Impactful Features
Schools now have a greater investment in technology than ever before and the challenges of managing and monitoring its use, supporting teachers and protecting students continue to grow.
Helping schools worldwide, award-winning classroom management solution, NetSupport School, provides teachers with dedicated assessment, monitoring, collaboration and control features to leverage the full value of technology-led teaching and learning using best practice.
The solution not only saves teachers’ time and maintains students’ focus, but also improves learning outcomes – regardless of the preferred learning style.
Manage
with NetSupport School
Start-up
- Power on or off (even student PCs that are not logged on) and log in/log out all classroom computers from the teacher’s PC.
- Teachers can choose from three user modes(Easy, Intermediate and Advanced) to make features accessible to suit their level of edtech confidence – helping schools to maximise their edtech investment.
- Blank all or selected students’ screens (even in View mode) to gain attention and also lock their mice and keyboards.
- Automatically re-connect to students’ PCs if they have inadvertently disconnected, logged off/on or re-booted.
- Reflect the layout of the classroom by rearranging the individual Student icons on the teachers’ screens to match the layout of the physical classroom. Save and reload that room layout automatically again.
- Create profile for individual teachers to store ready-made lists of approved/restricted applications, websites and keywords rather than having to create these at the start of each lesson.
- Use a one-click “Request Assistance” option from the teacher’s toolbar if technical support is needed. Plus, by clicking on the icon, the Tutor can either chat or send a message directly to the Lab Technician or Network Manager.
- Reset students’ system passwords without IT support. Teachers can see the students accounts that have been locked, to then unlock the account or assign a new password.
- Teachers can use Student Feedback to gauge how they feel, their confidence in a topic and whether they need extra support.
- Flexible range of connection methods to student devices, including SIS integration via ClassLink OneRoster and Google Classroom.
- Room Mode- Connect to Student computers by room(s).
- PC Mode- Connect to a fixed list of Student computers by machine name.
- User Mode- Connect to a fixed list of Students (by logged on user name). Plus, use the ‘refresh list’ to re-connect to a student who has logged off/on or re-booted.
- Browse Mode- Browse the network and connect to Student computers with a specific machine name.
- SIS Mode- Connect to your SIS environment using ClassLink OneRoster or Google Classroom.
Printer and device management
- Prevent students from printing in the classroom.
- Limit printer use by number of pages.
- Require teacher’s authorisation prior to printing.
- Prevent individual printers from being used.
- Display a real-time print indicator identifying which student is currently printing.
- Show the number of paused print jobs requiring the teacher’s attention.
- Prevent data being copied to or from USB storage and CDR/DVD devices.
- Disable webcams on classroom devices.
Student register
- Request standard and custom information from each student at the start of the class.
- Print the student register, including a total of any rewards or print jobs completed during the lesson.
- Save the Registration Report as a PDF file.
- Use customised icons for students.
Hand out and collect files
- Transfer files to one or multiple students
- Copy files and folders between two Students.
- Send folders/subfolders from the teacher to the student/s.
- In the File Transfer tool, you can also collect files from students and enable the student to choose which file to upload to the teacher (without needing to send them a file first).
- Use the Send/Collect Work feature to send and collect files from students. Real-time feedback tells the teacher which students’ files are ready for collection and which students need reminding.
- Folders that need to be accessed regularly can be added to a ‘Favourites’ folder in the Tree view.
- In the tree view in the File Transfer and File Distribution windows, you can access the downloads folder to directly transfer files quickly and easily.
Student information bar
The Student Toolbar provides feedback to the Student on the current lesson such as lesson objectives and learning outcomes (if provided by the teacher), time remaining, current websites and applications that are available (this can be hidden), the status of print, audio and keyboard monitoring and quick access to initiate a Chat session and request help.
Teachers can also reward students with new animated stickers that will appear on the student’s toolbar. These can also be added to the student journal.
Students can also access their USB memory stick, Student Journal, work items that have been sent and any resources from the toolbar. It can be set to be always visible at the top of the Student screen or to auto-hide.
Technicians’ tools
NetSupport School also comes equipped with a Technicians’ Console to help the school IT team support users and manage devices across the school. IT technicians can perform powerful 1:1 PC Remote Control on any selected computer, capture screenshots, annotate the screen and provide direct technical assistance to any classroom teacher. And for comprehensive control, they can also apply school-wide settings such as internet and application restrictions that are ‘always on’.
