InterCLASS Classroom Management

An InterCLASS Connection Conundrum

InterCLASS Support (Ari) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:42:59 +0000

Hi! Welcome to my first blog post of Christine’s Corner. I’m Christine Kamin, the other half (or more attractive half if you’re wondering…OK, everything is relative) of Kaminari Education Inc. I am the Sales Director and self-diagnosed Multitasker and I make sure that our customers and their needs always come first. At Kaminari, we provide our Interactive Resources, K-8 Math and Literacy software as well as our InterCLASS Classroom Management software.

THE STORY: Recently, it was Halloween and while I could think of several scary things off the top of my head (myself, sans makeup and without a hairbrush comes to mind) I wanted to talk about a somewhat scary incident that can potentially take place with InterCLASS. I don’t like to sugarcoat things and know that software has its ups and downs, but knowledge is power and the more we spread it, the better educated we become should a similar incident occur. Recently, one of our users in the Boulder Valley School District here in Colorado contacted me on a Monday morning after we had just visited his lab on the previous Friday. All was working well when we had left him, but then the weekend happened and something had “changed”. We weren’t sure if it was network-related or that a module had become corrupted, but our user mentioned that he couldn’t connect to his student machines through InterCLASS and when you’re relying on the software to aid in lessons, it’s mission critical.

In case you are unaware, teachers can use InterCLASS to monitor the student computers in their classroom or lab. They can manage their classroom lessons with the software itself by presenting their screen to the class, directly to each student’s monitor. All of these functions rely on the ability for InterCLASS to work on a dedicated wired or wireless LAN (Local Area Network) of the lab, classroom or library that the software is installed in. To help users know the status of their connection with the student PCs, we’ve designated three color categories for the student icons: 1. Gray – for when the student machines are either powered off or do not have the software installed, 2. Blue – for when the student PCs are powered on, but not logged on, and 3. Yellow -> Desktop image – for when the student machines are fully connected on InterCLASS and communicating with the teacher machine.

THE DILEMMA: Our user in crisis noticed that the machine icons were all blue even though they were logged on by the students. Since I had mentioned that the machines were all connected and working the previous week, we had to get down to business to find out why the connection was not happening.

DIGGING IN THE DIRT: We first started to troubleshoot by making sure that the program itself was started and available to use…1,2,3 Check! Next, we wondered if somehow the teacher machine had gotten a new IP address that was on a different subnet or VLAN on the network. The easiest way to check this out is to open up the Command Prompt (cmd.exe) on any Windows OS and type in “ipconfig”. We found that both the students and teacher were indeed on the same subnet. Hmpf! The plot thickens…Then, whether it was the ghost of Archimedes himself or a person from Northern California, we screamed “Eureka!” and found the solution to our dilemma. By changing InterCLASS’ HEARTBEATPORT setting we were able to connect the teacher’s machine to the students.

THE SOLUTION: Thankfully, by indeed changing and keeping the new HEARTBEATPORT setting, our user is still going strong using his InterCLASS program for lessons with his computer programming students.

If you have any questions about this topic, please email us and I’d be happy to help.

Now get out there and have yourself a great day!

Christine

An artist in the computer lab

InterCLASS Support (Ari) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:02:20 +0000

At the end of August, we visited Greenwood Elementary in Greenwood Village, Colorado and installed our InterCLASS Classroom Management Software to their wireless laptops. While the InterCLASS installation was taking place, the tech coordinator’s niece Thalia, who is studying art at the Art Institute of Chicago, was also visiting the classroom to paint the school’s mascot on to a wall of the computer lab. Thalia is in her first year at AIC and really likes being in Chicago and studying at the school. All of us at KAMINARi Education are big supporters of Art and Art Education and so we wanted to spotlight Thalia and her wonderful wall mural.

She was asked to create the school’s mascot, which is a bear. Here is a picture of the beginnings of the bear:

Since her aunt had just taken a biking trip over the summer in Italy, she really wanted Thalia to add some beautiful sunflowers to the bear along with a laptop, since IT IS the computer lab after all!

Unfortunately, we had to leave before we could see the bear’s completion.

Last week, we had a chance to come back and visit the school to check on how the InterCLASS software was doing. Of course, we then had a chance to view the completed bear, sunflowers and laptop and….we LOVED IT!

She really did a great job! Way to go, Thalia and keep up the good work!

Showing the computer name on each monitor to locate the student computers.

InterCLASS Support (Ari) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 07:59:42 +0000

When you add student computers to InterCLASS, you can create the seating layout in the Class Settings mode.

If you are not sure where a student computer is located physically in your lab, click the “PC Name” button to show the computer name on the student monitor display. By doing so, you can see the computer name on each computer to find and match to the student icon layout.

I cannot turn on the student PCs from the teacher computer even though I click the “Power ON” button on the InterCLASS Power Control feature. How can I turn on the student computers?

