Features that Campus IT Team Should Look for in a Classroom Monitoring Software

Schools and colleges around the world have a greater investment in digital resources than a decade ago, and that has helped them enhance student engagement in the class and ensure best learning outcome. However, the increasing tech-savvy nature of today's learners and growing reliance on computer-based learning pose several challenges to the campus IT team who need to manage computer usage in classes and ensure that lessons are delivered effectively in a controlled and conducive classroom environment.

While a classroom monitoring software can aid campus IT professionals to monitor and control technology in schools, they need to know what capabilities to look for in order to make a worthwhile choice. Here are 5 essential features of a class control software that can help campus IT administrators save time, streamline day-to-day tasks, and improve classroom productivity:

1. A Console Dedicated to IT Professionals

Majority of the classroom management solutions are teacher-focused, offering a wealth of monitoring and collaboration features to assist them in improving their teaching practices. Likewise, providing IT professionals with a dedicated console is equally important for the effective management and maintenance of the institute’s IT infrastructure.

Campus IT team should particularly look for a tech console in the classroom monitoring software that enables them to view and manage all computers on a school network from their own computer. This centralized console can aid them to monitor the status of all classroom devices in real-time and perform common maintenance and desktop management tasks without having to leave the desk. Whether it is about managing a few devices or an entire school district, a dedicated console with central management capabilities can aid the campus IT team to support and manage multiple computer labs seamlessly with minimal efforts.

2. Effective IT Inventory Management

The campus IT team has to maintain an accurate and up-to-date listing of the software and hardware assets deployed within the institute’s IT infrastructure. Hence, the class control software chosen by them should provide them with the ability to keep track of the installed software and hardware components on all networked lab machines. Moreover, it should also offer them with a detailed summary on various crucial aspects of the IT inventory, such as how many lab machines running on a particular Operating System (OS) and what is the number of classroom workstations that have a particular software installed in them.

Such increased visibility into hardware and software inventory can aid IT professionals in conducting regular audits of the key IT assets that can support them to make informed investment decisions in future.

3. Application and Web Usage Monitoring

With unrestricted access to the device and the internet, students often end up browsing unauthorized websites or running applications that not only distract them from the lesson but massively consume the school network bandwidth as well. An effective classroom monitoring software can enable IT personnel to capture relevant information regarding the web activities and application usage patterns of each student's workstation. They can, for example, review the list of websites or applications frequently accessed by a particular student or per classroom and analyze their bandwidth consumption rate. This can allow them to evaluate how the classroom technology is being utilized in each class and take appropriate measures to ensure its optimal consumption.

4. Proactive Management of Device Power

For any school that uses portable digital devices like notebooks and laptops for educational purposes, keeping those machines in a fully charged state is imperative. Sudden power interruptions can pull students' attention away from the subject at hand and disrupt their learning.

With an appropriate class control software in place, IT managers can constantly keep track of the current battery state of all active and inactive classroom devices and control the power settings as per the classroom requirement. Such solutions should also enable them to modify an existing power scheme or create alternate power settings. The campus IT team can thus ensure optimal battery consumption across all networked devices and create a reliable classroom environment that is conducive to learning.

5. Reducing IT Overload With Remote Assistance

The campus IT professionals have to keep up with several duties in a day such as setting up access and permission, fixing unauthorized user changes on lab machines, and deploying software patches on time. Manual execution of such IT processes is not only time-consuming but also create additional job burden on the campus IT team. The class control software chosen by the IT team should allow them to coordinate with both the teachers and students through a direct communication medium and provide remote support to their diverse system requirements.

IT managers can allow one or multiple students to get in touch with them and request remote assistance during an ongoing class. This allows the educator to proceed with the coursework effectively as the rest of the class remain focused on the lesson. It should also allow the teachers to initiate a text chat and get instant IT support on their system-related issues. Thus, they do not have to go through the painstaking process of raising an IT service ticket and getting the necessary repair done, which saves their instructional time and help them solely focus on the teaching.

With the remote access facility provided by the classroom monitoring software, IT personnel can also update all networked workstations by remotely distributing and installing relevant software packages on time. They can also obtain real-time updates of all patching sessions and add any relevant command line options during the package deployment. They can thus easily maintain the classroom devices at their peak functionality.

Campus IT professionals need to opt for a classroom monitoring software solution that is easy to implement and can address specific administrative and system maintenance requirements. A classroom management tool equipped with all the above-mentioned features can aid IT managers to support multiple computer labs with ease and create positive classroom experience for both learners and teachers.