Technology & Learning - February 2009 - (Page 34)

PRODUCTGUIDE HEMLOCK PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN HEMLOCK, MI A 1,500-STUDENT DISTRICT BANGOR TOWNSHIP SCHOOLS IN BAY CITY, MI A 2,400-STUDENT DISTRICT WHAT DO YOU USE? LANSCHOOL 7.0.7 FROM LANSCHOOL TECHNOLOGIES LLC “Lanschool’s technical support has been the best of any company I’ve ever dealt with. That’s saying a lot, since I’ve been in this business for over 10 years and have dealt with a lot of software products,” says Tom Lockwood, technology director. “I couldn’t live without it. It has completely changed me as a teacher,” says Dana Lockwood, who teaches business to sophomores and advanced business to 10th, 11th, and 12th graders. Lockwood appreciates being able to monitor every student’s screen. “If a student is playing a game, I just go to his or her screen, hit limit apps, and take all the fun away. If they still try to hack around and not pay attention, I can shut their computer off.” She likes the way it lets her chat with students, too. “I send a ‘please get back to work’ note, and they look up and smile,” she says. Still another thing she likes is the vote feature. “I can type in a question, and they can respond. You can’t see individuals but get a collective number.” FARONICS INSIGHT 7.2 WHY DO YOU USE THIS PRODUCT? “We were already using other Faronics products,” says Josh Kolka, the district’s technology administrator. “We tried a few classroom-management products and found that Insight was the easiest to install and manage.” Kolka says the teachers love Insight because it makes their job easier; they can deploy files, monitor students, and—if necessary—withhold Internet access. “The main thing is that it saves them a ton of time, especially the elementary-school teachers,” he says. “Instead of walking around and making sure all the kindergartners launch an application at the same time or turn on their PCs, the computer teacher can do it all from her desk. That saves a lot of time and headaches.” WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT IT? WHAT DON’T YOU LIKE ABOUT IT? Lockwood mentions one minor change in the new version: “If a student walks in that isn’t part of my class, I used to be able to add him by clicking on his name and removing him as part of the group.” Now she has to use the menu, which took her some time to discover. “It is no problem at all for anybody to use. It’s easy to incorporate—regardless of what room you are in. It’s very nice, very easy to use,” adds Lockwood. “The task manager gets disabled on the student computers. There’s a workaround, but it would be easier to have a button to enable and disable as we please, rather than disable being the default.” Editor’s note: This problem has since been fixed. “The computer teachers picked it up really quickly. The general-education teachers also picked up relatively fast. After I showed it to one or two of them in the public labs, word spread, and now everyone is using it.” ARE TEACHERS USING THE PROGRAM SUCCESSFULLY? HOW MUCH DOES IT COST? A K-12 building license is $2,999; includes 3 years of free minor version updates, one year of major upgrade protection, and 3 years of free email/phone support. 1–4 licenses = $599/license; 5–9 licenses = $499/license; 10–24 licenses = $399/license. 50–99 licenses = $299.00/license First-year maintenance is included. 34 | TECH & LEARNING

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Technology & Learning - February 2009 Contents Editor's Desk News & Trends How It's Done - The Science of Class Collaboration Put to the Test: T&L Editors Take Some New Products for a Test Drive NComputing X550 Epson DC-10s Samsung UF-130DX Digital Presenter Brother MFC-6490CW All-in-One Adaptive Curriculum: Science Dukane AirSlate 3 A Second Life for Professional Development Control Room 11 Tips for Better Laptop Learning One-to-One Veteran Advice What's New They Said It

Technology & Learning - February 2009

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