Teaching programming classes using net support school Claude Simpson csimpson@utpa.edu Michael Crews rmcrews@utpa.edu Les Rydl lrydl@utpa.edu Joe Roge’ jroge@utpa.edu Computer Information Systems, University of Texas Pan American, Edinburg, Texas 78541, United States Abstract Frustrated by students surfing the web, typing, chatting, and other activities that prevent them from paying attention to what is going on in class? If you answered this question YES then we have the potential answer for you—Net Support School (NSS). Net Support School is a software program that connects computers on a network as a class. A tutor station and client stations can participate in the class. The tutor station has the ability to project his/her screen to the class, scan student stations (view what they are working on), solving student programming problems and showing to other students, distributing files and a host of other very useful activities. All of this is done with software; no hardware other than what it takes to connect to a network; it is also cheap. Keywords: teaching and control environment; focused learning; scanning student work 1. INTRODUCTION Why is Classroom Control Important? If students are not focused on what is presented in the classroom the learning experience is denigrated. (Garnett; Maheshwari 1997; 2005; enterasys 2005) Control of the classroom also enhances faculty satisfaction with the class. (Ed’s Guide, 2005) Selection of software that helps focus and control the programming class helps in the learning experience of the students in the class as well as faculty satisfaction with the class. (Terence Ahern 2000) In this paper the software tool we use is Net Support School. We chose Net Support School after a lengthy evaluation of a large number of similar packages. We had been using a hard-wired configuration but a considerable number of problems occurred with this system; primarily students disconnecting the PCs from the classroom network. Van Meter and Sperling (July 2005) suggest that classroom control is one of the three important principles that instructors need to understand in the student’s learning process. What is Net Support School? Net Support School (NetSupport 2004) is software that provides a teaching and control environment for a computer laboratory or classroom where you are using computers. This software requires that the systems that the instructor is going to use be connected to a server. Generally the software is installed on the individual computers in the lab as student stations and on at least one system as the tutor or instructor station. As shown in Figure 1, there are several functions that NSS can perform. This figure shows the “view” function of the software. This particular view is showing all systems that are connected to the NSS software. In this case, all 28 computers in the lab are connected to the tutor station. The view also shows which applications the students are running. From Figure 1, you can see that student stations 7,10,12,16,17,20, 22, 26, and 27 are running Visual Studio and other students are doing just about everything they are not supposed to be doing. This activity can be controlled by NSS. Why use Net Support School? The primary reason to use NSS is to control the classroom. How many times have you taught a programming course in a laboratory and found that the students were doing almost everything except working on the classroom material. This software prevents most of these activities from happening in a positive approach to learning. Focused Learning You, the instructor, can control the activities of students who are connected to the software. While you are lecturing students cannot do anything but blackout or watch your presentation. Certainly, this should increase the academic performance of the class. The ones who are dead to the world can be sent away to make room for other students. Students in the class must stay focused on the topic; they cannot access other software or do other things (Margaret L. Bell 2002) (NetSupport 2004). Capturing and maintaining a student’s attention on the topic being discussed is a difficult process, especially in beginning a class (Davis 2005). The quicker an instructor can capture the attention of the class; the better the learning environment in the class. Also, the easier it is to maintain student attention and focus on the problems. Our contention is that NSS can help in this process. Figure 1: Control Window of NSS. Source: NSS7.5 Where to use Net Support School? You can use NSS in any classroom or laboratory that has computers that are connected to a network. You can also use it in offices or between buildings. What will NSS do for the class? A list of the main functions that NSS can perform is: * Lock/unlock student mouse and keyboards (which is one of the things you could do to keep students from surfing the web, chatting, etc. * Blank a student screen or all student screens * View what is on a student or students screens * Scan student workstations * Capture a student’s screen while scanning or viewing * Show what is on the tutor screen to student screens (e.g. PowerPoint slides, programs, etc.) * Annotate Screens * Use audio and video support * Chatting with students * Sending messages to students * Transferring files * Sending and collecting work * Remotely executing applications on student workstations * Student surveys * Running and collecting exams 2. GETTING STARTED WITH NSS Installation Installation of the NSS software is easy. First decide which systems in the laboratory that the software is to be installed. Then, decide which computer is the tutor station and install it. Finally, install all the student workstations. Creating