There is a small frame for every desktop providing the following information:
Switching the selected desktops on or off.
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Enabling/disabling Internet access on the selected desktops.
For this action to work, the student computers need to be switched on (), but they don't need a user logged. |
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If the teacher has a printer, it will be configured
as the default printer for the student computers to use over the network.
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Lock/unlock the keyboard and mouse on the
selected computers. While locked, the student will be able to move the
mouse, but clicking or typing is disabled.
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Selected desktops will see only the teacher's
desktop.
With this function, the teacher's computer effectively becomes an electronic chalk board. While his desktop is in this state, a student will not be able to use his keyboard or mouse. |
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This allows the teacher see the screens of the
selected desktops. The desktops are shown as tiles on the teacher's
screen. The size of the tiles will depend on their number.
Clicking on a tile will let the teacher take control of the selected desktop. |
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This allows the teacher to broadcast a DVD, VCD, or a video file to the students' screens.
After selecting this option, a dialog will appear to choose between transmitting a file or playing a DVD/VCD. There are two choices:
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This action will send a file to the selected students.
A dialog will be shown to choose the file to send, and clicking on the "Send" button will do it. The sent file will appear in the home folder of the student. |
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Short messages will be sent to the selected students.
A dialog to write the message will be shown. Clicking on the "Send" button will complete the message. |
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A session for the selected students to work
together on a document will be started with this option. By selecting it, a
new file shared by the teacher is created. To work on an already
existing document, the teacher must right click on it in the
the "My Data" tab and choose this option.
Students will be able to modify the document in real time and the modifications will be immediately shown on everyone's desktop with a different color to identify the authors. The students will also have a small chat window in the lower part of the application. After the teacher launches this action, a dialog will appear on the students' desktops to let them to choose a color that will identify them and another window to choose the document to work on. The whole time, the teacher sees what is written in the document and all the chat messages. The students can save local copies of the document, but the original version will be kept as a shared file by the teacher. In order to end the workgroup session, the teacher must click on its button again. |
Working with computers in the classroom can be a waste of time when the teacher wants to begin new activities on the students' computers. With this option, the teacher can automatically start any application on the selected students' desktops using a single button. To enable this, drag the required application from its menu and drop it on the ControlAula window. After dropping it, the icon will appear in ControlAula and clicking on the "Launch" button will start it on the selected student computers.
Clicking again on the "Launch" button will close the application on the students' computers.
Very often, web URLs are hard to spell or write down. Students often make mistakes in the browser dialog and thus undesired results can make surfing the web very unpleasant in a classroom with many teenagers. With this option, the teacher can launch an URL on all the selected students' desktops, avoiding these mistakes. Just typing the URL and click the "Apply" button to make the magic happen.
On the student desktops, the URL will be shown in their default web browser, which is usually set up as x-www-browser.
After clicking again on "Apply," the web browser window will be closed on the students' desktops.
This tab has all the files shared by the teacher, organized by categories. Its use is the same as described for the general users in the users documentation.
There is only one difference when using ControlAula as a teacher: right clicking on a selected file will cause the Workgroup option to appear. The way this option works has already being described in the actions list on this page.