multiple desks on chromebook

[ddelboccio]

Can we prevent students from creating multiple desks on their chromebooks?  It appears to be messing with our GoGuardian management program, potentially making them appear offline.

[zdanenyc]

We have the same issue. GoGuardian suggests creating scenes with a maximum about of browser tabs open as that number will work across desktops. It's not really a solution but better than nothing?

[ddelboccio]

The interesting thing here is I cannot seem to replicate the issue.  When I create and start a new GoGuardian monitoring session, then go to one of my test student chromebooks, no matter how many "desks" I open, GoGuardian still displays the "active" one the student is on.  

I cannot "hide" from being monitored by creating a new desk.

So far, the only way that I have been able to hide as a student from a GoGuardian monitoring session is to turn the wifi off on the chromebook.  But I still wonder if my students have found some other way.  Trying to get one of them to fess up is never an easy thing.

[dochxp]

I am also unable to replicate this as you can see all the tabs open in the teachers and activity. However, there is no need for the pupils/students to have multiple desktops. They also eat up extra resources on devices. 

[mpartenope4676]

I was made aware of this option on the chromebooks today and haven't found a solution either. Someone was nice enough to submit a feature idea which got an immediate up vote from me. https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/Feature-Ideas/Managed-Chromebooks-block-multiple-desks/idc-p...

Managed Chromebooks block multiple desks was the name of the thread is the URL doesn't work. These darn kids and all their work arounds. Bless them.

[KMODonnell]

How do we get rid of the desks once the students create them?

[tvasso]

I was told by a Google support rep a few days ago that "our Product Engineers are already aware of the issue and right now, they are already in the process of adding this feature via Admin Console, there is already an existing Feature Request that they are already working on."

[Katieharmon]

Does it matter if they create multiple desktops; as long as they are using Chrome, GG should pick them up, right?

[MattDPenn]

I think when it first came out and for at least a few months after GG and similar programs had issues picking up on multiple desktops. It's possible the apps have gotten better about identifying multiple desktops since. I do remember a lot of threads similar to this popping up on the education subreddits around that timeframe.

It could also just be a matter of at the time teachers didn't realize what steps they needed to take to properly notice the multiple desktops.

[Rick2025]

Indeed they know about this feature request since it is from 06-05-2023 02:23 PM  I would be surprise if they put this as a control in the admin panel. Really it should not matter since they are using chrome and  it follows all your restrictions.  They still use the same profile or am I missing something.  

[SteveHarmon]

We use Securly, and I know that the multiple desktops issue has usually been a misunderstanding of the teachers using the product. Many teachers tended to only look at the mini-screen views of the students, which will only show one of the multiple desktops at a time. The way we would train teachers is to have them look at the list of URLs that are open rather than relying on the mini-screen view; the list of URLs will show even URLs from the other desktops. If they notice a URL that does not belong, then they can add it to the block list or close it remotely.