New Tool: Lightspeed Classroom Management
As part of our commitment to creating a safe and focused learning environment for our students, our school is using a classroom management tool that will help teachers better connect with student devices during classes. We are continuing to expand our use over the coming weeks. This tool will provide teachers with a number of helpful features:
- Easily view student screens in real time from the teacher console to see which students may need guidance or support.
- Focus student attention on a particular website on their device to minimize distractions.
- Pause student access to the internet to focus on other classroom tasks.
We believe this classroom management tool will allow us to maximize class time to support your student’s learning while at school. The students have digital citizenship lessons throughout the year so that they are aware of the expectations in place here at Floris; this is merely a tool to help reinforce these skills. Teachers are not expected to monitor the computer usage all day long; in fact, we encourage our teachers to be hands-on in the classroom, circulating amongst the students, as opposed to sitting behind their own screens. It is not a teacher’s responsibility to “catch” every instance of computer misuse, but we are hopeful that Lightspeed will be yet another tool that teachers can use to encourage positive classroom behavior.
Please note that student devices will not be monitored outside of school hours. The regular filters remain in place on school devices, but once they are home, teachers cannot monitor students. As parents, we would like to encourage you to sign up for your own Lightspeed reports, which will allow you to see how your child is spending time on the computer during and after school hours.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Willa McGrath (wimcgrath@fcps.edu), our School-Based Technology Specialist.
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