As the K-12 teaching and learning environment continues to shift, technology plays an increasingly crucial role in enabling effective instructional delivery that supports student engagement and teacher efficiency.
One solution at the top of mind for K-12 districts is classroom management software.
Read more about how this solution serves K-12 schools across in-person, remote, and hybrid environments.
What is classroom management software?
Classroom management software enables teachers to view, monitor, and control student device activity. The software provides teachers with a centralized view of students’ device screens and the ability to close unrelated tabs, lock device screens, and more.
Why do K-12 schools need classroom management software?
While laptops and tablets facilitate learning in the classroom and virtually, these devices are also a significant source of distraction for students—and, accordingly, a source of frustration for teachers.
Classroom management software offers teachers increased visibility and control to minimize these distractions and manage device usage to help students stay focused on the current lesson. Teachers can monitor student activities while lecturing, during exams, or when students are completing assignments.
Classroom management software has been a popular tool to support student engagement during remote learning, but school districts also rely on the tool to facilitate in-person instruction.
Managing remote classrooms
Remote learning means less structure and supervision, which can make it easier for students to lose focus and disengage from the day’s lesson. Classroom management software can turn a distributed teaching and learning experience into a more structured delivery of the curriculum, improving the experience for both students and teachers.
Additionally, many parents feel more disconnected from their child’s progress and daily activities during remote learning. To bridge that disconnect, teachers can use classroom management software to generate progress reports and send reminders to students and parents alike.
Managing in-person classrooms
Teachers also benefit from having visibility into student devices during in-person instruction. From the front of the classroom, teachers rely primarily on body language and nonverbal cues to identify when a student has become disengaged or distracted.
With classroom management software, teachers can view all student screens within a single platform and manage device usage, redirecting student attention and activity back to the lesson or assignment.
Benefits of Classroom Management Software
Key benefits of classroom management software for K-12 schools include…
- Visibility into school devices. Classroom management solutions offer teachers, IT staff, and administrators greater visibility into how school devices are being used.
- Increased engagement. With fewer distractions, students remain more engaged in the lesson or activity.
- Structured learning, even remotely. Teachers can ensure that only content related to the topic is accessed during structured learning time.
- Secure testing. Teachers can close tabs, lock screens, or lock entire devices during testing.
- Secure messaging. Teachers can message students directly to get them back on track.
- Student support. Functions such as hand-raising ensure students can access help when they need it, no matter where they are located.
- Improved collaboration. Screensharing enables collaboration among students. The software can also be used to shared links or broadcast a teacher’s or student’s screen.
- Flexibility. Classroom management software supports all learning environments, including in-person, remote, and hybrid modes of instruction.
- Cross-platform functionality. Cloud-based systems work across numerous devices and operating systems.
- Improved efficiency for teachers. With functions such as pop quizzes and custom report cards, classroom management software can help reduce burdensome paperwork to increase teacher efficiency.
How is classroom management software implemented?
Most K-12 school districts implement classroom management software at the district level for a centralized solution. We work with districts that have different solutions for their high school and middle school, for example, depending on which devices they have in use or whether they deploy a 1:1 device strategy, but even those districts are planning to consolidate into a single, district-wide solution to simplify and streamline administration for the districts’ IT coordinators.
Does classroom management software work with other classroom technology solutions?
Yes, most classroom management solutions are designed to integrate with your existing classroom technology such as Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, Canvas, and more.
How does classroom management software work with other security and device management solutions?
Many of the K-12 schools we work with layer multiple solutions together for greater security and ease of administration. Two solutions commonly paired with classroom management software are web filtering and mobile device management.
- Web filtering software protects students from accessing objectionable, inappropriate, or harmful content on their devices to safeguard a school’s users and network. Policies can be enforced on networked and mobile devices used in the classroom and at home. Together, web filtering and classroom management solutions provide in-depth insights into student activity and device security for safer, more effective teaching and learning.
- Mobile device management (MDM) protects your technology investment and keeps school info out of the wrong hands. MDM solutions enable IT administrators to set device policy, manage application deployment, reset passwords, locate lost or stolen equipment, lock machines from a distance, and restrict unauthorized access to prevent data breaches. Pairing classroom management software with mobile device management software offers IT leaders a centralized solution to manage all student devices, even in hybrid learning environments.
Many software vendors offer classroom management, web filtering, and/or MDM combined within one platform, allowing IT administrators access to all of these functions from within a single management console.
How much does classroom management software cost?
Classroom management software is priced per seat. Some solutions vendors offer bundled pricing, which gives school districts a more competitive per-seat price for classroom management software when combined with a web filtering solution, for example.
Ready to empower your teachers through classroom management? Looking for classroom technology solutions that improve access, efficiency, and engagement? At Prosource, we power and protect more than 200 school districts with scalable, cost-effective IT and cybersecurity solutions designed specifically to meet the needs and budgetary constraints of the education industry. Contact our team to learn more!
