Blog Archives - Chromebooks at Chicago Public Schools

How to deduce a Chromebooks Serial Number

6/13/2016

You put in a ticket to have us move your Chromebooks under your school, didn't you? That's about to prove real handy. Kirk Bastek found himself with that most vexing of Chromebook woes, the missing serial number. Kirk writes:

Some days, I even impress myself.
We have a few chromebooks from CDW-G that do not have Serial Numbers printed on them. A web search brings you to developer mode, but you can not do that on a managed device, which these are.
Have your Google Admin Console open to manage devices and you will see a them listed by the day they last synced but before that you will see enrollment day. That's what you're looking for.
Follow the steps to get to developer mode anyway [Press Escape and Refresh and tap the power button at the same time], you will get an error and the device will restart

It's a Lenovo Chromebook, sure, but you knew that, right?

Now you have to re-enroll it (which just takes signing in with your email and password). While doing this, look at the Console and the enrollment day. One should be enrolled today, the current day, because you just enrolled that device and there is your serial #.

Test the serial number with some policy or other in the console to ensure that you have the right one for your device. Having done that, I would etch that serial number into the carapace of the Chromebook before handing it out again. Pro Tip: your Benzomatic culinary blowtorch is best used elsewhere.

Holy Carp, I've Borked a Whole Cart of Chromebooks

6/10/2016

I don't know what you were thinking, but you think big, you work fast, and we here at Client Services solute your raw ambition. If you don't want to dally with creating recovery media from a Chromebook itself, or maybe you can't because your plan went that spectacularly awry, you can recover Chromebooks using USB recovery media built on a PC. Here's how.

On the working computer (not the Chromebook with the error; you weren't going to do that, were you?), install the nigh-awesome Chromebook Recovery app.
Insert the media you'll be using as a recovery disk into a Windows or OS X computer that you have admin rights on. The thumb drive will be wiped, so backup your lolcats first. (You might want to make a few of these while you're at it)
Open the app and follow the on-screen instructions to create the recovery media.
Run the recovery tool and tell it which Chrome device you're building a restore image for.
Open the Chromebook you want to recover.
If you have anything connected to this Chromebook (such as a mouse, SD card, or external hard drive), remove it.
Enter recovery mode: Press and hold Esc + Refresh Refresh, then press Power Power. Let go of Power, then let go of the other keys. You'll see one of these messages:
1. "Chrome OS is missing or damaged. Please insert a recovery USB stick or SD card."
2. "Please insert a recovery USB stick or SD card."
Insert the recovery media you've created (SD card or USB drive).
Follow the on-screen instructions.

Q: "I restored my Chromebook, but now I can't use my USB flash drive or SD card anymore!!"
A: Easily solved. Use the nigh-awesome Chromebook Recovery app one more time to erase your USB flash drive or SD card so you can reformat it.

I've Borked my Chromebook. How do I wipe and Start Over?

6/8/2016

We feel your pain, but that time has come, and you need to wipe the Chromebook. Get a USB drive and a few minutes and you'll be good to go. Remember, all local data (not drive/cloud data) will be lost, including downloads, cat pictures, and the rest. Upload those to Google Drive before you start.

