I am trying to dance on the line between independence / autonomy / teaching internet safety / control / worry / sysadmin LOL.
The chromebooks on my kids devices are lagging and they are constantly complaining. I am considering the MacBook Neo, I thought about the Air but that’s like double the price and I need to buy multiple devices because the online classes overlap for everyone.
The other issue I am struggling with is security, etc. Should I just rely on installing an admin account and utilizing parental controls…OR should I get more granular and purchase through Apple Business (or use Jamf/Mosyle) and go down the rabbit hole of MDM.
Thoughts and Suggestions? What am I gaining / losing in all this?
Start with the easiest approach for you to oversee. Set for the most secure level that eliminates the most common threats without restricting routine mission critical jobs. Track the edge cases … where do the restrictions prevent certain required tasks, prevent certain desired activities, and, most importantly, do not prevent certain undesired actions.
When you cannot find a way to adjust for the edge cases using the tool you set up, then start looking for more advanced (i.e. more time consuming to manage) control systems for help.
In short, get going as promptly as possible with security controls that you understand, both in what they do and in how you set up what they do. In the meantime, ask the kids to take responsibilities in managing their own integrity when going on line. Someday, you won’t be around. In this respect, teaching about self-control in the face of a plethora of glorious temptations must make for a good sermon or two.
Put your cards on the table with your children, show them you trust them to be reasonable, and make them part of the household committee to ensure secure use of computing devices and software. If that’s not feasible, then perhaps you’ve got a bigger problem than hardware.
We took an approach similar to @KVZ. Both of our kids got MacBook Air’s on entry to high school. The rule was that I always knew the password and that they had to talk to us about what they were doing on the computer. So far, so good.
Recently I’ve witnessed a case of kids using a whitelisted video conferencing software (used for online classes), which has an in-app web browser for external links, to watch porn.
Kids will always get what they want when they’re determined to overcome whatever obstacles you’ve placed. They don’t really want to watch porn, after all. It was a large group of self-conscious middle school students, boys and girls, watching together in a classroom. What they want is freedom. When you dictate that porn is strictly prohibited, they will henceforward equate freedom with the act of watching porn.
So don’t see your kids as potential sneaky villains or adversaries. Give them freedom, outline the rules, and entrust them with proper conduct. They will do some of the things you don’t want them to do, not because they are rowdy but because they are humans.
I have 2 teenagers. We set them up with child Apple IDs- the most important part. This way we can set down time- as they will just be on all the time. We have some stuff with restrictions, but for the most part we did the talk and hope they do the right thing. If you go too granular, then they will ask all the time for sites they use for school and it will become an onerous task of approving sites.
We have an admin user and leave them as standard. We set restrictions on buying and downloading apps.