Technology developments at Peninsula

Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District has recently made changes to technology procedures at Peninsula High.

Previously, the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) program involved multiple iterations through the student, school and district in order for a personal device to be registered. The change this year required students to enlist devices as part of student registration, therefore simplifying the process.

In conjunction with the BYOD program is the new login procedure. Instead of a generic account for each school computer, each student has created his or her own account using his or her permanent ID number. Intended to prevent cyberbullying, this procedure ensures accountability for students and the sites they visit.

“It’s another security feature when you’re on a computer. You’re less apt to do something you shouldn’t if your name’s attached to it,” said resource tech advisor Mike Woodard. “The district is getting away from generic logins; they want you to have your own personal account and to log in.”

Peninsula received 400 Chromebooks last spring, which were first used for testing in May. These Chromebooks – laptops created by Google – do not have an internal hard drive, as cloud storage is used to save all files. Teachers have the ability to sign out Chromebooks for classroom use.

“They’re in carts signed out by teachers for a block of time, like a book,” said Woodard. “When May comes the teachers return them.”

Additionally, PVPUSD has started the Microsoft Student Advantage Program. As part of the district’s software licensing agreement with Microsoft, students will obtain a free Office 365 ProPlus subscription, which will be linked to their school computer login. This will give them the ability to download five installations of the full version of Microsoft Office at no cost, along with a terabyte of storage on the Microsoft cloud, called OneDrive. Students and teachers will have access to Office Online, the browser-based version of Office for coauthoring and collaboration.

“You get five accounts, which means your siblings and parents can get an account as well,” Woodard said. “It’s really going to streamline things.”