Overview of NetSupport School
Classroom Management Software with Student Monitoring
With technology now playing a central role in education, schools need powerful tools to manage devices, monitor student activity and support teaching and learning. NetSupport School is a leading classroom management and student monitoring solution that enables teachers to keep students engaged, manage classroom technology and promote safe, effective digital learning across all devices.
Easy to use
A quick start to lessons
Engaging instruction
Keep students on task
Easy collaboration
Celebrate excellent work
Check progress and gamify assessment
Support language learning
Help reduce costs and boost security
Tools for technicians
Easy to use
User modes:Choose from three user modes (Easy, Intermediate and Advanced) to match NetSupport School to your level of edtech confidence – ensuring it is accessible and stress-free.
Classroom layout: Reflect the physical classroom layout by rearranging the individual student icons on your screen. Save it and then reload that room layout automatically, again and again.
Connection: Automatically re-connect to students’ PCs if they have inadvertently disconnected, logged off/on or re-booted. Plus, you can power on or off (even student PCs that are not logged on) and log in/log out all classroom computers directly from your PC.
Profiles: Save time by creating a profile and storing ready-made lists of approved/restricted applications, websites and keywords, rather than having to create these at the start of each lesson.
IT support: Use the one-click “Request Assistance” option from your Teacher Toolbar if you need tech support. Plus, you can either chat or send a message directly to the lab technician or network manager.
“Easy to use, student-focused, feature-rich classroom monitoring software. …we couldn’t live without it now!”
– Ormiston Six Villages Academy
A quick start to lessons
Class Wizard: Select your lesson – or create new lessons and choose how to connect to the students. You can connect by room, a list of PC names, a list of student logon names, browse the local network to locate students or use SIS mode (this will be set up by your IT team).
You can input your name, lesson title, lesson objectives and outcomes, which are then shared with the students.
Student register: Take a printable student register by requesting standard and custom information from each student at the start of the class.
Lesson plan: Create or launch a pre-made lesson plan, containing a set of tasks with appropriate timings and prompts allocated to each part.
Student resources: Create a resource list and add links to websites, applications and documents. Students will see this in their Student Toolbar – a quick and easy way to access what they need for the lesson.
Password reset: For students who are locked out or can’t remember their password, you can simply reset their system passwords without IT support!
Student check-in: Perfect for at the start or end of a lesson, you can choose between several visual options to gauge feedback from the students, helping to capture how they feel, their confidence in a topic and whether they need extra support.
“It makes life much easier for our teachers in an IT suite – they’re able to control the students better, deliver the lessons as intended, and there isn’t as much wasted time with settling students, they remain focused on the task at hand.”
– Norlington School and Sixth Form
Engaging instruction
Screen sharing: Share your screen to all or selected students to help demonstrate a point or model a particular task. Display applications, presentations, Replay files (previous screen recordings), videos and websites. As you share, website access is restricted to an approved list, preventing accidental exposure to inappropriate content. You can leave a recording of what you’ve shared on the students’ PCs for future review.
Annotation tools: Annotate your – or a student’s – screen with arrows, shapes, highlights and text to emphasise key points.
Quick launch: Remotely launch or close applications or web pages on all selected PCs in a single action.
Hand out and collect work: Transfer files and folders/subfolders to one or multiple students. You can also collect files from students and enable them to choose which file to upload to you. Real-time feedback tells you which students’ files are ready for collection and who needs reminding.
Message: Send a message to students and include clickable URLs, making it even easier for you to point them in the right direction.
“The teachers at Coodanup College have found NetSupport School very useful. They appreciate the ability to monitor and control student devices during lessons, share content with students, and provide remote assistance. These features have improved classroom engagement and learning outcomes.”
– Coodanup College
Keep students on task
We all know how easy it is to get distracted! Now you have the tools to focus students’ attention on the lesson activity, keeping learning at the forefront.
Monitor students’ screens: Easily monitor student screens (even dual monitors!), the applications they are using, the websites they are visiting, what they are typing and who they are collaborating with – all via adjustable thumbnails.
Remote control: You can help a student by remote controlling their screen to instruct them or remedy their activity.
Application and website controls: Monitor all students’ activity in real time – and view foreground and background applications and websites. Set only approved applications or websites to be used or simply prevent restricted ones from being opened. Plus, record a full history of application and internet use for each student.
Keyboard monitoring: You can track student keyboard usage across approved applications, to assess activity levels and topic understanding. Create lists of target and inappropriate words which, when typed, are highlighted in green or red respectively.
Blank/lock screens: Blank or lock all or selected students’ screens to gain attention and also lock their mice and keyboards.
The Student Toolbar
This shows the student details of the current lesson, such as:
- lesson objectives and learning outcomes (if provided by the teacher)
- time remaining
- the current websites and applications available
- the status of print, audio and keyboard monitoring
- quick access to initiate a Chat session and request help.
Students can also access their USB memory stick, Student Journal, work items that have been sent and any resources from the toolbar.
