Technology Services

• Review laptop rules and guidelines
• Review Student Acceptable Use Procedures
• Monitor student use when not at school
• Ensure laptop is properly cared for while student is away from school

Need affordable home internet service? Access to the Internet is critical to students
for learning at home and to connect families with schools. Please consider the
following options:

• Everyone On (everyoneon.org) – List of national low cost or free internet access resources.
• Internet Essentials – Connect low income families to home Internet. Visit internetessentials.com or call 855-846-8376.
• Comcast Xfinity – Wifi hotspots across King County will be available to anyone who needs them for free.
• Lake Washington School District – Offers free cellular hotspots to families that do not have home Internet service. Check with student’s school office.
• 1 Green Planet (1greenplanet.com) – Donating personal computers for district students in need for online learning at home. Call 425-428-4414 for availability.

Follow these steps before turning it in for repair:

1. Restart your computer from the Start icon/Power icon.
2. Do not close the lid during this process.
3. Check to make sure the wireless is turned on
4. Make sure your battery is securely locked in place.

If you continue to experience issues with your laptop or if it is damaged, take it to the library, complete the Computer Repair form, and turn in the form with your laptop. You will be issued a loaner laptop to use while yours is in repair. You will receive an email when your laptop is repaired and ready for pick-up. Bring the loaner laptop back to the library.

If you receive this message upon login,

1. Make sure the wireless on your device is turned on.

2. If the wireless is on and you still received the message:

• Shut down the computer by going to the Start button, click on the Power icon and select Restart.

One of the best ways to avoid this issue is to consistently (and constantly) remind students to charge the laptop at home every night. They are expected to bring the laptop to school charged every day. If they fail to do so, they may be able to borrow a spare power cable. Barring that, the student would have to charge their laptop in the school’s laptop location (often the library) and lose out on participation in the classroom laptop activities until the battery is charged.

If a student forgets to bring their laptop to school, the student may miss out on laptop-related instructional activities that day. Please help us help your student bring their laptop to/from school daily! Each school has a very small number of “loaner” devices. Priority for these loaners goes to students who experience equipment issues outside their control. When available, a student who forgot their laptop may be issued a “loaner” device by the school.

The student will bring the broken laptop to school to turn it in. A loaner/spare may be checked out on the spot to minimize loss of instructional time. Once the student’s original laptop is repaired, the student will be notified to swap the loaner for the original laptop.

The loss needs to be reported ASAP to your student’s school. The student can then check out a loaner/spare until we settle the loss issue. It is critical that the student maintain good security for the laptop at all times! Please work with your student to reinforce the importance of taking care of the laptop.

Students should file a police report and give a copy to the school librarian for our records.

PE and coaching staff will instruct students on the specific procedures this week. A secure location will be made available for students in PE and on athletic teams to keep laptops safe during those programs.

When students’ use district issued laptops, while at school or home, they access the internet through district filtering and security systems. These systems are provided to help ensure students’ online safety as they explore the World Wide Web. They are also designed to meet the federal requirements outlined in the Children’s’ Internet Protection Act (CIPA) which the district must comply with.

LWSD computer filtering relies on security systems from Palo Alto Networks and Microsoft. These state-of-the-art filtering systems are used to block inappropriate or objectionable material and provide online computing environments for students which support their education. However, no filtering system is 100% reliable. It is reported that over 33,000 web sites are created each day and new sites with objectionable material for students can be missed or may have not yet been picked up for filtering. Students are responsible to help ensure their online safety and should report any inappropriate sites. The district’s Acceptable Use Policy and Acceptable Use Procedure prohibits the use of proxy bypass or other tools that can circumvent the district’s filtering systems.

General categories of sites which are blocked by district firewalls include: Alcohol, tobacco and abused drugs; nudity and adult content; dating; social networking; games, shareware and freeware; streaming media and music purchase and download; web hosting and web based email, online storage and backup; hacking, malware, and phishing; internet portals, personal sites and blogs, private IP addresses; proxy bypass/avoidance and dynamic DNS; and translations sites which can circumvent filtering systems; as well as other identified objectionable content.

District technology staff can block additional sites identified as containing inappropriate content. If sites within blocked categories are needed for specific instructional purposes, teachers can request those sites by opened for access.

