HIGHFIELDS STATE SECONDARY COLLEGE

BYOD PORTAL

Unsupported Devices

The following Operating systems are NOT SUPPORTED by Highfields State Secondary College:

Mac OSX - ChromeOS - Android - iOS

iPADs and Android Tablets

These should not be purchased as a primary BYO device, devices like the iPad and Android device are not suitable educational devices. They provide inferior functionality for typing large documents, running school based software packages such as Adobe Photoshop, AutoDesk Inventor, Visual Studio etc.

Apple Macbooks

Apple products are not officially supported by the school due to the Microsoft ecosystem we offer and the technical support we provide students is with Microsoft ecosystem trained staff. If in the event you purchase a Macbook, some products that teachers and subjects use for lesson delivery (e.g. Visual Studio, AutoDesk) may not be supported by a Macbook. If in the event you are adamant that and you wish to purchase a Macbook, they can be enrolled onto our network, but we will not provide technical assistance/support for students with these devices.

Apple offer educational discount available at: https://www.apple.com/au-hed/shop

The additional issue compounded with Apple devices is the push towards app store only installations, some of the school software that does support Macbooks work on the older x86 architecture and are DMG files to install manually, which is now blocked by Apple.

Google Chromebooks

Various manufacturers produce products known as Chromebooks. This is a Google enclosed ecosystem that does not support our Microsoft operated environment. These devices should not be purchased for school use as they are reliant on cloud services to operate which are blocked by Education Queensland filters.

Please be aware, we will not allow Chromebook products onto our network.