InterCLASS Support (Ari) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 06:11:53 +0000

To Power ON the student computers, InterCLASS sends a UDP “Magic Packet” to the network. A computer’s Network Interface Card (NIC) receives these packets and if the Wake-On-Lan feature of the NIC is enabled, it will “power on” the computer. In order to use the InterCLASS Power On feature, the student computers must have a “Wake-On-LAN” card installed and enabled.

In order to check your computer’s “Wake-On-LAN” feature capability, please ask one of your school’s technology staff members.

Usually, you need to enter the computer’s BIOS setting and enable the Wake-On-Lan feature. Some computers also require the configuration for the NIC setting.

For general steps to enable Wake-On-Lan:

A. Enabling Wake-On-Lan from the BIOS setting.

Turn on a computer and enter the computer setup (BIOS Setting).
Find the “Wake On Lan (Remote Wake Up)” setting and enable it if it is disabled.
If there is a “Low power mode” or any power saving setting and somehow it is set to ON, try it by turning it OFF.
Save the setting change and exit the BIOS settings.
Turn off the computer and then look at the LAN port on the back of the computer. If the LED of the LAN port is ON (usually a green or amber light) even if you have turned off the computer, then the NIC is ready to turn on from the network.

If you still cannot turn on the computer from InterCLASS, you need to configure the NIC card setting as well.

B. Configuring the NIC setting for Wake-On-LAN

Log on as an Administrator-privileged user.
Click to the Control Panel>System and Security>System>Device Manager.
Click the Network Adapters and right-click on your network adapter to select Properties.
Click the “Advanced tab” and look for any parameters related to Wake on LAN and Waking on “Magic Packets”, then enable them.
Click the “Power Management” tab and check the ”Allow this device to bring the computer out of standby” checkbox.
Enable “Only allow management stations to bring the computer out of standby” by checking the box. This will require a Magic Packet to wake up your computer. Not selecting this will allow any traffic directed to your computer to wake it up.
Click OK to save the settings.
Restart the computer and try the Power ON function from the InterCLASS teacher program.

What’s new for InterCLASS 3.98

InterCLASS Support (Ari) — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 22:55:08 +0000

Stopping the Internet and the Allow/Restrict Websites functions now support Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.

It is important for schools to use multiple web browsers for Web design classes or Google apps for education and now InterCLASS can support multiple web browsers to control student access.
Show websites to students by just dragging and dropping a URL shortcut or a bookmark item on to the class area.

Showing websites to students is challenging especially for small kids. Now teachers can send any website with just one click! Just open a website on your browser and drag it from the address bar or bookmark and then drop it on to the InterCLASS console. It’s just that easy!
Launch programs for students by just dragging and dropping a program on to the class area.

Drag and drop a program shortcut from the Start menu or a pinned program on the task bar or desktop on to the InterCLASS console and you’ll be able to instantly launch any program for the students.
Limit student printing

Teachers can simply stop students from printing and wasting paper. This brand new function works on any local or network printer.
Limit using a USB flash drive or CD/DVD drive

With this new feature, students will not be able to open any programs, music, videos, etc. from their USB or CD/DVD drives. Unlike other solutions, you don’t need to restart the student computers to disable the devices.
Frequency report for the Student Activity Log

An addition to the very popular Student Activity Log feature will now include how often students have accessed particular websites or programs.
Native 64-bit Windows 7 OS support

Creating program shortcuts on each student’s Desktop with InterCLASS

InterCLASS Support (Ari) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 19:36:20 +0000

You can create multiple shortcuts for all of the student Desktops by using a BAT file and the InterCLASS File Control feature. To do so:

1. Copy the shortcut that you want to send and paste it to a shared folder where the student computer can access it in the file server.

2. Open Notepad and type the following:

copy “\\Shared Folder Path\shortcutname.lnk” “C:\Users\Public\Desktop”
(or “\\Shared Folder Path\shortcutname.lnk” “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop” for XP machines)

*Shortcut’s extension is “.lnk”

3. Close and save the text file.

4. Change the text file’s extension from “.txt” to “.bat”

5 Start InterCLASS and then click the File Control button.

6. On the Send File tab, add the BAT file to the file list, select (highlight) the file, and then check the “Open automatically” check box.

7. For the Target Folder, please select [CLIENT_TEMP], so that you can send the BAT file to the student’s temp folder.

8. Click the “Send” button, and then the BAT file will be sent and started on each student computer to create the shortcut(s).

How I can assign and show seat numbers on each student icon?

