Online Learning: How to Promote Student Engagement and Safety

In remote learning environments, bothsynchronous and asynchronous, how can educators monitor andpromote student engagement? How do they create a safe learningenvironment, especially with younger students? And, how do they conduct fairand transparent assessments to promote and evaluate student learning?

Monitor and protect students with LenovoLanSchool Air

Lenovo's LanSchool Air software provides answers to thesequestions by giving educators visibility into what remote students are doing ontheir devices. Lanschool Air works with Chromebooks, as well as Windowsand Mac devices, to allow the educator to monitor and protect learners duringsynchronous learning sessions.

With LanSchool Air, educators canlimit which websites students can access, view all activity on each student'sdevice at a glance, blank screens to focus student attention and even push outa specific website to the devices of all remote learners at once. With rapidand simple deployment, LanSchool Air can be up and running quickly. A one-yearlicence to LanSchool Air is included with the purchase of any Lenovo device, somany jurisdictions will already have access to some LanSchool Air licensing.

GoGuardian software solutions forteachers and admins

GoGuardian Teacher gives educators a real-timedigital window into student activity during synchronous learning sessions.GoGuardan Teacher's suite of useful tools includes pre-populated tabs that canbe pushed out to each student device, with off-task alerts, built-invideoconferencing, screen sharing and lesson recording.

GoGuardian Admin provides a robust toolset for IT departments to set up device-agnostic web-content filtering, device tracking and provide alerts based on student browsing history to help identify students who may be at risk. Both GoGuardian Teacher and Admin include intuitive reporting capabilities to help teachers and IT administrators respond to trends they see in the hybrid learning environment.

Video solutions for synchronouslearning

In hybrid teaching and learningscenarios, how does the student remain connected to the classroom to see andhear clearly what is happening? And how does the educator remainconnected to both groups of students simultaneously with minimal complexity?

We have heard from many jurisdictionslooking for a way for students to connect to a live classroom environment byvideo. One large Toronto-based school board evaluated several devices, including webcamsand camcorders on tripods, against a specific set of criteria. In the end, theysettled on Lenovo's ThinkSmart View, which ties seamlessly into theirMicrosoft Teams platform.

The ThinkSmart View was the clearwinner for several reasons. Thedevice is extremely simple to set up and use for the educator and can easily beshared amongst classrooms. The audio and video clarity, using the built-inhigh definition camera, speaker and far-field microphones, was found to bebetter than the alternative solutions. The device also stands alone anddoes not need to be attached to the instructor's device no cables trailingacross classrooms that could present a hazard.

It's also easy to move the ThinkSmart View to different locations within a classroom, toposition it in landscape or portrait orientations depending on what studentsare viewing and to connect a Bluetooth headset in noisy environments, or toaccommodate educator or student accessibility needs.

In the post-COVID environment, there is an excellentplace for these devices to be used as Teams meeting hubs for small groups inschools, for administrators to attend remote meetings, or even for schooltrustees and others who want to attend sessions remotely. As such, the LenovoThinkSmart View is a good short and long-term investment.

A hybrid learning solution thatallows teachers to move freely

The Poly Studio helpsfacilitate hybrid learning where instructors are in a live classroomenvironment with some students attending from home. It is an all-in-onesolution comprised of a high-fidelity microphone, speaker and camera built intoa single device.

With the Poly Studio's speaker tracking feature, the camera keeps tracking teachers as they move about the classroom, so they do not have to worry about moving away from the camera while they teach. This is a great feature for the busy teacher who can still move freely within the learning environment without needing to worry about being visible to the students who are attending remotely.

Here'swhat makes Poly Studio easy to set up and use

With a simple, single USB connection, you can connect the Poly Studio to the teacher's device. One of the other great benefits of the Poly Studio is that it works with all videoconferencing platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet. And Bluetooth or corded microphones can be attached to the Poly Studio, in situations where noise levels in the classroom might interfere with the remote student's learning.

To learn more about CDW's remote and hybrid learning solutions, visit CDW.ca/learnfromhome

By Alistair MacLeod, CDW Education Strategist

Alistair MacLeod is a CDW Education Strategist with more than 30 years in the education sector from educator to Technology-Enabled Learning Specialist to Manager of Information Technology, among other experiences and accolades. With the CDW Canada team, Alistair's goal is to better support customers through this challenging period in education and into the future as technology continues to shape education delivery and engagement models.