Adding online safety features to its award-winning teaching tools will allow schools to monitor and capture concerning activity, enhancing their ability to provide a safe online learning environment.

classroom.cloud, developed by NetSupport, is making online learning safer with the launch of a new proactive toolkit that employs contextual intelligence to advance online safeguarding. Far from simply stopping and blocking material, the new feature can actively alert appropriate staff or educators to potential issues in real time and identifies students at risk. Click to tweet.

Developed with educators and with best practice, legal requirements and educational guidance in mind, classroom.cloud’s new keyword and phrase monitoring tool is powered by more than 14,000 phrases across multiple languages and enables schools to monitor what topics their students are typing or searching for, even in diverse applications and learning environments. The toolkit also allows schools to share and exchange local terms with other schools and add any new ones to their database to further broaden their eSafety net.

The new feature is robust and unique in several ways, such as:

• Allowing a school to set risk levels for specific keywords or phrases that may be more important and necessitate rapid intervention or deescalate other words or phrases that, while important, may not be urgent.
• Assessing cumulative actions such as repeatedly searching for the same or similar terms that may indicate necessary intervention.
• Considering context for the activity such as time of day, location, device used and whether the search is within a school lesson or in less structured time.
• Allow the school to capture screen images and context of a search for review to determine whether a term was accidental, academic, or indicative of risk.
• Allow school leaders to review and add trending, even local, terms and phrases to the dataset.

Spotting trending topics at a glance is now possible for schools with its innovative word cloud. Created by the phrases students trigger, it quickly identifies trending topics that are active across a school. It also allows staff to view a full explanation and definition to help them understand the potential risk, as well as who triggered it.

Online safety issues require sensitive handling and confidentiality. classroom.cloud supports this with its easy-to-use access permissions and reports that can be applied or changed as needed, ensuring only authorized staff have access to the information.

Speaking about the new release, NetSupport’s CEO, Al Kingsley, said: “With this latest update to classroom.cloud, schools can identify, support and help protect students at all times – no matter where they are. Gaining a clear picture of any concerning activity, while applying online safety controls, ensures schools can provide students with the best possible online access while being safe at all times.”

The new toolkit is not exclusively about safety, however, as it can also be used to teach - allowing teachers to find and include or explain trending topics that students may already be discussing or looking up on their own.

“The new online safety tools also provide valuable teachable moments when staff can spot trending topics and feed it into an assembly or class update to help educate students of the risks,” Kingsley said.

To learn more about classroom.cloud, which recently scored 95% in Pedagogical Approach in an independent evaluation by Education Alliance Finland, or to sign up for a free trial, visit https://classroom.cloud/.

About NetSupport

NetSupport is an award-winning developer of classroom instruction, IT management, safeguarding and remote learning software solutions for schools worldwide. Since 1989, the company has produced tried and trusted products that have an installation base today of more than 18 million users in over 120 countries. For more information, visit www.netsupportsoftware.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210614005251/en/

#classroommanagement tool classroom.cloud from @NetSupportGroup launches an online safety toolkit helping schools monitor & capture concerning activity. https://classroom.cloud/online-safety/