How To Monitor Your Students Computer Screens
Focus is a huge challenge for students attending online classes. They have access to various programs and websites and rarely have an adult to watch over them. However, there are a few things that you can do to monitor your students‘ computer screens and improve their engagement.
You can teach parents to use parental controls on students‘ computers to monitor their activity. This will help ensure that they only access websites they’re supposed to use during class. You can also seek consent from the parents to install tracking or remote viewing applications.
Monitoring your students‘ computer screens helps improve their engagement. However, there are still a few things that you need to understand to use it effectively. If you want to learn how you can do it, keep reading.
Teach Parents How To Set Parental Controls
Setting parental controls on a student’s computer is the first step to ensuring that their computers are monitored. It will also prevent them from accessing websites they’re not supposed to during class. Finally, this will allow the parents to set time limits on the computers, preventing too much screen time.
Here’s how to set parental controls for Windows:
- Open the Windows Search Box and search for Settings.
- On the left side panel, click Accounts.
- Open the Family option to manage accounts for the computer
- Click Add someone to the family group.
- Create an account for the student.
- Set limitations when using the computer under the student’s account.
Here’s how to set parental controls for Mac:
- Click the Apple icon and open the System Preferences option.
- Click the Screen Time option to enable the screen time limit for the computer.
- Select the account you want to configure if you’re using the Family Sharing feature.
- Click Options > Turn On to turn on the configurations for the computer.
- Set the limitations on how the student can use the computer, depending on their schedule.
Whether you’re using Windows or Mac, you can block certain websites or monitor your students‘ activity. However, the restrictions will be limited, and you won’t be able to actually „monitor“ your students‘ computer screens.
Using the native parental controls for Windows and Mac is more of a first step to ensure that your students will be more focused and help increase their engagement during class. Sometimes, the thought of someone watching over their activities is already enough to help keep them more focused.
Seek Consent To Install Tracking Programs
Tracking programs are a great way to monitor a person’s computer. However, you must seek parents‘ consent if you want to use a tracking program to monitor your students.
These programs will monitor all their activities, including screenshots of the students‘ screens, keystrokes, and mouse clicks. Some may even record search queries and browsing history, making them less appealing for student monitoring.
You need to consider many things if you plan to use tracking programs on your students‘ computers. However, if you can get parents‘ consent to use these programs, you can be sure that the students will be more focused during online classes.
A tracking program installed on a student’s computer is far better than parental controls. If you use it effectively, you can explain why students shouldn’t access various websites in class instead of immediately blocking access to them.
The biggest disadvantage to using tracking programs is the cost. Most of the ones you’ll find online target parents who want to track their children’s online activity. So, if you’re going to use these to monitor your students, monitoring them can be expensive.
Use Remote Viewing Applications When in Class
The best option that you have when it comes to monitoring your students‘ computer screens is to use a remote viewing application. Programs like Wolfeye Remote Screen allow you to view your students‘ monitors remotely and see what they do in class.
Although you still need to seek parents‘ consent to use a program on their children’s computers, the screen viewing system it uses is more acceptable than a full-blown tracking program. When you use the Wolfeye Remote Screen to monitor your students, it will seem as if they’re inside a classroom with you, and you have eyes on all of their screens all the time.
Here are some of the other advantages that you can get from using a remote viewing application to monitor your students‘ computer screens:
- It helps improve your students‘ engagement. When students know someone’s watching over them, they behave better, improving their engagement during class.
- You’ll have a more in-depth knowledge of what your students are doing. Seeing what your students are doing on their computers is a more effective approach to teaching than recording keystrokes, screenshots, mouse clicks, and browsing history.
- Guiding students is easier if you know what they’re doing. Instead of simply blocking access to websites, you’ll know what the students did and when they did it, making it easier to explain why it’s wrong, especially in class.
- Remote viewing applications are more cost-effective. Instead of using tracking programs with several nice-to-have features, you’re only paying for the ability to monitor a screen, which is a cheaper and more effective way to monitor your students‘ computer screens.
Of course, remote monitoring applications aren’t the perfect solution for everyone. There are still a few things that you need to do to ensure that you’ll be able to use it effectively. However, of all the possible solutions, this provides you with the perfect balance of effectiveness and cost.
Conclusion
Monitoring your students while in class is one of the things that you need to do to ensure that your students are getting the most from your lessons. However, now that distance learning or online classes are gaining popularity, it becomes more challenging for teachers to keep track of their students.
Fortunately, several solutions allow you to monitor students‘ activity. It can be as simple as limiting their screen time and blocking access to certain websites. You can also use a tracking program to record their activities or remote viewing applications to see their screens in real-time.
