1.5.5. NetSupport School

NetSupport School is a classroom management solution for all levels of education. It helps teachers to monitor student activities and connect with students more efficiently with enhanced communication tools. However, it does not have lecture preparation features and student whiteboard features which are required in this EClass project.

The Good:

• Shows selected screen/desktop/application/file/video to all or selected student consoles.
• Automatically creates full recording of presentations and distributes the recording to all student computers.
• Provides good functionality for monitoring studentsˇ¦ activities by scanning their screens/active applications/website history and restricting applications/websites on all or selected student computers.
• Provides good functionality for interactive class activities, like instant student surveys and class live chat sessions
• Classroom whiteboard, instructor can pass control to selected students
• Easy transfer and distribute files to students, easy to collect student files as well
• Automatically save attendance register.

The Bad:

• Only instructor has the whiteboard. Students do not have their own whiteboard to take notes for the lecture.
• It only allows class chat sessions, there are no groups or one-to-one chat sessions.
• Students cannot save the whiteboard for review after lecture.
• There is no guest account.

The Missing:

• No PowerPoint, Flash, Video and Pre-Lecture Presentation setup.
• No collapsible hierarchy of lecture topics
• No private or personal, multi-layered whiteboard.
• No highlighting, shape recognition, note taking and navigation controls.
• It does not support Macintosh and Linux systems.