I am so excited to share this resource with you all! With our recent class discussions on the pros/cons of technology, a lot have mentioned that it is difficult to monitor what the student is doing while on the devices. Classroom Orchestrator is a management program that is designed to organize the online device environment. This program is made by Lightspeed Systems. They are the company my district (FCPS) uses for web filtering. Classroom Orchestrator takes it to another level. I use the program to monitor my students' online progress of individual tasks. When students log in to their Chromebooks, their activity is view-able. There is little to no lag time, it is a live monitoring of all of my student's computer screens. It shows the entire rostered class on one page via thumbnail images of their screens. I am able to send out links, pause progress and send messages to students. All my classes automatically show up in the program thanks to a link between Infinite Campus and Classroom Orchestrator. This is a wonderful resource that has really cut down on my students being off task when incorporating technology into my lessons.
Welcome to my blog for EDUG 647 at Bellarmine University. Each week I will be posting about how I am using technology in my 7th grade math and science classroom. I will also post a weekly summary of other bloggers that I am following. I have chosen to follow Richard Byrne, whose blog can be found at freetech4teachers.com.
LeAnn,
ReplyDeleteThat sounds fantastic! I have always wondered what computer teachers used when they could see everyone's screen at once. I also have to wonder did they have this tech when I was in high school and we all thought we were cool with the proxy sites to still do what we wanted. Either my teacher didn't care, or she had no idea. Do you know if this will work for iPads? That is all that we have in our classrooms, but it would be really nice to be able to see a thumbnail of their screens while I was pulling a small group.
It is one of my most frequently used tools. Haha, I totally remember the proxy sites! I'm sure there is something available for iPads... I'll have to look into it though. You could also check with your district tech office. Orchestrator was purchased by FCPS and there has been 0 set up on my end. My rosters were already pre-loaded and everything.
DeleteThis sounds like a great tool, LeAnn. We use other Mobile Device Managment systems as well as the Lightspeed product. One of the most popular is GoGuardian.
ReplyDeleteIt is awesome! It really freaked the kids out at first when I would call them out for being off task without even being near them. Now that they know we can monitor what they're doing they actually do their work! :) I'll have to look into GoGuardian... thanks!
DeleteIt really is wonderful! Students expect us to be monitoring their screens now so it definitely helps to keep them on task and to improve classroom management.
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