Classroom Management With iBoss: Ensuring a Safe and Productive Learning Environment
Critical to properly administering modern classrooms is classroom management software that can help monitor students and keep them focused when using devices.
Classroom management with iboss presents an intuitive solution for end users and is granular enough for school IT departments to customize for different use cases.
This article will cover what iboss is and then provide a guide to the basics of classroom management and the benefits of iboss for use in classroom management.
Benefits of Classroom Management Software for K-12 Schools
Technology in the classroom is consistently evolving at a faster pace than most teachers, school administrators, and school IT teams can keep up with.
The right classroom management software can help all relevant stakeholders stay ahead of these changes and better manage how students use and interact with devices in the classroom.
In-person classroom management
Instructors and school administrators can’t be everywhere at once. It is impractical to look over each student’s shoulder to ensure they are on task and not surfing the net.
One of the most powerful benefits of a classroom management solution is the ability to monitor and control what students are viewing. This means having a real-time view of what each student is currently browsing and the ability to close out tabs irrelevant to the lesson.
You can also leave notes when closing tabs to remind students to stay on task or to provide other information.
From an efficiency angle, multiple teachers and assistants can be added to classrooms to manage larger rooms better or to allow teachers to focus on teaching while their assistants manage the technology.
A good classroom management solution, such as iboss, allows teachers to spend less time managing technology and distractions and more time teaching while students remain focused.
Virtual and remote classroom management
All the same features available in person carry over into the virtual classroom environment, making it easier for teachers to keep students on task.
For added efficiency, teachers can easily see what every student is doing from a centralized screen without checking each student individually.
Further, teachers can monitor multiple classrooms from a single screen, making it easier for one person to monitor and manage students across multiple classes, allowing teachers to focus more on working with students.
How can iboss be used for classroom management?
The iboss platform simplifies complex tasks with its user-friendly features. For instance, broadcasting a URL to all student devices in a classroom is a straightforward process. Teachers can also share YouTube videos securely by specifying which G Suite groups and users can access them, ensuring that only appropriate content is shared.
Here’s a quick overview of how to monitor your students in a Google Classroom.
Step 1: Open the Student Manager
There are two ways to find the Student Manager:
- From a Google Classroom, click the People tab. Below the students, click the Manage Students button (Figure 1).
- From the Chrome toolbar, click the iboss Enhance Google Classroom extension (Figure 2). From the small window that appears, click the Open Student Manager button.
Figure 1- The Student Management button from a Google Classroom (From iboss)
Figure 2 – Clicking the iboss Enhance Google Classroom extension (From iboss)
Step 2: View a Student’s Activity
From the Student Manager, expand one of the classes to see a roster of students (Figure 3).
Figure 3 – Viewing a class roster (From iboss)
The Status column indicates which students are currently active. From the Action column, two buttons are available:
- Capture Student Activity: Refreshes the current details for a student. This already happens at a regular interval, but clicking this button forces an immediate update.
- View Student Activity: Shows you the current screen capture and a list of open tabs for this user (Figure 4). Each tab is listed with its name and link.
Figure 4 – Viewing a Student’s Activity (From iboss)
Step 3: Close a Tab Remotely
Select the tab that you want to close. Notice that you can pick multiple items. Click the Close Tab(s) button (Figure 5).
Optionally, you can add a short message to the field next to the Close Tab(s) button (Figure 5). This message appears on the student’s screen when the tab is closed. You can use this to explain why you are closing the tab.
Figure 5 – Remotely closing a tab (From iboss)
Figure 6 – Sending a message to a student when closing a tab (From iboss)
Step 4: Monitor an Entire Class
From the Student Manager (Figure 3), click the View Classroom button near the top. This opens a dashboard that shows the status of each student in the classroom. Each tile includes the student’s username, the current screen capture, and the device identifier. It also indicates whether the student is currently active. These details update automatically at an interval that you can adjust.
Click on a tile to open the details for a student (Figure 4). You can toggle between the overall classroom and individual perspectives to easily monitor the activity of your students.
Figure 6 – Viewing a classroom (From iboss)
How Much Does iboss Classroom Management Software Cost?
Costs for iboss classroom management software vary based on the school and district size. One thing to consider is that iboss offers much more than just tools for managing classrooms and can help schools tackle multiple critical areas, including better regulatory compliance and cutting costs.
The iboss Zero Trust Secure Access Service Edge can help school districts eliminate legacy technology such as VPNs, Firewalls, etc., moving instead to a more cost-effective and scalable cloud solution.
Cost savings in these other areas can help offset the classroom management software and provide other benefits to schools.
Mandry Technology can help you with iboss implementation
If you’d like to speak more about the different technologies of your school that can be replaced or streamlined with iboss, contacts us today. A member of iboss and Mandry Technology will work to address your schools specific needs and help you understand the right solution.
Jeff became an invaluable member of the Mandry executive team in 2018, bringing expertise in both IT and corporate operations.