they hit the "T", it will type TTTT. This is challenging when they are trying to login to a website and get an error because they have entered the wrong username/password.

This could be prevented from adding chrome://settings-frame to the URL Blacklist as shown with the Accessibility features above.

Students won’t have the ability to turn it on.

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​Students can hide bookmarks that have been bookmarked on the toolbar. Teachers will complain that the bookmarks are gone, but they have only been hidden. ​

I’m assuming students are doing something like <CTRL> <SHIFT><B> or turning it off under Settings to hide the bookmarks.

If you choose “Enable bookmark bar” from Bookmark Bar in the Device Management > Chrome > User Settings, this disables the hiding of the Bookmarks Bar.  It can be done per OU.

It grays out Show bookmarks bar from the settings menu. The Bookmarks bar perpetually shows once the policy is applied. Students won’t be able to hide it any longer.

As with other User Setting policies, this will also apply also to PC/Macs that the students use with Chrome since it is a User Setting.

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Is there a way to delete a background that came pre-programmed on the Chromebook? Teacher is complaining about a background that shows a statue with some body parts showing. Since kids can change a background, can we either delete the background, or set it to where they cannot change a background?​​

There is no way per-se to delete the default background. I think the best option is to add one via the Admin Console.

If you set the Wallpaper (upload a JPEG/GIF), it precludes students from changing it.  It could your district logo or a school building picture if you create different policies for your various buildings.

Also, once you add the image the “Set Wallpaper” button is grayed out in the Settings. I don’t believe there are any dimension requirements or anything specific needed for the image. I’ve used a few different sizes and resolutions in the past without issues.