Welcome to the 2022-2023 school year!
The Cape Elizabeth Technology Department is passionate about student learning. Our job is to help students learn. In that capacity, we combine non-instructional and instructional roles. Our team is composed of technicians, teachers, and an administrator.
Our goal is to prepare students for their future. Certainly, technology will be a part of that.
Student Devices
All students have been assigned a device. The device varies based on grade level. Students at Pond Cove elementary have been assigned an iPad. There are various models that are utilized. In middle school, students in grades 5 and 6 are assigned an iPad. Students in grades 7 & 8 are assigned a Macbook. At the high school, ninth graders are currently assigned a Macbook. Students in grades nine through twelve are currently assigned an iPad. We are in the process of transitioning the high school students from iPads to Macbooks. This will be a rolling project spread out over four years. Each incoming ninth grader will be assigned a Macbook.
Not all devices go home every night.
Care of Devices
It is absolutely essential that students take great care of the devices. Students must not apply stickers or markings to the devices. We teach and have students practice good habits with devices. These good habits should extend to home when the devices go home with the students.
A few additional tips for home:
Please keep chargers and cords away from pets.
Do not leave devices in extreme temperatures (i.e. inside a car on a hot day)
Students are also responsible to abide by our Acceptable Use Policy.
Students should never share their passwords with anyone other than their parents.
Should a device be damaged, please contact the school as soon as possible. We don’t want students in danger.
Filtering
Cape Elizabeth Schools provides a filtered environment for students while on our school network. This filtering is based on the age and developmental level of the students. Thus, the high school has far more permissive settings than Pond Cove.
We also filter devices that belong to the school and are assigned to a student when those devices leave our network. This filtering (based on the Cisco Umbrella product) is similar to the filtering settings at school. Thus, high school students are filtered differently than elementary students. We utilize the same categories in order to provide as consistent of an experience for students as possible.
We have heard from some parents that would prefer tighter control over internet access while their children are at home. We’ve also heard from parents that would prefer a more lenient system. Cape Elizabeth Schools believes in working closely with parents. Since devices are designed to support the educational progress of our students, please be aware of the following:
Many assignments can be completed on personal devices. Most assignments do not require a “school specific” device.
Turning on Parent Controls on the home Wifi router can be very powerful. Most modern routers have parent controls available. The amount of control that you have over your network depends on the kind of router that you have, but common tools allow you to do the following:
Limit screen time
Block specific devices
Filter web content
These tools are most effective when used in conjunction, though each of these abilities has its own merits. One of the biggest advantages of parental controls is that they can be applied to all devices and apply to different users. This also puts the power in the hands of the parents to determine the environment for their children.
Use of Devices
Cape Elizabeth provides devices for student learning and growth. Today’s world is very tech centric. Many of our textbooks are available online. Cape Elizabeth also utilizes a variety of tools that are digital. We’ve published a spreadsheet of the tools that we use by school. We’ll spotlight a couple of links here too.
Powerschool is used for parent access to grades, attendance and more.
Google Suite is used for students. This includes Docs, Spreadsheets, Presentations, and more. Gmail is currently available for students in grades 5-12 only.
Parent Page
We also make a lot of valuable links available on our Parent Page.