Educators face a constant variety of challenges that can impact classroom management and the learning process. An inattentive audience, mobile phone texting, disruption by unruly students, absenteeism, time constraints, students forced to take a course they would rather have avoided, and regular changes to the curriculum are just a few examples of the difficulties faced by teachers. Fortunately, there are many different ways for those involved in education, whether in teaching, training, or leadership, to help to improve students’ learning in the classroom, and overcome the obstacles that are encountered.
Information and communications technology (ICT) plays an important role in the planning, delivery, assessment and recording of classroom lessons. The software featured here offers indispensable ways to help manage a computer-based classroom, and provide the freedom to offer an exciting, creative, and challenging environment.
All of our medal winners are, of course, released under a freely distributable license and can be downloaded without charge. With even tighter constraints facing the public sector, cost is an important consideration for any ICT solution.
Our gold medal winner is Veyon, a feature-laden virtual eye on networks.
| Classroom Management - Best Free Software | |
|---|---|
 | Veyon is software for computer monitoring and class room administration. It permits observation and control of computer rooms as well as interaction with the user. Key features for Veyon include an overview mode for classroom supervision, the ability to power on and off workstations, send messages to workstations, broadcast screens, and perform home school broadcasting. https://veyon.io/ License: GNU General Public License v2.0 |
 | Moodle is an online learning management system enabling educators to create their own private website filled with dynamic courses that extend learning. The software is very customizable so it should fit the requirements of teachers, students, and administrators alike. https://moodle.org/ License: GNU General Public License v3 |
 | Rogō is the University of Nottingham e-Assessment management system used to create and deliver online assessments. Rogo is a powerful and highly usable e-assessment tool with many features and is suitable for use throughout the Higher Education sector. http://rogo-oss.nottingham.ac.uk/ License: GNU General Public License v3 |
Let’s have a look at the features of Veyon in more detail:
- Overview mode.
- Remote view: Previewing (remote view) computers in predefined classroom segment.
- Remote control: Allows taking control of a student’s computer for help and support.
- Broadcast teacher’s screen to students in real-time by using demo mode (either in full screen or in a window).
- Locking student computers, in order to direct attention to other tasks, items of related interest, alert students to proper internet, and classroom etiquette.
- Send text messages to students.
- Powering on/off and rebooting computers remotely.
- Teachers can open a website on all computers in the classroom.
- See what’s going on in computer labs in overview mode and take screenshots.
- Home schooling – students at home can join lessons via VPN connections by installing the Veyon service.
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