“NetSupport has been such an amazing tool to help me make sure my students are working productively and safely on their own computers.”
– Maiden Erlegh School
Easy collaboration
Virtual whiteboard: A full screen interactive whiteboard is supported by a wealth of drawing and annotation tools for improved collaboration within the classroom. You can show it to the students in real time and, when needed, they can all interact with it.
Group leaders: You can choose a student to assign certain teacher rights to during a task and then ask them to act as a group leader.
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. You can add the content of the Chat session to the Student Journal, save it for later use or copy it to another application. Plus, all chat sessions between the teacher and student are automatically logged and stored – perfect for supporting evidencing requirements.
Celebrate excellent work
Acknowledge great work and boost motivation and confidence with screen-sharing and rewards.
Student screen sharing: Share a student’s screen with the class or selected students to showcase their work.
Student rewards: Give individual students a star or animated sticker reward. These are shown on the main toolbar and can be added to the Student Journal.
“The teacher can give an example when the children do really good work or if a child has a particular problem they want to share with the class. A really good piece of software…we’re very happy with it.”
– Gateway Learning Community
Check progress and gamify assessment
Student testing: Design customised tests including text, picture, audio and video questions. Once the specified students have completed the test in the designated time, the results are automatically collated, marked and made available for you to view.
Student survey: Get instant feedback from students during or at the end of a session to instantly capture their understanding of a topic.
Simply send all or selected students a question, together with a selection of pre-defined responses, so they can ‘vote’ on the correct answer or statement. You can see their responses as an overall percentage and by individual student – and even show a results pie chart to the class. Additionally, you can temporarily ‘group’ students by their response so you can see instantly who selected the same answer – handy for supporting break-away groups.
Q&A module
Built around current teaching practices for the continual assessment of learning, you can reinforce key learning points and instantly gauge students’ lesson comprehension. Verbally ask a question to the class, gauge your students’ responses, introduce new questioning styles (e.g., basketball questioning), and develop peer assessment opportunities – as well as track rewards for individuals and/or teams.
First to answer You can choose the ‘top x’ fastest responders and the quickest student is asked for their answer. If incorrect, you can bounce it to the next student.
Enter an answer Enter the answer to a question in advance and students are prompted for their responses.
Pot luck. Students can be selected at random to answer or team play can be introduced.
Peer assessment Students give feedback to their classmate’s response, i.e. they indicate if the answer given was correct or incorrect.
Student Journal: This journal ensures all relevant information from a lesson is recorded for future review – from lesson content and teacher/student notes to assessment results and rewards. A helpful revision aid for students and a record of content covered for teachers.
NetSupport School has great features and we really enjoy using it from both a Teacher and Technician perspective.
– Jack Hunt School
Support language learning
Speaking and listening are essential ingredients of language learning. Guide your students with these audio-based tools – perfect for supporting EAL students.
Audio support: Transmit your voice during a presentation, when sharing your screen or remote controlling a student screen.
Language lab: You can simultaneously view all student screens and see instantly which devices have live audio activity. Select one of the displayed student thumbnails to listen to the audio they are playing – or, listen to a student’s microphone feed and correct pronunciation, chat or simply engage with students individually without disrupting the lesson.
“The features seem endless and enable different classroom scenarios depending on the subject and teaching style.”
– College Place Public Schools
Help reduce costs and boost security
Control printing in the classroom: Add your teacher’s authorisation to print – or control printing by student and by number of pages. Plus, see which student is currently printing or the number of paused print jobs requiring your attention.
External drives: Keep your network secure and prevent data from being copied to or from USB storage and CDR/DVD devices.
Webcams: Disable webcams on classroom devices – for safety and security.
“NetSupport School is really useful in ensuring students are listening in a lesson at key times and it greatly aids learning. It’s also a great Assessment tool doing quizzes and randomly selecting students.”
– Chilwell School
Tools for technicians
No well-maintained school technology, no learning – it’s that simple.
NetSupport School provides essential tools for IT technicians to support users and manage devices across the school – as well as offering a host of connection options.
Tech Console: 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’.
Connect to student devices
- 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.
“IT loves it because it makes time consuming task much more efficient saving time and frustration!”
– Florida State College at Jacksonville
Optional components
Cloud-based 3-in-1 solution
classroom.cloud is a focused classroom management, safeguarding and IT management 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 Safeguarding
Keeping track of technology and ensuring students are safe online are two of schools’ largest EdTech concerns today.
With NetSupport DNA, you can track, monitor and manage how efficiently your school’s existing solutions are being used – all while providing a protected online environment that gives your students the freedom to learn and make mistakes in safety.
Mass Notification and Alerting
NetSupport Notify is vital for instances when staff and students need to be informed simultaneously and without delay, i.e. a security threat, network issues or even just maintenance updates and more (something e-mails fail to do). It sends one-way alerts to desktop users across the school, those working remotely, and even to large information panels in halls and foyers.
