We tried to use the Chrome Developer Tools today to see HTTP in Action but the students found that they are denied access to the Developer Tools because it is grayed out on their Chromebooks.
Is this a tool my students need to have access to for the rest of the school year? Do I need to contact my Google for Education administrator and have this enabled for all students? Or should I just demo this on my PC to the classroom TV and discuss it with the class?
Hi @landerson,
No, this is only a one time thing. My school does the same thing with student accounts. I also have laptops though so students can see it on the laptops (or if they bring their own laptops).
I know this caused me to panic too when I realized the chromebooks didn’t have that capability. You could try talking to your tech department about it next year. I usually just do it on my screen for the class - it doesn’t have the same “exploration” impact, but it gets the idea across.
Students won’t need access to that again though!
KT
I feel the browser dev tools is a very handy tool for students to have access to explore and understand how the different elements on a page work. Some schools do block this because they feel the students could misuse this feature. If there is an effective firewall in place and the log settings are turned on for all network activity it is easy to track which chromebook is causing a nuisance. Innocent until proven guilty, right?
As a SuperAdmin, i would give you an immediate NO on opening up DevTools for students. Students can and will use these tools to bypass content filters putting your school in danger of losing it’s federal ERate funding, students can use DevTools to change settings on school managed Chromebooks and i have even heard of students setting up P2P networks. This is a huge risk for any IT department, school or district!
i think students should have dev tools unblocked for example someone in a class asked me why it is blocked they said they need to unblock it becuase they wanted to play a game that included that and i want students to have fun on what they are doing and some students dont work if they dont get that so its a good idea