Device Provision
In secondary school, students in Years 7-13 are issued with an individual, school-provided, take-home laptop for their use to support their learning. Students use the device at school and at home and keep them during school breaks.
In elementary school, students use iPads to support their learning. These are devices which stay at school. In Years Five and Six, students are sometimes allowed to take the iPads home.
NIST assigns devices to students with specifications required of our academic programme. Some years your child might have a brand new computer and other years he/she will be issued a used computer. We attempt to keep a computer assigned to the same student for the life of the computer to provide a sense of ownership to students.
The devices are provided with a variety of software that is required by our academic programme. Students have admin rights over their computers in case they need to install additional, legal software on their machine.
NIST allows all members of the community to use their own personal devices on the network for their learning. Personal devices are subject to bandwidth more stringent bandwidth limits in order to prioritize our internet connection for educational activities on NIST devices. If you wish to use your own device as your primary device at school, bring your device to the IT Department to register it to get the regular allotment of bandwidth.
NIST has a variety of technology equipment which is available on a sign-out basis. This ranges from iPads, DSLR cameras, and iPhones (as cameras) to tripods, stabilizers, and power banks. Students are responsible for these items for the period of time which they have them signed out.
Taking Care of Your Device
The majority of damage comes in the form of damage by liquid and from damage while laptop is in a bag or fall from table.
- Keep all liquids at least one meter away (and on a separate table/surface). Do not spray cleaners directly on the device. When cleaning the laptop, spray cleaner on a towel first until slightly damp, but not wet.
<NEED PIC of laptop from above showing water near with X through it and a water on another table 1.5 m away with √ and a blue circle 1m around the laptop showing no liquid line> - Put it in a protective case (especially in a backpack). Some cases are available in the school shop.
- Always place the device fully on a table (not hanging over the edge).
Device Usage at School
Students should begin the school day with a fully charged laptop and use it for academic purposes only.
- Parents agree to the following Technology Acceptable Use Policy for Students when they enroll and each year during the re-enrollment process.
- The technology-specific sections can be found on pages 31 and 22 respectively in the Secondary School Handbook and the Elementary School Handbook.
If students make bad choices regarding technology, they are asked by teachers to leave their laptop at school for three consecutive school nights. Repeated misuse of technology (which is a rare occurrence at NIST) is dealt with on a case by case basis.”
We are conscious that a balanced school day includes time when students do not use their laptop. There will be times, for example, breaks and lunch, when Middle School students are not allowed to use their devices. In addition, there will be places such as the cafeteria where we will not allow laptop usage.
The devices NIST provides are configured for use on campus, where we exercise control and safeguards at the network level (firewall, filtering, device management, antimalware) and through teacher supervision.
Provide details of what in place by concept rather than actual tool name.
Device Usage at Home
The devices used by students that have been bought home do not have any internet filtering or parental controls enabled when not in the school network. The following are suggestions about how parents can exercise more control over internet access if they feel it is required with their children.
The iPad must connect to wifi in order to receive a command to unlock the apps. If the iPad apps are locked when they should not be locked, please try to turn off then on the wifi. If that does not work, try to connect to a different wifi network. Of course, be sure the iPad is charged.
Students and their parents co-create a Family Media Agreement to guide their use of technology at home.
We, again, recommend using the Family Media Agreement to guide their use of technology at home. Here are a few things that other parents have found successful:
- Device use only happens in a supervised location in the home (not in a bedroom).
- Device is set to charge in a place controlled by parents overnight.
- Time limits are set on device use.
- Parent has the final say in these matters.
- Home wifi can be set to use Open DNS for free to provide some filtering. Please see this article for more information about OpenDNS and how to set it up.
We strongly recommend the common sense media site for parents. This site has many helpful tips for parents as well as video game and movie recommendations and reviews.
NIST provides filtering on all of our student devices whether they are used in NIST networks or at home. Inappropriate content is filtered at all times, but games are not filtered on secondary devices outside of school hours.
In cases where elementary students are able to use their iPads at home, we recommend the supervision above. If that is not enough, the next recommendation is to use Apple Screentime on the iPad to set limits and report on usage. As mentioned above, secondary students are administrators of their own machines, and the vast majority of our students can handle this responsibility. If you feel that your child is not yet ready, we can remove the admin rights and enable the Apple parental controls for the family to manage. Please be sure that the restrictions do not get in the way of learning.
Damage, Warranty, and Insurance
As with all electronic devices, they can have failures of components. The IT Department will receive a failed device and diagnose whether it is a warranty issue or if it was caused by damage/liquid. If it is a warranty issue, the family will never be charged for anything.
If there is a problem, we will arrange to have the laptop repaired. We will provide another laptop to use during the repair process.
As careful as we are, some accidents do happen. Please bring the computer to the IT Department as soon as any damage occurs so that we can fix it before it becomes a bigger issue. Families are fully liable for all cost of repairs in such cases; howevder, it is possible to reduce your liability significantly with our optional insurance plan.
Laptop insurance coverage is available for secondary students on an optional basis to reduce the liability for parents. The full details are in the linked policy, and the main points within it are:
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NIST students should take great care when using their devices to protect them from possible damage (no liquids nearby, do not throw backpack with laptop inside, etc.).
- NIST recommends that students use a cover on their laptop to protect against accidental damage, but this is not a requirement.
- Report any damage or theft immediately to tech support help desk
- With insurance, your liability drops to 25%. However, if no negligence is involved, the family is liable for 50% (e.g. leave on the floor where it can be stepped on, spill liquid on it)
- Theft with a police report is covered, but loss is not covered.