The introduction of Google Chromebooks to CHS has prompted teachers to integrate Hapara’s Teacher Dashboard, an application which allows instructors to view and manage students’ Internet tabs, creating a new dimension to how students are being observed.
The Google App enables teachers to “push-out” documents for student use within Google Drive, observe their progress in real time, message them and open and close tabs, along with several other features.
For instance, English teacher Barbara Steinberg, who has been using the application since the spring of 2014, sends documents to her entire class which individual students can answer and then submit to Turnitin.com. While Steinberg notes that she can monitor her students’ progress, she does not use the capability of controlling their tabs often.
Teacher Dashboard displays students’ documents and projects placed in each class’ folder through Google Drive.
“There is a lot of trust that you have to have with your students with the Chromebooks that you didn’t have to have with just paper and a pencil,” Steinberg says.
For school, Teacher Dashboard is basically the equivalent of having an instructor walk around the room or having regular check-ins to see how students’ work is progressing on a handout.
According to English teacher Mike Palshaw, instructors can only see documents saved in their class folder, but students should realize that teachers can still see their open tabs at any time. The point of this is to keep students working strictly on academics during class time.
Many CHS teachers, like English teacher Hans Schmidt, may slowly transition to testing students online, but Schmidt has some reservations
“If a kid is sitting at a computer, he or she has access to the Internet and the world,” Schmidt comments.
Teacher Dashboard’s ability to view and manage students’ tabs also will be used to keep students from cheating on tests and quizzes online in the coming future, as more teachers implement a computer-focused course.
In this age of technology, it is almost a necessity to have a tool that can keep students working as if they were still using a pen and paper.
-Delaney King