Instruct
with NetSupport School
Being able to actively engage and keep the whole class on track within an IT classroom can be challenging at the best of times. NetSupport School makes it easier for teachers with real-time instruction, a virtual whiteboard and a bespoke teacher toolbar. Simplicity is the key and the creative possibilities are endless!
Real-time instruction (Show mode)
- Show the Tutor’s screen (Show Mode) to all or selected students – perfect in helping to demonstrate a point or show students how to do a particular task, for example.
- The teacher can only access websites that are on the Approved Site List, preventing inappropriate websites being displayed to Students during a Show Mode.
- The teacher can select which application they may want to show to all/selected students in isolation.
- Any late joiners can join a ‘Show’ that is already in progress by the teacher – preventing lost teaching time in getting that student up to speed.
- Show a Replay file (previous screen recording video) to selected students.
- Show a video to selected students.
- Leave a recording of your Show on the student’s PC for future review.
- Use Audio mode to speak to students during a Show.
- Deliver presentations optimised for both wired and wireless classrooms.
- Show a student’s screen to the entire class or selected students (Exhibit mode). This is useful in situations when Student ‘A’ has produced some work which you wish to show to rest of the class.
- Annotate the teachers screen (Show Mode) or annotate the students screen (during a remote control session using ‘Watch Mode’) with a range of tools to aid in presenting such as arrows, shapes, highlighters, text and more – perfect to help draw the student’s attention to a particular area.
- If the Tutor does not want the Students to see the screen being annotated in real-time they can suspend the show, enabling the Tutor to continue working in the background.
Virtual whiteboard
A full screen interactive whiteboard is integrated directly within the Tutor software and is supported by a wealth of drawing and annotation tools for improved collaboration within the classroom. It can be shown in real time to all students in the class and, when needed, they can all interact with it.
Group leaders
A nominated student can be assigned certain Tutor rights and act as a group leader until such privileges are revoked. This feature now includes a visual layout of leaders and their assigned group members.
Chat
Open a chat discussion that all or selected students can join, enter their comments and share with the rest of the class – now with emoticons, making it great for student collaboration and supporting students with their work. The content of the Chat session can be added to the Student Journal or saved for later use or copied to another application. Plus, all chat sessions between the teacher and student are automatically logged and stored – perfect for supporting evidencing requirements.
Sends a message to students, and include clickable urls, making it even easier for teachers to point students in the right direction.
Audio Support
Audio support is included in all Show Screen and Remote Control sessions, allowing the teacher to transmit their voice during a presentation.
Teacher toolbar
When the Tutor application is minimised, a convenient toolbar is provided for quick access to key features within NetSupport School. This toolbar is optimised for use with interactive whiteboards.
Supporting social distancing/respecting students’ personal space
Maintaining social distancing or simply just respecting students’ personal space in schools can be so important. With NetSupport School’s classroom management tools, teachers can deliver instruction, monitor, assess and interact with students all at a safe and respectful distance – whether they are all in one classroom together or spread out over separate rooms. Click here to learn more.
Monitor
with NetSupport School
Being able to monitor student activity is the cornerstone of good classroom management software. Not only does it ensure students stay on task, but it is also a key foundation for an effective e-safety implementation. NetSupport School ensures a teacher can easily monitor student screens, the applications they are using, the websites they are visiting, what they are typing and who they are collaborating with.
View student screens in real time (Monitor mode)
- Monitor the entire class in a single view with adjustable thumbnail sizes.
- Monitor students using multiple monitors
- Overlay additional information, including active application or active website.
- Zoom in on a selected student for an optimised high-definition thumbnail.
- Remote control the student’s screen to instruct or remedy activity.
Application and internet monitoring
- Monitor all students’ application use.
- Monitor all students’ internet use.
- View both foreground and background applications and websites.
- Remotely launch or close applications or web pages on all selected PCs in a single action.
- Coming soon: Remotely launch files such as a PowerPoint or Word document to Students without having to direct their way through the drop-down menus.
- Record a full history of application and internet use for each student. A viewable web url is also now available in students’ web history, making it handy for reviewing sites and their content.
- Allow only approved applications or websites to be used or simply prevent restricted ones from being opened.
- Force SafeSearch on for supported search engines, preventing inappropriate content being returned within search results.
