O'Hanlon, C. (2009). Safe at home.The Journal: transforming education through technology, 36 (9), 32-33.
I have often wondered how laptops from school could be taken home by students. The article Safe at home tells how Henrico County Public Schools in Richmond, Virginia, allowed students to take the laptops home. The students loaded all kinds of things on the laptops and the administration had not taken any precautions to prevent it. The administration recalled and reimaged the computers over winter break and returned to the students. Norton antivirus had been placed on the laptops. Students are now taking laptops home and are kept from getting onto unauthorized programs with antivirus software.
At Battle Ground Academy in Franklin, Tennessee, uses Sophos antivirus software to protect the students and administration. Kbox from Kace inventories school computers and flags the computers that have unauthorized programs. Demerits are given when students are found to have violated school rules.
Putnam Valley Central School District in New York keeps track of student computers in case of a missing machine. Skyhook Wireless is used to do the tracking. It works like a GPS.
At North Daviess Community Schools in Elnora, Indiana, staff explains the use of laptops and maintainance to parents. The district wants to allow computer usage at home for all students because the more they use it, the more proficient they become.
It is amazing how much technology is "out there" and now I see that you can even "track down" a device.
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I never thought of student laptops being available for home checkout. That is a neat idea. Our county is way behind the times! Unless done on the high school level, we do not even have laptops for students to use at the school! I can see many challenges of making such technology available for home use (theft, internet safety, etc.). However, the ultimate goal is to make technology available to everyone. That's one way schools can help do that.
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