Internet accessibility within classrooms has opened the gateway for an exponential amount of digital study material and web content for students to access and learn from. However, such unrestricted digital learning environment can also expose students to a plethora of non-educational and inappropriate online content.
There is a high chance of students getting involved in disruptive web activities such as browsing social media or other unauthorized websites, playing games, and using instant messaging applications to chat and distract fellow students. They can also get involved in malevolent online activities without even knowing the risk and consequences of falling prey to online criminals and cyber-bullying while accessing inappropriate websites. This can lead to disruption in the flow of learning activities, affecting the academic performance of students in the long-run.
Using class control software has, therefore, become imperative for any educator to manage and eliminate digital diversions from classrooms. Such software solutions can limit students' access to distracting websites and application programs and help teachers make the classroom activities more engaging. Teachers can also check the academic progress of students with the advanced tools provided by a class control software like Insight and provide immediate feedback. Such software solutions are enabling teachers to inculcate a responsible, fair, and secure use of internet and other digital resources in students and increase their classroom participation.
How a Class Control Software can help teachers minimize classroom distractions?
The sole purpose of allowing web access to students is to enhance learning within the classroom. However, easy availability of digital tools can lead to many distractions and classroom management issues. Teachers get wary of leveraging technology in the classroom due to multiple unwarranted online activities on the part of students. On the other hand, a student monitoring software helps teachers streamline the entire process and simplifies their job of managing a digital classroom.
Effective school computer lab management software solutions are not only easy to use, but also enable teachers to establish discipline within a digital environment. Teachers can get cutting-edge classroom management tools to supervise, curb, and restrict students from doing unscrupulous web activities, thus retaining their focus on learning.
Here’s how a class control software help teachers neutralize distractions and unregulated web activities of students inside the classroom:
Effective Classroom Monitoring
Teachers often resort to manual approach when it comes to classroom supervision, mostly by taking a stroll around the classroom or taking a look at the student’s screen to check their web actions. But such classroom management methodologies are turning out to be futile in digital classrooms where students are operating multiple devices.
A classroom monitoring software enables teachers to check and monitor all students’ screens in real time through thumbnails from their own computers. They can also keep a track of what each student is doing on their devices, without having to worry about the classroom layout, or rearranging the seat of students. This provides teachers with an increased visibility of the entire classroom. If any student is found to be distracted, teachers can instantly disable their keyboard or mouse activity. This acts as an alert to the distracted students about their inappropriate computer usage and helps teachers to redirect them back to the class. Teachers can also perform better supervision and gain superior control over classroom exercises of students by blocking specific applications or websites being accessed by students in the class if those are found to be inappropriate.
Remote Access To Students’ Devices
An effective classroom computer management software enables the teacher to remotely take control of any student’s device without moving from their physical desk. If students lack enough focus or are engaged in some disruptive online activity, the teacher can blank out their screens. Apart from this, remote access also helps teachers to provide one-to-one assistance to any student when required.
Website Filtering
Most institutions readily allow students to get their own devices in classroom ranging from laptops, tablets, and Chromebooks, providing access to an array of distractions. Music, online games, shopping portals, social networking, and photo sharing sites are mostly visited by students which actually divert their attention. This leads to the wastage of school network bandwidth as well.
A robust student monitoring software allows students to browse through a selected list of websites only by limiting the access of the rest. The IP addresses of websites as per the usage pattern of students and curriculum requirements can be used to blacklist or whitelist certain websites. Thus, unnecessary web distractions are eliminated completely and attention of students is retained in the lesson being taught.
Application Limiting
A student monitoring software can be used to limit students’ access to unauthorized applications. It allows teachers and IT admins to build a customized set of required digital resources for students to study and learn. During an ongoing class, teachers can inspect the list of running applications on the students’ device and allow/ limit their access as per the requirement of the ongoing session.
Secure Assessment method
A student monitoring software can empower teachers to take proactive measures against online cheating by letting them conduct examinations in a locked and protected environment. Teachers can create and conduct online tests quickly while limiting students’ freedom to browse unregulated websites or access unauthorized applications. They can also check the screens of each device in real-time during the examination and give feedback right away by using the automatic grading system.
Using student monitoring software, teachers can eliminate classroom distractions and promote online practices that uphold academic integrity. Class management software like Faronics Insight works as an all-enveloping solution that offers robust classroom management capabilities facilitating appropriate control for teachers over the online access and device usage of students. Effective elimination of distractions enables teachers to create a transparent classroom environment which promotes collaboration among students, thus helping them learn in a better way.
Top comments (1)
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