Blogs

Teachers' tools to stay in control

10 January 2020

Having a hard time managing a classroom full of students and devices? Without the right tools at hand, it might feel like bringing 1:1 technology into your classrooms costs you time instead of supporting your work as a teacher. Here’s how to turn the tables and use IT to your advantage!

IT is everywhere

IT in the classroom: it’s unstoppable. In fact, it won’t be long before we can’t imagine our classrooms without it anymore. Children are fully accustomed to using devices, and they’ll make sure there’s always a screen nearby. While school is a great place for some off-screen time, it would be a shame not to take advantage of all the online educational content available. The right IT tools can be a real time saver for the overloaded teacher while empowering learning for a new generation of students.

So let’s embrace it!

 

How to stay in control

If you’re looking for something that helps you stay in control of your classroom, we’re happy to help. Our COOL Monitoring module might be exactly the kind of support you need! Monitoring allows you to digitally keep an eye on your students and keep them focused in an easy way.

 

Regain focus and attention

Is it time for the group to focus on your lesson? Lock all Chromebooks with one simple click from your own device. You can lock your students’ browsers for any number of minutes. During this time, students can’t perform any actions on their devices. That means no googling or surfing the web, but full attention to what’s happening in front of the classroom.

 

Monitoring student activity

How is everyone getting on with today’s assignment? With Monitoring there’s no need to disturb concentrated students by walking around the classroom checking their screens. Get a quick view of group progress or follow an individual student’s browser window in real time on your own device. Wondering if they’re looking at the right material or website, or if they’re getting distracted doing online research? Just check your screen!

 

Pro-active support

If you notice opportunities for improvement, don’t wait until students have finished their assignment. Send them a personal or group feedback message instead. You can even help them by opening or closing websites and online apps directly in their browsers. Are you ready to boost student participation? Involve students in class work and try out new ways of mutual learning, for example by sharing students’ screens on your interactive display in front of the class.

 

All on the same page

Asking everyone to copy a web address sounds easy enough, but it’s even easier to make a typo. Don’t waste time asking everyone if they found the website, or troubleshooting when they didn’t. Just push the website from your PC to your student’s devices and you’re all set to go!

 

Checking in during exams

Conducting a test or exam on a Chromebook? Then you want to make sure students don’t search the internet for answers or secretly use an online calculator. Locking student devices in COOL Check helps you prevent just that. Activate COOL Check in one click, and your group or individual students will have no choice but to focus on taking the test. And again, you can follow their progress live from your own desk.

 

Make it work for you

These are just a couple of examples of what a good monitoring tool can do for you. Could you use some help making it easier for you to focus on your actual teaching work? Give COOL Monitoring a try! There’s a free trial version available so you can test it and see if Monitoring is the solution for you.

Want to learn more about its many teaching benefits? Check out the COOL Monitoring user guide:

 

View guide