As an added measure, at home, parents can add filtering to their home network. One option is using a free filtering service like the one from www.OpenDNS.com that will filter nefarious content from your home network on all devices, including the LWSD MAS device. If your student has accessed a website that causes you concern and that you feel is inappropriate, please forward the URL to webfilter@lwsd.org.

Get the user name and password from your student. While we prohibit sharing passwords with unauthorized users, parents are explicitly authorized users. We encourage you to know what your student is doing on his or her school laptop.

No, we don’t require families to have Internet access, though it would be very helpful for students. You should know, however, about the Comcast Internet Essentials program, which provides basic Internet access to families with students who qualify for free or reduced price lunch. For more information visit InternetEssentials.com or call 1-855-846-8376.

The district offers free cellular hotspots to families in need. Contact your school directly for more information about how to check these out.

There are several reasons why we are providing the same computing devices to all students in school. They include safety, instruction, technical support and equity.

Safety: we have installed web filters and have other safety precautions that help prevent students from accessing inappropriate or unsafe websites while at school or home. We can’t be sure that devices brought from home meet the same standard.

Instruction: we have purchased and installed several different software packages on district laptops that will not be available on outside computers. The same software, and even the same version, will be on each district laptop, so teachers are able to quickly and more efficiently teach entire classes and help individual students. Trying to teach a lesson with several different kinds of software and/or different versions of that software would be very difficult.

Technical Support: we can provide robust technical support through our technical support staff to a limited universe of computing devices. We can’t offer the same level of support to an unlimited universe of devices, which could lead to more computer downtime and lost learning opportunities. This practice is similar to the private sector, where employees are issued a company-owned device to ensure a predictable user experience and optimal technical support.

Equity: some families cannot afford the latest computer or even a computer at all. If all students are using the same device, they can focus on what they are learning with the device, not on who has which device and what else is on it.

Students are not precluded from bringing their personal mobile devices / computers to school, however, students who bring personal computers:

• Must also bring their district computer fully charged and available for use
• Must use the district device when required by the teacher
• May access the Internet only through guest wireless network, where filters are set to the level of protection needed by an elementary student.
• Will not receive technical support or assistance with personal computers
• May not access printing or charge their personal computer at school
• Do so at their own risk. The district is not responsible for lost or stolen personal computers.

Students can install drivers and print to home printers. To install a printer at home, follow these steps:

1. If your printer is a USB printer it may work just plug and play – try it
2. From the start button and selecting ‘Devices and Printers’
3. Click ‘Add Printer’ then ‘Add Local Printer’
4. Choose the correct port for your printer type (contact the manufacturer if you do not know) it is usually USB
5. Select the driver from the list – if it is not present you will have to download the driver – (see below)
6. Give the printer a name and select next
7. Do not share the printer and select next
8. Select ‘Set as Default’ printer if you want all jobs to print to this printer automatically and click ‘Finish.’

If the printer driver is not in the driver list you will have to download the driver:

• Visit the web site of the manufacturer of your printer and download the driver. You must only download the ‘driver only’ version of the software as the device will not allow you to install print management software
• Please note the location/folder you save the driver in
• At step 5 above select ‘Have Disk’ and browse to the folder where you saved the driver and select the *.inf file – click next and continue with the steps above

Please note that wireless and network printers require additional steps and possibly software that are beyond the scope of this document and may require manufacturer tech support. Also please note that students are not allowed to install software other than drivers on their computer so printers requiring print management software may not be compatible with the device.

Students are blocked from installing software for security reasons, which will also block the use of print management software. Check with the manufacturer to see if they offer a driver only solution.

Email ftaccess@lwsd.org describing the issues or call 425-936-1322 for 24x7 assistance.

For security reasons, the District does not give students or parents Administrator rights to the devices. We set the MAS devices to work with the common security provided by most wireless networks encountered at businesses, libraries, or hotels.

If your home wireless security is more complex, we can offer the following recommendations:

1. Add a segment to your network with less security for use by the MAS device
2. Hardwire the MAS device directly to the home network and bypass wireless
3. Open a hotspot for use by the MAS device separate from your secure wireless network
4. Consider using standard security settings

We are bound by the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) to filter Internet content to any devices accessed by students on the LWSD network, including the MAS devices. Some students dislike the filters. Given the opportunity, students could install security-defeating software to bypass this requirement. Some students also would also be tempted to use the devices for illegal file sharing. All of those actions violate the district’s Acceptable Use Policy.