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GoGuardian Admin 2.0: Chromebook Monitoring, Filtering, & Anti-Theft (Updated for 2017-2018)

7/8/2017

33 Comments

 
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GoGuardian is an excellent and low-cost solution for monitoring, filtering, and providing anti-theft solutions to schools that are using Google Chromebooks.  If you are using Chromebooks, or if your school is considering them, I highly recommend considering GoGuardian because they offer incredibly useful services with an easy to understand interface that even those with limited tech experience can quickly get used to.  Let's take a look!

Before we dig in to what the system looks like and everything that can be monitored and tracked using GoGuardian, let's take a short look at an introductory video of the new Admin 2.0:


Overall, GoGuardian Admin can handle any type of monitoring or in-depth analysis of student Chromebook usage, right down to the terms they're searching for on Google.  It's a powerful tool, and, for $7 or less per device (depending on the length of your contract and the subscriptions bought), it comes at a very reasonable price.  

Next, let's look a little deeper at their system and interface.  First, I should mention that you can use this service as a teacher, an administrator, or as a technology coordinator.  The team has done a great job customizing the software so that users get the information they need and want, but aren't bogged down by data or pages that aren't relevant to their role.  

When you first log in to the Admin 2.0 system, you'll see the dashboard.  From here you can see how many users are online, what websites are trending, and get a basic overview of what's going on within the system or your different organizational units (OUs).  
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The GoGuardian Admin 2.0 Dashboard

​If you've previously used GoGuardian Admin, I think you'll find version 2.0 even more user friendly and easy to navigate.  If you're new to GoGuardian, then I think you'll really enjoy version 2.0.  The Admin interface has been completely revamped so that everything is easier to find, setup, and use to get actionable data.  This video provides an overview of the new Admin 2.0 dashboard:
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One of the best new features with Admin 2.0 are the Smart Alerts.  These alerts use machine learning to create an extension of the admin workflow in order for events and actions to happen without admins needing to interact with each single, specific instance.

In other words, you can set up all the rules, triggers, and actions that you want to take place depending on student behavior, and then get alerted when those things are carried out.  This is a complete reimagining of their previous "Flagged Activity" feature, and I think it's an enormous improvement.  This video explains further:



For schools that have beta tested the new Smart Alerts, teachers and administrators found that students' attempts to access explicit material decreased significantly once the Smart Alerts were implemented.  In other words, as students began to understand what was expected as part of the online culture at their school, their behavior began to shift.

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​The Smart Alerts also contain a new activity log which lets admins have conversations around student incidents.  This helps to improve admin workflow and allows discussions around IT policy to all take place in a central location.  Each incident also shows a behavior log, which will allow you to see exactly what led up to an incident, and what happened afterwards.

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GoGuardian has also redesigned how Admin 2.0 manages policies and filtering.  They wanted to give schools more control over how devices are handled off-campus and after school hours, so that students can have different access when they're not in the classroom.  These policies can be differentiated at the grade, class, or even individual level.  This video explains further:


GoGuardian also offers Anti-Theft protection and it has been significantly improved upon for version 2.0 as well.  Basically, if a device has been stolen you can activate the Anti-Theft mode and choose what sorts of data you want that device to send back to you.  You can get the geolocation data, screenshots, keylog data, and even webcam pictures sent to you in order to help retrieve the device.  And it's your choice which of these you want to activate, so you don't have to receive all that data if you don't want to.  You can learn more in this video:


So, with all that being said, if your school is using Chromebooks, or considering using Chromebooks, I recommend considering GoGuardian Admin 2.0.  From monitoring student behavior, to setting differentiated usage policies, to providing anti-theft solutions, Admin 2.0 has it covered.  And the new Smart Alerts are great for improving and simplifying admin workflows. Plus, all this functionality is available at an incredibly reasonable price.  

​Overall, Admin 2.0 makes school management of digital devices incredibly easy and I absolutely recommend checking them out for your school or district Chromebook needs.

​You can read about the other tools in the GoGuardian suite of resources here.


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I was not compensated for writing this review.
The opinions expressed in this review are my own.
33 Comments
Tom
10/28/2014 03:43:54 am

Great review, I learned tons!
Just letting you know on this line there is a typo

"Finally, if you decide to you do want to use GoGuardian in your school, "

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Mike Karlin
10/28/2014 09:48:16 am

Thanks for reading and commenting Tom!

And good eye on the typo... got it fixed!

-Mike

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Alex
4/9/2017 01:14:15 pm

You know when there is a green chat bubble on the corner

dakota
2/15/2016 10:27:09 am

how do i know when im being monitored on my chromebook?

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Mike
2/15/2016 11:04:28 am

Hi Dakota,

You should check in with your teacher or school administrator to see if they're using a program like this one to monitor student activity. Thanks for reading!

Mike

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Leslie link
3/28/2016 07:32:19 am

Great Article. Was wondering if the students can bypass goguardian. eg. If they simple powerwash their device and use personal gmail accounts what happens ???

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Mike
3/28/2016 08:08:02 am

Good question! I would think that would indeed bypass GoGuardian, but then that particular student also wouldn't show up in teacher/admin records, or be able to use particular apps/settings, so as long as the teacher and IT admin are attentive, hopefully it would be pretty clear that the student is not using the device in the way that's intended. Thanks for reading!

Mike

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Ruston Raybon
6/19/2016 11:37:33 am

Can't bypass GG to my knowledge (administer about 100 chromebooks). If a student wipes the device it will auto enroll back in your domain, once it re-enrolls GG will auto install. They also can't ever use a person gmail account unless the admin allows it.

