Tutorial NetOp School

NetOp is software available in the computer classrooms that allows screen sharing. That means you can show what's on your screen to all students, or that you can show one student's work on the computer to the entire class.

Be sure you are at the Instructor's computer. It's the only one with the control module, called the Teacher module. Double-click the icon called NetOp Teacher on the desktop. This will start the NetOp School module.

When the program opens, it will default to the Details View mode, which textually lists every student connected and logged-in, and allows quick-access to a variety of functions via toolbars and buttons.

You can show your screen to all students. This is useful if you want them to see how to do a certain task or if you want them all to look at a particular website.

Make sure all student computers are selected; in the regular Details View mode, press Ctrl + A on your keyboard to Select All, otherwise only the student(s) selected will be able to view the demo.

Click Demonstrate. This will broadcast your entire screen to every selected student computer.

In this mode, by default, your screen will take over the students' screens and computers. They will have a full view of what's happening on your computer and will no longer have control of their mouse or keyboard.

To close the demonstration, click the End Session button in the new control panel that appears in the bottom-right of the screen.

You have a variety of options available to you, both before and after you have chosen the Demonstrate option. By clicking the arrow next to Demonstrate, you will have a new menu of options available.

• Entire Desktop: This will broadcast your entire screen to your students monitors.
• Selected Desktop Area: This will broadcast only a portion of your screen to your students monitors.
• Media file: This will broadcast a currently-open media file to your students monitors.
• Media file on the Web: This will broadcast a currently-opened web-based media file to your students monitors.
• Recording: This will record a student's session, as it would appear on their monitor.
• Specific Monitor: This will broadcast a specific monitor to your students monitors.
• Student Desktop: You can select a specific student's monitor which you will broadcast to every other student's monitor.
• Options: Allows you to set some default options for the Demonstrate button.

The Commands menu is extremely powerful, and must be used with caution. Located in the row or large buttons in the main NetOp window, you will find it contains four selections.

Clicking any of the first three options (Loff off, Restart, Shut down) will cause the student to immediately lose whatever work they currently have open that has not been saved to disk. Note that the lab computers are set to erase anything new saved to them after being rebooted; files must be saved to disk and/or uploaded to a student's web space in order to actually be saved.

The Demonstrate button is probably the only main button you will be using. While there are other options you may occasionally use, they are much more easily and efficiently accessible through right-clicking on specific student computers in the Details View list.

These options will prove to be the most valuable in your heading of the class. Below is a listing of the ones you will use.

1. Demo this Student:
   This option, only available when all students are selected, will broadcast the right-clicked-student's monitor to every other student's monitor.
2. Apply attention on this student:
   A notice will appear on the selected student's monitor, interrupting whatever may currently be on their screen.
3. Monitor this student:
   Windowed on your screen, the selected student's monitor can be seen, but not interacted with.
4. Remote Control this student:
   A new window will appear in which you have full control over the selected student's monitor. Note that they will also retain control over their computer, as well, in addition to you.
5. Chat with this student:
   A private real-time chat session will be established between you and the selected student.
6. Audio Chat with this student:
   Initiates an audio chat with the selected student; irrelevant in a single-room computer lab.
7. Send Message to this Student:
   An instant message will be sent to the selected student; they will be unable to reply.
8. Collect Files from this student:
   You will be able to collect files that a student may be working on; this is useful, for example, on timed-exams or assignments when you must collect a finished product on-time, regardless of how much work has been done.
9. Distribute Files to this student:
   Easily allows for distribution of materials (such as assignment guidelines) to a single or large amount of students.

Right-clicking Monitor this student will open a new window, inside of which you will be able to completely see (and/or scroll and move around to view) the entire display of a student's monitor. Doing so will also open a new toolbar with more options.

