BYOD
Bring Your Own Device
Current BYOD Students and Parents
NEW BYOD Parents and Students Start Here
Parent Information
Our 2022 BYOD Parent Evening was held at school on
Tuesday 15 November from 7 - 8 pm
The slide deck here shows what was presented during the evening.
In term 4 each year we hold a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) parent information evening. All year 2 parents and caregivers who are moving to Year 3 the following year are invited to come to this evening. Any other interested families including those new to Sunnyhills in year 3-6 are also welcome to attend.
During this event, we go over the BYOD programme and what we use devices for. We also explain our rationale behind BYOD and give recommendations for devices. We will have a selection of school Chromebooks for you to view and possibly a selection from retailers if they are able to attend.
Purchasing a Device
From 2023 onwards
All students who are new to bringing a device to school will only be allowed to bring a Chromebook
Please note - We do not accept tablets or Chromebooks with detachable keyboards as a BYOD.
Students who were in year 3, 4, and 5 in 2022 and brought a device to school will be allowed to continue to bring their Chromebook, Mac or Windows device. We ask that should you replace those devices you do so with a Chromebook
Bringing a device to school is optional. Students who do not bring a device will have access to school-owned Chromebooks for their learning during school time.
We provide a list of recommended Chromebooks through our partner retailers, you are welcome to choose other makes and models if you wish.
Please see the notes below that will give you an idea of what to look for when purchasing a device.
What to look for
Lightweight
Great battery life - it needs to last for a school day
Tough outer-casing
Auto-update life of 3 years or more (details here for Chromebooks)
A minimum of 4GB of RAM
Attached keyboard - clamshell / laptop style
No detachable keyboards are to be brought to school
Touch screens are okay but not required
Why Chromebooks?
Easy login process for students
Chromebooks work seamlessly in the Google Environment
Cloud-based storage
Easy one-click software updates
Light-weight and great battery life
Less on-device distractions
Easy to powerwash - reset to factory settings if there is an error
Easily managed and setup for our school environment
Most secure option for Internet filtering at school.
Where can I purchase a device?
There are a number of retailers around New Zealand that sell Chromebooks. A selection of flyers have been added for you.
It is highly recommended to purchase insurance with your device to cover any breakages.
Device Setup
Our start of year BYOD drop-in sessions have now finished.
Please contact your child's classroom teacher if you need a new device setup and they will help you to arrange a time to do this.
Parents are asked to attend a BYOD Drop-in session with their children to set up their devices. The dates for these sessions are below.
From 2023 all BYOD Chromebooks will be managed using the Chrome Upgrade Licence.
We will install this on the device for you at your drop-in session.
Students who were in years 3, 4 or 5 in 2022 and brought a device to school will have the Chrome Upgrade installed in weeks 8 or 9 of term 4 2022 or when they return to school in 2023.
You can find out more about the Chrome Upgrade and what it means for you and your child's device here on our Chrome Upgrade page.
Booking a Drop in Session
All year 3-6 learners who have not previously bought a device to school and wish to bring one will need to attend a drop-in session BEFORE the device is bought to school.
During these sessions learners and their families will:
Receive help to install the Chrome Upgrade Licence on the Chromebook
Read and sign our school BYOD agreements and re-read our school citizenship agreement signed at enrolment
Receive advice on device use and monitoring at home
It is likely to take about 20-30 minutes to get through the process.
It is preferable to have the device fully charged but not set up. The device will be returned to factory settings before the upgrade is installed. Anything saved on the device will be deleted.
Current Session times:
We have now completed our start-of-year BYOD Drop-In Sessions.
If you require a new student Chromebook to be set up
please contact your child's classroom teacher to arrange a time to do this.
You can find all teacher email addresses here on our 'Our People' page
Important Documents
Why BYOD?
Future Focussed Learning
Our children are entering a world that is looking for abilities far different from the traditional. We want them to be able to collect, synthesise and analyse information and then work collaboratively with others to apply that knowledge. They need to learn how to learn and to respond to the constantly changing technologies and social and global changes in the world.
Bring Your Own Device allows students to have one-to-one time on a device that is set up to their specifications for their learning. This has many benefits, including:
• enabling students to take increasing responsibility for their own learning
• empowering students to learn at a pace and place as well as a way which suits them
• teaches students how to discern what tool will best help with their learning
• encouraging and enabling teachers to more easily implement personalised learning
• prepares students for a future where they are likely to be working in an environment with increasing amounts of technology and IT/collaborative/cloud based tools.
Digital Citizenship
As part of our learning at Sunnyhills school we help students to develop their digital citizenship. Our learning resources for this are on our SHINE Online site. Our SHINE Online site also has a parent resources page where you can find a wealth of resources to help you continue to develop citizenship at home.
Sunnyhills School is a Netsafe school. We regularly review and improve our policies, procedures and curriculum related to digital citizenship to ensure we're providing the best possible learning environment and experiences for learners both online and offline.
Google Workspace for Education and Hapara
How does Google Workspace for Education (previously, Google Suite, GAFE) work?
The Google Workspace for Education (GSuite) offers apps for email, calendar, blogs, documents, presentations and website creation as well as Google Drive, which is a way of organising all of the work done on these apps. The use of these apps is free and can be used in ‘the cloud’ - a collaborative environment where others can access and work on documents together in real-time. Google Workspace allows students to access their work from school, home, the local library - anywhere with an internet connection. Students at Sunnyhills have restricted access to some applications provided by Google Workspace accounts for example only those in year 5 and 6 have use of email. All students are unable to make creations on their accounts using applications that are restricted to those over the age of 13. This includes YouTube and Blogger.
What is Hapara Teacher Dashboard?
Hapara Teacher Dashboard is an interface which brings together the tools of Google Workspace in an overview style so that teachers can access, set tasks, mark and comment on work completed in Google Workspace. It gives teachers the ability to oversee an entire class of work, like they would a class set of exercise books. It also allows teachers and senior school staff the ability to oversee all the activity of any student account. This gives the ability to do a range of things, including, but not limited to: changing passwords if students forget them or suspending an account if the Student Responsibility Agreement is breached. You can read more about Teacher Dashboard here: https://hapara.com/products/g-suite/