School Managed Chromebooks

School Email & Logging In

Your student has a school email account that is used to login to school managed Chromebooks. All Chromebooks managed by our system can only be logged into with a school-issued email address. Personal Gmail accounts will not work when trying to log into the device.

Access to Other Email Accounts

Once logged into the device using their school email, they can choose to login to personal Gmail accounts in the browser. Students are able to access other domain email accounts from the Chromebooks.

Student email accounts are unable to send or receive emails outside of the nvps.net domain unless the email is part of a whitelisted and approved domain like gvsu.edu, ferris.edu, etc. That means a student won’t be able to send a file from their school email to a non-nvps email address (unless it’s a whitelisted and approved domain like the examples given above). This is a standard security practice in the industry that safeguards students who may be a minor as well as the integrity of our system and network.

Installing Pending Updates

Sometimes a Chromebook will have important updates awaiting to be installed. Most of the time, this will happen in the background automatically. But occasionally something might get stuck because a power cycle is needed, and a manual button press is needed. To check for updates:

1. While signed into the Chromebook, click in the bottom right-hand corner.
2. Click on the settings cog that appears at the top of the popup box. This should open a new window.
3. In this new window, in the left column, look for “About Chrome OS” and click on it. You should now see a “Check for updates” button. Clicking this will have the Chromebook check for any new or pending updates. After updates are complete, it is possible you will need to restart the Chromebook.

Increasing Your Mic Sensitivity

If you are on an audio/video call and everyone is saying they can barely hear you, a simple solution would be to increase your microphones sensitivity. To do this;

1. Click in the lower right corner of your screen where the clock is.
2. The popup contains all useful information such as wifi, bluetooth, volume and keyboard settings. To the right of the volume adjuster, you should see (>). Clicking this arrow brings the popup to Audio Settings.
3. Increase your Input 25% and see if that helps.

NOTE: We have been given feedback that setting the input to 100% causes “robot sounding” audio and should be avoided unless necessary. Each service like Google Meet, Zoom and Facebook Chat handle audio and video compression differently.

Battery Performance

Batteries on a computer are like tires on a vehicle. They wear out and eventually need to be replaced. Most of the Chromebooks in our district are newer and have healthy batteries. So if you are experiencing shorter charge times here are some things to keep in mind;

1. Shutting down the chromebook instead of just closing the lid allows for a slower discharge while not being used.
2. Media causes faster battery drain. That means audio and video chat, watching videos, listening to music or scrolling websites with lots of media such as photos and videos can cause a higher than normal battery drain speed.
3. Colder temperatures are bad for batteries. Try to keep the Chromebook in a room above 55 degrees. Leaving it in the car over night during the coldest parts of winter can permanently damage the device and/or battery. Dead battery cells result in sudden drops in battery percentage (going from 85% to 45% in a matter of minutes).
4. Using the device on a pillow or blanket which blocks the vents can cause the machine to warm up. The warmer the device gets, the harder the machine runs the fan to stay cool. The harder it has to stay cool, the more battery it will use. It’s best to use the device on a flat hard service.

Shutdown

This isn’t the same thing as logging out, or closing the lid of the Chromebook, and then reopening it. To shut down the Chromebook, hold the power button down until the screen goes black. This usually takes 2-3 seconds. Count to 5, and then power the device back on. Sometimes, a simple power cycle is all the machine needs to run optimally.