1. Exit:
   Exits the monitoring view.
2. Play:
   Resumes monitoring after a frame hold.
3. Pause:
   Pauses on the currently monitored frame.
4. Rewind:
   Steps back in the monitored frames.
5. Fast-Forward:
   Steps forward in the monitored frames.
6. Toggle Monitor/Remote Control:
   Switches back and forth between the monitoring mode and Remote Control mode, where you have full control over the student's computer.
7. Toggle Windowed/Full Screen:
   Switches back and forth between a windowed view of the student's computer, and a full-screen view of the student's computer.
8. Recording Control:
   Used to record a monitoring session.
9. Playlist:
   Sets up a playlist of recorded monitoring sessions.

Right-clicking Remote Control this student or toggling to such in Monitor this student mode will grey out some of the toolbar options, and create a new toolbar. You will probably find it useful to switch to full-screen mode when remotely controlling a student.

Note that your own Start menu and related programs will temporarily be hidden while you have the student's monitor acting as your own.

A new toolbar will appear at the top of the screen in windowed mode, and will float to the bottom-right in full-screen mode. These buttons provide the same functionality as the general, large buttons in the NetOp main screen.

Once you have learned to monitor and remotely control student computers, you will probably find some of the advanced viewing modes of use.

• Details View is the default view that appears when NetOp is opened. Classroom View is very similar, with the exception that it represents all students with icons, rather than by text.

• Thumbnail View is probably the most powerful and useful. The screen will show, as thumbnails (resized, small images) what is currently on-screen on every connected computer in the lab. The images will continue to update (albeit not completely in real-time) so you can keep a constant eye on the entire class as a whole.

Within the Recordings view mode you will be able to select and play-back any recordings you may have taken while monitoring student computers. You will not likely be using any of the other views within NetOp.

There are two ways to converse with students via the NetOp system. Chat is a real-time, two-way conversation that appears in a new window, while Send Message will do just that; a single message will be sent to the student's computer, which they cannot reply to.

Right-click a student (in any view) and select Chat with this student.

A new window will appear prompting you for a discussion title; you can enter one if you wish, but it is not required.

A new window for the chat session will appear. Enter text into the area at the bottom, and hit either Enter on your keyboard of the Send button on the window to send the text.

When you are done with the chat session, simply click the End chat button; the window will close on both your own computer and the student's.

Right-click a student (in any view) and select Send Message to this Student.

A new window will appear with space to type a message to the student. Type out the message and click Send Message, which is the first button located directly below the File menu.

A window will appear on the student's computer with the message you have sent. They will be unable to respond to the message, but will be able to close the window. This is useful in conjunction with the Thumbnails View in NetOp to catch students off-guard when they are not engaging in their assignments!

Select either a single student or the entire group of students, and click the Attention button in NetOp's main toolbar. Every selected student's screen will be taken over and will show a white screen with people and a lock on it. This is useful when you need to grab every student's attention, without them using the computers.

It is possible to directly distribute files to every student's computer (at once and to the same location on each system) through NetOp. The first step is to locate the file you wish to distribute it, and place it in a logical location on your own teacher station (for example, the My Documents folder is an excellent choice).

Select the student(s), and right-click; choose Distribute Files to this student from the menu that appears.

A new window will appear, prompting you to locate the file you wish to distribute. Use the Add files button to locate and choose the file you wish to distribute. You'll want to send it to the same location on every computer, so keep the Destination box named Send files to same destination on Students checked. Click OK, and the file will be sent to every selected computer.

Once students have finished their assignments, it is possible to directly collect them over NetOp. To do this, right-click a specific student in the NetOp main window, and select File transfer with this student.

A new window will appear that looks similar to other file-transfer programs you may have used, such as SSH File Transfer. The left side is your own files and directories, while the right side is the student's own files and directories. On your side, browse to a logical location, such as My Documents (note that My Documents is actually located in C:\Documents and Settings\student\My Documents). On the student side, browse to where they have stored their files (hopefully also in a logical location, such as My Documents). Make sure they have named their files appropriately, such as including their name in the filename (if every student were to name the file the same thing, you would overwrite their work with each file transfer).

Click and drag the students file over to your side to save it to your computer. A new window will appear confirming the transfer of the file.** Be sure to then save it to a disk or web space, since lab computers automatically delete files upon reboot.