Press Esc+Refresh then hold down the Power button.
You will see: Screen with yellow exclamation mark press Control+D.
Press ENTER to turn OFF OS verification.
- Chromebook reboots.
Press Control+D to boot into Developer (Recovery) Mode.
1. Screen will display “Preparing system for Developer Mode.” [Samsung Chromebook 303 model will take about 12 minutes.]
2. Chromebook reboots to a red exclamation screen when done.*
Press SPACE to turn ON OS verification, then Enter to reboot.
- Chromebook reboots to normal first-time Set Up.
Setup Screen 1: chrome Welcome!
- Select your language: English (United States)
- Select your keyboard: US keyboard
- Select a network: continue to step 7
Setup Screen 2: Join Wi-Fi network
- If location is not carved, connect to CPSWIRELESS.
- If location is carved, connect to CPS#FACILITY#
  - Use the “guest” network at your location
Setup Screen 3: The Chrome Welcome! screen will reappear
- Click [Continue] button.
- The wireless network should display “Connecting…” first while negotiating the Wi-Fi network access, then if successful it will display CPS; note the lock indicating a password-protected network!
Setup Screen 4: chrome > Google Chrome OS Terms
- IMPORTANT: If you have a Samsung 303, wait 90 seconds before proceeding.
- UNCHECK “Optional: Help make Chrome OS better by automatically sending usage statistics and crash reports to Google”
- Click [ Accept and continue ] button.
Setup Screen 5: Chromebook will attempt to identify whether it is updated to the most current version specified by your organization. It will automatically reboot if necessary. Go back to Step 6 if the Chromebook restarts.
Setup Screen 6: chrome > Sign in
- DO NOT SIGN IN yet unless the bottom middle of the Sign in screen displays: This device is managed by cps.edu.
- Instead, hit Control-Alt-E to initiate the Enterprise Enrollment screen
- Automatically re-enrolling Chromebook steps need to be documented here, and the next 2 screens can be skipped.
Setup Screen 7: chrome > enterprise enrollment
- Email: username@cps.edu
- Password: your CPS password
- Click the Sign in button.
Setup Screen 8: Returns to the chrome > Sign in screen
- This device is managed by cps.edu. should now be displayed in the bottom middle of the Sign in screen.
- The TestNav kiosk App should be available here; you may need to log in, use, and/or restart the Chromebook to get it to appear for the first time immediately after enrolling.

* CPS-owned & enrolled Chromebooks should result in a reset to verified mode at Step 4 above.
** Link to visual Guides for Recovery Mode and New ChromeOS Setup

Chromebooks presentation from Tech Talk

6/7/2016

Here is the slide deck of the Chromebook presentation that Ron and James gave at Tech Talk.

More notes on Insight for Chromebooks

6/6/2016

We have a description of how to implement Insight for Chromebooks here:
https://drive.google.com/a/cps.edu/file/d/0B8J87eoGQYTYV1BxRFptMlJxQVU/view

Insight for Chromebooks

6/3/2016

I was searching around my Drive and found the instructions to set up Insight on Chromebooks. There are two Docs here: one is the official documentation from Faronics, and the other is from Paul with CPS specific information.

The "tricky" part is when you are setting up the policy file, you will need to point it to an Insight Configuration Server. [“connection_server_host” - DNS name, or IP address to the Insight connection server. ] Insight Configuration Servers have been installed on our Compliance Servers, so the IP Address for that piece is the IP Address of your Compliance Server. Not so tricky, after all!

So, those are the steps. How well does it actually work?

I've been running tests using the Middle School in my building, and this is basically what I see most of the time:

Students have the option to opt out of Insight on the Chromebooks. Now, I have seen teachers successfully get their students to accept the permissions. This is a classroom management and protocols issue, of course. But when they do, it is basically the same Insight we know and love from our desktop labs. And that is really cool. Insight is the district option for classroom-level monitoring, so it is free to us. Check it out, and feel free to leave comments with suggestions for implementation.

Did I change this or did Downtown? or "Inherited or Locally Applied?"

6/2/2016

This is from Ron:

When you start changing policies in the Admin console, the day will come when you may struggle to remember whether the current setting is one that you inherited from the domain, or one you set yourself.

All Policies by default are Inherited from the master CPS policy, and, if you look for it, default, inherited, policies have a special flag that says so:

If you change a policy it will change the status to Locally Applied

You can always revert back to Inherited by clicking the "Use Inherited" button:

How do I get more Organization Units for my school?

6/1/2016

You can't.

CPS is the 2nd Largest Google Apps for Education (GAFE) organization in the world, just behind Australia. Each School has 3 OU’s per site and additional OUs cannot be created. This is what you get; use them wisely. We put Chromebooks under the school; in the case below, that would be "Albany-6290". You can move them into the groups you see listed, and you don't have to use those groups for a reason associated with the label. For example, some people put lost Chromebooks under "NonEmployees", and then lock that group down in the Console.

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