InterCLASS Support (Ari) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 18:58:28 +0000

You can assign seat numbers for each student computer and then show them on the student icons on the InterCLASS teacher console. To do so:

Open the InterCLASS Teacher console.
Click Settings> Class Settings, then the teacher console will change to the seating layout mode (grid mode).
Click the Class Settings button above, then the Class Settings dialog will appear.
Under the Seating Icon settings, select “Show” on the Seat Number. Click OK to close the dialog box.
On the seating layout mode, double click a student icon, and then the “Edit student PC” dialog will appear.
Type in a seating number for the student computer, and then click OK.
Repeat this for each student icon in order to assign the proper seating number.
Click Exit, and then you will see the assigned seat numbers on each student icon.

A Quick InterCLASS Training Trip to Las Vegas

InterCLASS Support (Ari) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 06:21:34 +0000

We recently took a short trip to Las Vegas, Nevada for InterCLASS training (YES! Really…) for Valley High School, which is one of several schools in the Clark County School District.
The high school purchased InterCLASS as a school site license last year and teachers have been getting used to watching what their students are doing in each classroom and with the laptop carts.
Since more teachers will be getting InterCLASS into their classrooms this year, the school had requested us to do another onsite training before students headed back to school.

We decided to drive from Denver to Las Vegas this time, since my partner Christine has many reasons not to fly there:

A. She wants to visit her sister in Grand Junction, CO since it is “on the way.”
B. She doesn’t like flying, mainly due to the fact that she needs to be in control of any operating vehicle (she also doesn’t trust my driving).
C. She needs to haul back about a million items from Trader Joe’s for herself and family (the closest TJ’s to Denver is in Santa Fe, NM).

Although it takes 12 hours to drive from Denver to Las Vegas, the Rocky Mountains are really beautiful during the summer time. Since I had several hours to be in the passenger’s seat, I decided to take some pics:

Driving from Denver to Grand Junction.

Driving through Utah and Arizona is really interesting for me (I am from Japan). I really like looking at canyon/desert locations and middle of nowhere-type places.
While we were driving through here, I kept envisioning myself on Tatooine where the Sand People are ready to beat me up, and suddenly “Ben” Kenobi rescues me while John Williams’ music is playing in the background and I live out the day to watch the two sunsets (OK, I know, I am a bit of a geek and nerd).

Driving Utah – Arizona – Nevada

Coming to Las Vegas is always exciting. However, this is indeed a business trip, so I cannot recreate the Hangover, Part III – The Return to Actual Comedy.

While at Valley HS, we explained InterCLASS software to their tech person and about 15 teachers over a two-day period. We really hope that they will be able to get good use out of the program for their lessons this school year.

InterCLASS Training at Valley High School

After finishing up our training, we went to In-n-Out Burgers (Yum!), Trader Jo’s (to donate some more $ to them) and then headed back across Tatooine toward home.

I hope we can return to Las Vegas soon for InterCLASS training for other Clark County Schools.

How can I set up multiple classes for laptop carts or on a one to one computing environment?

InterCLASS Support (Ari) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 21:45:28 +0000

It is very easy in InterCLASS to create multiple class settings with different sets of student computers, and then be able to start a class to connect to and control only those enrolled students for each class.

Here is how to do so:

Create a student computer name list by a comma delimited CSV file for each group of client PCs.
Here is a sample of the CSV file. Please open it by Notepad, not MS Excel

*PLEASE NOTE:*
*Use Notepad to create these CSV files, NOT MS Excel.
*Do not add more than 100 student PCs for one class.
*If you do not know the student computer names, please log on to all student computers so that InterCLASS can find them.

Start the InterCLASS Teacher program, and then click “Settings”> “Class Settings Wizard.”
Select “Add New Class”, type in a new class name (such as a laptop cart name or class name), and then click Next.
Click the “Import” button and then open the CSV file that you had just created. The student computer names will then be added to the class.

> >

*If you did not make a CSV file, please log on to the student computers, and then you will be able to find all of the InterCLASS client program installed student computers under the Available Student PCs list to add to the class.

Click Next and then click Finish.
Create a classroom layout and then click Exit.
To make multiple class settings with a different set of student computers, please repeat Steps 1-6.
After you have finished adding all of the classes, click the “Start” button, then you will see a list of classes on the “Start Class” dialog.
You can switch the class in order to connect to other student computers that are registered in the class. This dialog will also appear when you first start InterCLASS.

Adding student computers to the teacher program by using a CSV file

InterCLASS Support (Ari) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 06:15:28 +0000

You can add student PCs to each class setting on the InterCLASS teacher program from a comma delimited CSV file.

Create a comma delimited CSV file that lists the student computers in the classroom.
*Please use Notepad to create a CSV file. DO NOT use MS Excel. Here is a sample of the CSV file.
Start the InterCLASS Teacher program, and then click “Settings” > “Class Settings Wizard.”
Select “Add New Class”, type in a new class name, and then click Next.
Click the “Import” button and then open the CSV file. The student computer names will then be added to the class.

. > >
Click Next and then click Finish.
Create a classroom layout and then click Exit.
To make multiple class settings with a different set of student computers, please repeat Steps 1-6.