BYOD at Rathkeale College

Rathkeale College is committed to integrating innovation and technology into teaching across all levels. We encourage students to take ownership of their learning and choose how they deliver their content. Allowing students to bring their own device (BYOD) and have control over their own device gives them the flexibility to access their learning anywhere, anytime.

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Minimum Requirements

A touch screen device with an ‘active’ stylus pen is highly recommended and is a requirement for Year 9 and 10 students. A stylus pen is extremely useful in subjects such as Science and Mathematics where students are dealing with symbols and diagrams on a regular basis. An ‘active’ stylus will detect the pen when writing and will prevent your palm from activating the touch screen. This allows for natural handwriting.
If you have an existing device, or intend on purchasing a device, that is not touch capable then we recommend that you purchase a USB digital drawing tablet that can be attached to the device so that it can accept a stylus pen input.

Minimum Specifications:

If you are considering purchasing a device independently, please ensure that it meets the following specifications:

Operating System Microsoft Windows 10, Apple OS X 10.9+
Processor Mobile focused Intel Core i3 minimum, i5 recommended. AMD 64
Main Memory/RAM 2GB minimum (4GB recommended)
Hard Drive (SSD/HDD) 64 GB or higher SSD (128 GB recommended). Solid State Disk (SSD) instead of traditional Hard Disk Drive (HDD) is highly recommended (SSD are much faster and provide longer battery life)
Input QWERTY keyboard, attached, detachable or Bluetooth
Screen size 10.1″ minimum, 15″ maximum. Touch Screen and Active stylus pen
External Ports 1 (or more) x Full size USB 2.0/3.0 (micro USB suitable with adapter)
Wireless Adapter Wi-Fi compatible – Required Specification
Wireless 802.11n/ac
Battery Life Ideally six hours on a single charge
Microsoft Office Microsoft Office is available for Rathkeale students to download for free. Information on how to access this is available on Rathkeale Online.
Anti-Virus software Compulsory anti-virus for all devices. Note: New Windows 10 computers include Windows defender built in for free. This is a suitable anti-virus program.
Java For web applications
Web Browser Web browser – Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Safari

Recommended Devices

More info on recommended devices below can be found at:

Rathkeale BYOD Cyclone 

Login: rathkeale
Password: rathbyod

What about Apple?

Apple MacBook/MacBook Air/MacBook Pro: preferably Retina display for battery life. Please be aware that these are not touch screen capable and therefore students may be disadvantaged when it comes to writing formula and drawing diagrams. We are aware that Apple computers may provide an advantage in some senior subject areas such as  Music. However, the school provides specialist Mac suites for this purpose. In general, we do not recommend these devices for students.

Purchasing a BYOD Device

Cyclone is a New Zealand owned ICT company that provides an efficient procurement capability for NZ Government agencies, tertiary institutions, schools and commercial organisations.

BYOD devices and accessories are available to Rathkeale students through the Cyclone web portal:

Cyclone Computers

http://byod.cyclone.co.nz/rathkeale​

​​Login: rathkeale
Password: rathbyod

Noel Leeming

Surface Devices

Mention Rathkeale College at a Noel Leeming store to receive special school discounts on BYOD and accessories.

Software and services available to Rathkeale students

Office 365

Rathkeale College uses the Microsoft Office 365 and SharePoint platform as its school intranet. This is great news for Rathkeale students and their families as it provides them with a huge range of great products at absolutely no cost.

Through Office 365 (Rathkeale Online) students can access the following Microsoft applications:

Applications

In addition to this, all students at Rathkeale College (including St Matthew’s Senior College) can now access Microsoft Office Professional for PC or Mac completely free through Rathkeale Online.

Each student is allowed to download Microsoft Office on up to 5 computers. This means that the licenses can be shared with other members of the family. The licenses are only valid while attending Rathkeale College.

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Download Instructions are provided to students on Day 1 of school.

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OneDrive for Business allows students to store all of their work online in the cloud. This means that their work can be accessed anywhere from any internet connected device. With OneDrive, students will never have to worry about backups or storage on their device.

All Rathkeale and St Matthew’s Senior College students are entitled to 1TB of OneDrive online storage.