A quick glance down a row of students in any class would show that students often indulge in unproductive activities such as watching Netflix, playing video games, or other non- academic activities that consume class time.
In either late December or early January, San Marin will purchase and outsource a new teacher tool called GoGuardian. The product will be installed as an extension on all school-issued student Chromebooks at San Marin.
GoGuardian allows teachers to manage student activity on the internet, including viewing open tabs and previous browsing history. Teachers will also have the ability to restrict the links or activities that students can access in a time frame set by the teacher, control student’s current tabs, lock a student’s screen, and start a student-teacher chat that would pop up on the student’s screen.
GoGuardian is a teacher requested tool that will help teachers control their class and use class time effectively.
“It’s a way to keep the use of technology more focused on what’s at hand,” principal Mark Sims said. Sinaloa Middle School has been using GoGuardian for almost a year now, and many of the teachers have expressed a positive experience, and students have said that it has been easier to stay on task.
“GoGuardian is a useful tool for our students because it allows us to help students who may need instruction or intervention, but for whatever reason, do not ask for help,” 6th grade core teacher at Sinaloa Louise Menezes said.
The extension can be outsourced from the district office onto the chromebooks in around a day.
“I fear that yet another major extension will serve to slow down our chromebooks, as other extensions have done in the past,” junior and Tech Wrangler Tanner Spence said.
The Parent-Teacher- Student Association has given San Marin a check for $4,900 to pay for GoGuardian.