Keyboard monitoring
It allows the Tutor to monitor Student’s keyboard usage while using any approved application. The Tutor can monitor the entire class, quickly viewing any typed content and keeping an eye on Student activity levels. To further enhance the monitoring process, a Tutor can create ‘target’ and ‘inappropriate’ word lists, and when a Student types a word on the list it will be immediately highlighted to the Tutor (green-target) or red (inappropriate). A count of how many target/inappropriate words that have been typed by each Student will also be displayed.
NB: Keyboard monitoring does not record data entered into password fields.
Real-time audio monitoring
Ideally suited for the modern foreign languages classroom. Simultaneously view all student screens and see in an instant which computers have live audio activity. Select one of the displayed student thumbnails to listen to the audio being played on that PC. Listen to a student’s microphone feed and correct pronunciation, chat or simply engage with each student individually without disrupting the lesson.
Assess
with NetSupport School
NetSupport School also provides a selection of flexible formative assessment tools, ranging from an informal classroom discussions and surveys, peer assessment tools, to more structured testing with automatic scoring. The unique Q&A Module gamifies the lesson, encouraging participation and competition, who’s first to answer, team play or simply a random auto selection of the next student to question, just to keep them paying attention. It provides a range of instant question types to be delivered on the fly to help to reinforce key learning points and instantly gauge students’ lesson comprehension – all while keeping them fully engaged!
Student testing
NetSupport School’s Testing tool is a powerful utility that enables teachers to design tests and examinations with the minimum of effort. Incorporating an intuitive Test Designer, it allows the teacher to set customised tests including text, picture, audio and video questions. Once the specified students have completed the test in the pre-set time, the results are automatically collated, marked and made available to the teacher to view.
Now utilise up to 9 different question styles, including a new ‘Highlight text’ question. Teachers can create a question and highlight the correct text in a statement. The student must highlight the correct section of text to qualify as a correct answer – useful for providing more challenging ways to assess students’ understanding. Two fake (incorrect) answers can also be added to the drag-and-drop question type, so students have to identify the correct answer before dragging it into the statement.
- Create a library of resources and questions that can be shared.
- Create any number of tests using questions from your library.
- Create questions with between 2 and 4 possible answers.
- Set examination grading levels (e.g. over 75% = A grade).
- Track student progress and see question success or failure in real time.
- Auto-mark the test so results are available as soon as it is completed.
- Display individual results back to each student.
- Deliver results (including highlighting the correct answers) to the class.
- Install the Test Designer on a standalone system.
Rewards
NetSupport School provides the Tutor with the ability to ‘reward’ Students for good behaviour. During a lesson, a Tutor can give individual Students a reward, in the form of a star and with new animated stickers, which is reflected on the main toolbar and can be added to the student journal. The number of rewards a Student has can be viewed by mousing over the Student icon in Normal view.
Survey mode
The Student Survey tool enables the teacher to get instant feedback from students during or at the end of a session, helping to instantly capture students’ understanding of a topic. The teacher can send all or selected students a question, together with a selection of pre-defined responses, so students can ‘vote’ on the correct answer or statement. The students responses are gathered for the teacher to see, with the results shown as an overall percentage and by individual student. Results can also be shown to the students in the form of a pie chart, but the students must respond before they can view the results.
Students can also be temporarily ‘grouped’ by response enabling the teaher to see in an instant who selected the same answer. This could be useful if a quick follow-up question or message to particular students was required.
Question and Answer (Q&A) module
Built around current teaching practices for the continual assessment of learning, it allows a teacher to verbally ask questions to the class, gauge students’ responses, introduce new questioning styles to the lesson (such as basketball questioning), and develop peer assessment opportunities – as well as track rewards against both the individual and, where appropriate, teams.
The module provides the following options:
- First to Answer
When a question has been asked, the teacher can set a ‘thinking time’ after which students indicate if they know the answer, with the teacher’s desktop showing the order in which they answered. The teacher can choose the ‘top x’ fastest responders and the quickest student is asked for their answer. The teacher confirms whether it is right or wrong and then has the option to bounce the question to subsequent students. Points can be awarded or deducted. - Enter an Answer
The teacher enters the answer to a question in advance and students are prompted for their responses. Results are instantly displayed to the class and points awarded or deducted. - Pot Luck
An alternative to First to Answer, the teacher can involve a number of randomly selected students. - Team Mode
Students can be placed in teams, allowing them to compete for rewards as a group. Teams can be created randomly or students can pick a team to join. Each team member enters their answer and the group’s combined total is displayed. - Peer Assessment
This encourages students to give feedback in response to an answer given by one of their classmates. They indicate if the answer given was correct or incorrect and the teacher’s screen displays the results.
