Interesting Impact of Screen Monitoring Software

[Demetri Orlando]

Watching a french class last month, I saw the teacher using our screen monitoring software to observe the tablet screens of all her students during a dictation exercise. She quickly figured out she could easily flip between the screens to see how the students were doing on the exercise, and redirect those who were making errors. She also noticed one of the students was transcribing her dictation in English instead of en Francais. It was great to see a real example of how a piece of technology helped her improve the work of many students in real time.

[elizabeth helfant]

What screen monitoring software were you using?

[Demetri Orlando]

We're using NetOp School. At my previous school we had DyKnow. I've also used SynchronEyes.
Also see: http://schoolcomputing.wikia.com/wiki/Screen_Monitoring

[Cindy Marston]

Wow - experience using 3 different classroom managemente software packages! What would you say are the strengths and weaknesses of each?

[Demetri Orlando]

I really like the collaborative power of DyKnow on the tablets. Used as intended, it's sort of like an interactive, shared version of PowerPoint - and with the tablet functionality, is truly an interactive instructional notebook. However, like any advanced tool, it does take some time to learn how to use it well, and it would gain the most traction if it were widely used. Used only in 1 or 2 classes intermittently, it doesn't reach a necessary "critical mass." The DyKnow notebook does not become a part of daily practice unless it gets enough regular use.

As for just straight up screen monitoring and locking, I prefer the simplicity of NetOp. I also found NetOp to have the simplest installation, because with admin rights you can push it out to any client computers.

I haven't used Synchron-Eyes in about 5 years, so I'm sure it's much improved, but at the time we switched off of it because some of the clients weren't connecting to the teacher workstation. This also seems to plague us with NetOp, but it's usually explainable by typical problems (being off the network, or changes having been made to the client configuration.) One thing I liked about DyKnow was that we did establish class designations on the server, so that students could be automatically connected to the teacher computer as they went from class to class. (We set up a DyKnow server.) With NetOp, we are not using a server- the communication is all between the teacher tablet and student tablets. The way we set it up, the students must choose to "log in" to the teacher's "class" in order for the teacher to see and interact with their screens. It can also be installed in "stealth" mode, so that the clients automatically log in, but this scenario only works in a lab setting, because lab computers only ever connect to one teacher machine. In our setting, with laptops (tablets) roaming between classes, we need to allow those student computers to log into any given teacher computer on a rotating schedule. It would be nice if there were some way this could all be defined by our scheduling software (BlackBaud), but that's probably 5 years away. Meanwhile, we make do with what we've got.

I've got links to these and other programs on the wiki: http://schoolcomputing.wikia.com/wiki/Screen_Monitoring

[Colin Bridgewater]

I've used Remote Desktop to observe my students on a variety of exercises. Reading over a student's shoulder can often be quite disconcerting for some students and often breaks their concentration. If I'm physically standing over them (or lean over to read their screens), all work usually stops while they look at me to find out why I'm hovering. However, if I flip from screen to screen from my desk, I can spend as much or as little time as I want watching a student work. I won't often send them a message if I need to communicate; instead, I'll walk over and offer my feedback personally.