NetSupport School
http://www.netsupport-inc.com
= breakthrough tool
Software (Win)
FREE to try ($ 452 for 10 users)

Here is a modern computer classroom trainer dream-come-true technology.

Classroom-based trainers with scores of computers in front of you, rejoice. This has got to be too good to be true. I wish I had known and discovered this technology a few years ago when I was delivering many computer classes but even today I can't wait to get to use this powerful suite. It is just the perfect suite of tools to manage a computer-based class of any size.

NetSupport School is an interactive software solution that enables teachers and trainers to demonstrate, monitor and interact with their students, simply and effectively. This can be done on a whole class basis or to selected groups of students or even to individual students.

NetSupport School provides an exhaustive set of features such as the ability to display your screen on the students' workstations or the ability to view their screens on your machine. Distribute files, send and collect course work automatically, chat online, use a group whiteboard and more.

The list of some of its features makes any engaging and proactive trainer want to find out right away price and ease of use. So let me focus on those two right away.

The installation is easy and straightforward and the software is available in multiple languages including English, French, German, Italian, Arabic, Japanese & Spanish.

Basic price is: $ 452 for a 10-user pack.
A 20-user pack is USD $ 904.

Check at:
http://www.netsupport-inc.com/store/ nsspurchase.html for all pricing information.

Here is my selection of the ten key features of NetSupport School that I find most useful as a trainer in technology-equipped classrooms. Your preference may vary:

1) Remote Control: Watch, share or control the screen, keyboard and mouse of any student workstation irrespective of colour depth, resolution, network protocol or operating system at either end.

2) Monitoring: Use the NetSupport School Scan function to keep watch on what is happening on your student workstations and what they are doing. The Multiple Scan function allows you to cycle through all enabled computers in your class or across the entire school. This technology can display up to 16 student PCs' simultaneously!

3) Show: Display the tutor screen on the students' screen using your existing Local Area Network to provide real-time Computer Training without the need for video splitters or any additional hardware.

4) Show Leader: Pass control of the show session to a nominated student, who then conducts the show to all participants until you decide to take the control back.

5) Help Requests: Enable your students to send you a message when they need assistance. You can then instantly connect to and work interactively with that student using the Remote Control features without interrupting the rest of the class or by assigning an assistant to respond to any incoming request from the class.

6) Classroom Layout: Allows you to record the layout of the classroom and display where each student is sitting.

7) Force Student Sign In: By default, NetSupport School will identify each PC based on the students' login name. To make the classroom more friendly, the tutor can use the "get name" option where each student PC receives a pop up box requesting they enter their real name.

8) Blank Student Screens: If you want to make sure that the students are looking at you and not at their monitors, simply use the attention button to blank their screens. You can also lock their keyboards and mouse at the same time.

9) Automated Send Out / Collect In Work: Prepare files for students to work with in advance and automatically distribute them over the network. When the lesson ends you can automatically collect in exercises, evaluation forms or other work for later review and marking.

10) Annotate Screen: While showing your screen to the students, this feature allows you to annotate the display with a range of highlighting tools, enhancing the presentation and their understanding.

On top of all this, which is by itself already fantastic, there is full chat, audio, and video support. File transfer and distribution is also supported allowing the trainer to easily distribute files, exercises, evaluations and assignments at the right time and with the minimum effort to the whole classroom.

Each and every of these features is well designed and it offers a significant benefit and true advantage when you work in the classroom. Any of my colleagues would probably do anything to have something like this when they deliver their classes. It is absolutely a computer trainer dream comes true.

The interface is simple and well designed, and it takes very little time to be used.

You can download a free evaluation copy at:
https://download.pci.co.uk/download/ distdownload.asp?dist=NSI

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