The Student Journal
The unique Student Journal ensures all relevant information from a lesson is recorded for future review – from lesson content and teacher/student notes, to assessment results. Used as both a revision aid for students and a record of content covered for teachers, it helps ensure all information is stored in one place. All key actions and events during the lesson can be added to a journal file, and these can include:
- Details of the lesson objectives.
- A class attendance register.
- Specific notes, resources and screenshots taken or used during the lesson.
- Survey and test details and results.
- Question and Answer module scores.
- Lists of approved websites for research.
- “On the fly” screenshots during a demonstration (teacher or student).
- Details of any homework set.
- Individual notes can be added by each student whenever they are required.
- Target words/topics used for any comprehension or research assignments.
- Transcripts of any electronic chat conversations.
- Copies of any NetSupport School inbuilt whiteboard sessions.
- View a pdf of all the features in the Journal.
Security
with NetSupport School
NetSupport School is used throughout educational establishments across the globe. With the level of desktop control and management available within the product, protecting its configuration and use is key to delivering the best possible standard of instruction, without the fear that the technology is open to abuse.
NetSupport School features a wealth of security features to ensure its correct and authorised use:
- Apply a unique “security key” to make your copy of NetSupport School incompatible with other copies of the software.
- Restrict connectivity across the enterprise to only systems carrying a matching software licence.
- Stop the Client32 service from running, and being able to end the connection from a teacher’s console.
- Secure Tutor profiles, each allowing customised levels of functionality as required.
- Use Active Directory profiles to limit which users are able to run the NetSupport School Tutor or Technicians’ software.
- Use Active Directory profiles to force approved configurations for both Tutor and Client software installations.
- Control the access to (and use of) portable media devices within the classroom.
- Automatically re-apply a classroom session and restrictions on reboot of a student computer.
- A list of servers known to the NetSupport Connectivity Server is displayed, allowing you to see at a glance how many students are connected, and any active sessions. A filter bar also allows you to search for students in the NetSupport Connectivity Server Console.
- In addition to displaying the client name, IP address, MAC address and Gateway key, the Gateway console now displays the description of the gateway key in use under the Clients section.
The Windows Tech Console (V11+) also allows you to apply security policies. All PCs can be checked against a pre-defined set of policies, instantly identifying any computers that are without, for example, anti-virus, Windows updates or internet protection. In addition, a Policy Management tool allows for NetSupport School restrictions to be defined and applied across the school permanently.
Optional components
Cloud-based In-School and Remote Learning
IT Management
ServiceDesk and Ticketing
Mass Notification and Alerting
Cloud-based In-School and Remote Learning
with classroom.cloud
classroom.cloud is a focused teaching, classroom management and online safety tool. Cloud-based and easy to use, it helps teachers monitor and instruct in a school classroom and with remote learners – while the school can create a safe learning environment. It also comes with a Technician Toolkit, helping the IT team to maximise their school’s technology.
IT Management and Tracking
(optional with additional cost) from NetSupport
ServiceDesk and Ticketing
(optional with additional cost) from NetSupport
Easily integrated into your existing IT infrastructure, NetSupport ServiceDesk delivers the processes needed to help you effortlessly track, organise, manage and answer the toughest support challenges. Its fully customisable and intuitive browser-based interface supports both desktop and mobile platforms and delivers robust workflow processes. It also supplies a wealth of management reports as well as providing a customer-friendly self-service portal – all the tools needed to help technicians deliver support effectively.
Mass Notification and Alerting
(optional with additional cost) from NetSupport
Schools are fast realising the benefits of using mass notification solutions such as NetSupport Notify to boost school communication and support their emergency and lockdown procedures.
Using NetSupport Notify, schools can communicate effectively with staff and students using one-way alerts and notifications – sending them to desktop users and large information panels in halls and foyers. Alerts automatically take screen focus, meaning they can’t be hidden, ignored or saved for later (even on locked screens). The notifications can even be targeted to select groups and scheduled for maximum impact.