a Group (if you want to) Figure 2 shows the creation of a class. In this example we have created a class named CIS2308 and added stations 14, 15, 16, and 17 to the class. If we wish we can name the stations after the student and don’t have to try to remember names. Please note in Figure 3 the completed class and the tabs for other classes that NSS manages. Figure 2: Creating a Group—Source: NSS 7.5 Figure 3: Screen Showing the class CIS 2308. Source: NSS 7.5 3. USING NSS IN A CLASS Figure 3 also shows the NSS functions that can be controlled from the tutor station. The NSS functions are listed here. * lock mouse and keyboard * show students your presentation on their screens * view student screens * capture screens and broadcast * annotations * chatting * audio and visual support * distributing files, exams and many, many other features Showing the Tutor Screen. Suppose that the tutor is giving a demonstration of VB.Net. All that needs to be done is for the tutor to click on the “Show” icon in the command line shown in Figure 3 above. All that can be seen on the student station is what you are showing. In this case, it is a VB.net demonstration. You can show anything to the student that you are running on the tutor station; video, MS/Word, Excel, Access, etc. All that can be seen on the student station is what is seen on the tutor monitor. Scanning the Student Stations The “Scan” function allows the tutor to see what is happening on the student station. If you have released the students from the “Lock” or “Show” functions to do an assignment or to try what has just been demonstrated you can see what is being done on the student screen as well as project it to all screens. If you look closely at Figure 4 you will see that stations 14, 15, 16 and 17 are running Visual Studio.Net and that station 17 is surfing the web. If you do not want this to happen; you can verbally correct the situation or you can “lock” the keyboard and the mouse. This feature is also nice for viewing student screens during an exam; say a programming exam. You can see whatever is happening on these screens; chats, accesses to sites that are prohibited, passing programs to other students. These are activities that have not been easily controlled in the past. Figure 4 The Scan Function. Source: NSS 7.5 Controlling a Student Station. Quite often when students are working on lab assignments in class they will encounter a problem. The student can either send the tutor a chat message using the “Chat” function or ask a question. Let us assume that station 16 encounters a problem in a VB.Net program and asks you to help him/her to solve the problem. The example that you see here is very simple because of the space requirements that are in force for these papers. The capabilities of NSS to assist in this activity are far greater than we show here. Figure 5 shows the “View” function of a specific station, in this case 16. As you can see there is a build error. You know that from having seen this a number of times that the student probably has not set the start point correctly. Figure 5 A View of a Specific Station. Source: NSS 7.5 The tutor can now get control of the student’s station and correct the error. Please see Figure 5 for the correction. All that was required was to change the startup property to the form object name, frmClassRm. If you choose you can now show other students in the class what you have done with the “Broadcast” feature. Unfortunately we do not have room in this paper to show this and many other functions that NSS is capable of achieving. A feature that the authors of this paper are particularly please with is the ability to distribute files to students for their work. We do not have room to demonstrate this feature in this paper but it is really simple. The key to the process is to have a folder, with the same name, on each of the stations in the group being used. The tutor station can simply click the “File Distribution” icon on the command line and follow the very simple instructions and the same file is distributed to each student station, in the same folder, on each of their computers. This eliminates having to email the file to each student or posting it on a web page. The file is sent JIT for use by the student at their workstation. Distributing and collecting exams in the group is equally as simple. It also tends to cut down on the propensity of the student to “borrow answers” from other students because they know that what they are doing can be viewed from the tutor station. A record of these kinds of transactions can be tracked by the system. Figure 6 A View of Controlling a Student Station. Source: NSS 7.5 4. CONCLUSIONS Net Support School is a very valuable software solution to a number of problems in teaching programming languages in a laboratory setting. The tutor station can control any number of teaching functions that are almost impossible to control in today’s classroom environment. The ease of use, the low cost, and the lack of specific required hardware to run the package makes it an easy choice for classroom use. 5 REFERENCES (2005). "Ed's guide to classroom control for college and professional school teachers." 2005. enterasys. (2005). "Classroom control." Solutions for Education, 2005. Garnett, J. "Smart discipline for the classroom." 2005. Maheshwari, P. (1997). "Improving the learning environment in first-year programming. integrating lectures, tutorials, and laboratories." The Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science 16(no. 1): 111-131. Margaret L. Bell, e. a. (2002). "Evaluation of a process-focused learning strategy to promote critical thinking." 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