Introduction to Class Tools

Overview

Classwize’s Class Tools help you manage your classroom and students. Class Tools can be used to:

• Message students,
• Focus their attention on specific sites and applications,
• Give them temporary access to fun sites as a reward,
• Block them from using the internet entirely, or
• Temporarily add or remove students from your class.

Availability

Some Classwize features for teachers are not available at every school. The features available at your school depend on:

• How your school has configured Classwize,
• What types of devices your students use, and
• If Linewize Connect has been installed on your students’ devices.

Class tools at a glance

• Open site lets you open a site in a new browser window or tab for all students in your class.
• Announcement lets you send simple text messages to your students.
• Focus stops students from accessing the Internet except for one or more Focus sites you set.
• Reward lets you give your class temporary access to something fun.
• Pause internet lets you temporarily stop one or more students from accessing the internet.
• Modify students lets you add or remove students to correctly reflect who is present in your class.
• Bypass code generates a code that will allow any user who has it to bypass the filter.
• Screen Share lets you share your Chrome Tab, Window or Entire Screen with your students.

Class tools in detail

Open Site

Image 1: Open a site for your class window

Use Open Site when you want to direct all students to a resource. Open Site opens a website in a new browser window or tab for all students in your class. Students can close the tab or browse away from it.

Announcement

Use Announcement to send one-way text messages to all students.

Image 2: Send a class announcement window

What can students see?

How your students see your messages depends on how they're using Classwize:

• Chromebook or a Chrome browser
  The message appears on top of their current active Chrome window and will stay there until the student closes the message or clicks away to a new tab or site. If you send multiple messages, they'll all appear in the order that you sent them.
• Other browsers and operating systems
  The message appears as a pop-up in the center of the student's screen and will stay there until the student selects OK.

Focus

You can use Focus to stop students from accessing the internet except for the Focus resources you’ve set, such as websites and URLs. Focus works differently depending on what types of devices your students are using and what type of internet browser they are using. 

You can create Focus Plans to reuse any resources you want your students to Focus on and apply them quickly to your class.

Reward

Use Reward when you want to give your class temporary access to something fun, like streaming media or online games. You can set the Reward duration from 10 minutes to 3 hours, then it will switch off at the end of your chosen duration.

Image 5: Reward settings window

Editing the Reward settings

While Reward is running, you will see the green Reward button on the Class toolbar.

Image 6: Reward indicator on the class toolbar

Selecting the Reward button will display the Reward status dialog, which shows how much time is left.

1. Use the Applications and websites search field to add more sites students can access for the remainder of the Reward period.
2. Select the X next to the site or application that you want to remove.
3. Select Update to save your changes.
4. Select Stop to turn off Reward immediately.

Pause Internet

You can temporarily stop one or more students from accessing the Internet. When you pause Internet access, the Internet Paused banner will appear in the student tile, and the student will see a Block page

See:

• Pause Internet access for a student
• Pause Internet access for multiple students

Modify students

See Manage students in a class for more information on adding and removing students from different types of classes.

Bypass Code

Use a Bypass Code when you're not sure why a student can't get to a website and using an Allow filtering rule isn't working to give them access. You can also give a Bypass Code to a student when you want them to do self-directed inquiry in an environment where you or they can't be disturbed.

Image 10: Bypass Code settings window

You can only generate one Bypass Code at a time, but multiple students can use the same code. The student can enter the code on the blocked page, or by going to my.linewize.net. The Bypass Code will let the student access any website that is not Locked (hard-blocked) by your school. This feature is not available for Smoothwall users.

Screen Share

Classwize Screen Share allows you to share your screen with one or multiple students during an active Classwize class. You can share your Chrome Tab, Window or Entire Screen.

Read Using Classwize Screen Share for more information.