Mike
6/19/2016 12:37:58 pm

Hi Ruston,

Thanks so much for the feedback! That's great to hear and thanks for reading,

Mike

Mita
8/29/2016 01:08:54 pm

Will my teacher be able to see my search history even if I deleted them? And can they see what tabs I have on even though I'm not accessing them?

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Mike
8/29/2016 01:57:36 pm

Hi Mita,

That will depend somewhat on your school/administrator settings, but in general, yes, all of that information will be visible and accessible. Thanks for reading!

Mike

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Mita
8/31/2016 04:27:13 pm

Thank you Mike.

I was wondering if there's a way to prevent that? Or students are just not allowed to know?

Mike
8/31/2016 06:01:41 pm

Hi Mita,

You would have to check with the technology admin on that, or the GoGuardian support team. From a student side, there isn't really anything that students have control over in terms of settings and tracking.

Mike

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Marion
8/30/2016 08:16:53 am

If a student is browsing through a Linux OS , will this program still be able to gather information through their non-chrome browser?

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Mike
8/31/2016 06:04:22 pm

Hi Marion,

I'm honestly not sure on that, I'll try to get in touch with the team and find out, but it might be best to reach out to GoGuardian support on that question:

support@goguardian.com

I'll let you know what I can find out!

Mike

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samantha
9/7/2016 10:12:07 am

is there any way to unenroll from goguardian ?

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Mike
9/7/2016 11:04:29 am

Hi Samantha,

Your school or district would need to contact GoGuardian and cancel your subscription.

Thanks for reading!

Mike

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Nathaniel crowe
10/31/2016 12:17:34 am

Why not have a parent style for home to protect kids for achool work at home

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Heather
1/10/2018 12:06:39 pm

Is there a way a teacher could see what a student copies and pastes on the chromebook? Will a teacher be able to see if a student pasted whole paragraphs at once? That would be very helpful to see if students are plagiarizing when sources are difficult to find.

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Mike
1/11/2018 11:26:47 am

Hi Heather, thanks for reading!

They don't have automated plagiarism checking built in, but they have seen teachers use the screen view feature to ensure that student's aren't pasting in large blocks of text to their assignments (typically on Google docs). They've also seen teachers use the Version History feature in Google doc to see whether students pasted in large blocks of text at a time.

Hope that helps!

Mike

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Clarissa
1/10/2018 12:13:36 pm

Can I tell if a student has pasted information into a google document if I'm not viewing their screen? And can I see the past Chromebook activity?

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Mike
1/11/2018 11:27:09 am

Hi Clarissa, thanks for reading!

They don't have automated plagiarism checking built in, but they have seen teachers use the screen view feature to ensure that student's aren't pasting in large blocks of text to their assignments (typically on Google docs). They've also seen teachers use the Version History feature in Google doc to see whether students pasted in large blocks of text at a time.

Hope that helps!

Mike

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Noah
8/24/2018 09:03:40 pm

Can my teacher see what we do on our phones browsers such as chrome or safari or Samsung's browser if I have my school email signed into classroom, docs, chrome, and other Google apps, and If so is there a way to prevent them from being able to view it

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Bayani
10/4/2018 09:11:16 am

No. Go Guardian uses an extension that is auto installed via your admin's Chrome Book policy. Chrome on mobile doesn't support extensions therefore Go Guardian cant install the extension. The only way really for your teacher to see if A) It is during class time and B) You are using a Chromebook with the extension installed. And besides, you don't need to worry about the teacher watching you if you are on task.

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Natalie
10/18/2018 02:22:07 pm

That was an amazing article! One question... can I monitor students when they are woking on a project at home on their school account, or is it only available to Chromebooks at school?

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Natalie
10/18/2018 02:26:20 pm

Oh and I forgot something... can I look at students search history? If so, how far back can I go? Thanks!

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Mike Karlin
10/18/2018 02:29:32 pm

Hi Natalie,

You can choose to turn on or off monitoring for off-campus browsing:

https://www.goguardian.com/at-home-filtering-allows-complete-content-filtering-for-chromebooks-in-school-or-at-home.html

So it's up to you if you want to have that accessible or not.

You can also see student's history going back quite a long ways. I forget if there is any limit to it, but in general, you can see what you need.

You can sign up for a free demo with their team though to get the exact answer on that!

https://www.goguardian.com/contact.html

Hope that helps!

Mike

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Natalie
10/19/2018 03:25:43 pm

Thank you!

M
3/20/2019 08:29:45 pm

Can goguardian be used on computers that are not chromebooks? So, say a parent wants to watch over a kid's computer, but their computer is not with google at all. Is goguardian still available for use? As well, how does go guardian work with the ability to view tabs that were in incognito, or is it not possible?

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Mike
3/21/2019 05:55:27 am

Hi M - GoGuardian is currently only for use with Chromebooks, and also only licensed out to schools and districts, so parents can't get it just for an individual child's laptop. It does allow districts to see what students access on incognito tabs though. Hope that helps,

Mike

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Gavin
9/5/2019 09:01:20 am

Does GoGuardian filter out websites relating to political topics such as gun rights?

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Mike
9/5/2019 09:24:06 am

Hi Gavin - at the admin level, the filters can be set to be very specific (i.e. certain sites) or more broad (i.e. certain topics). Hope that helps!

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Ben
9/15/2021 07:36:49 am

Very infomative! One question, though: Does GG only work on the chrome app on a chromebook or can it range through other browsers? For instance if students have a microsoft edge or firefox app on their chromebook, can GG access the search history in those apps?

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