To an ever expanding cyberspace joins ‘Classroom’, a virtual app from tech giant Apple. It has forayed into the everyday business of teaching-learning, by functioning as a “teaching assistant” to the instructors in schools. Certainly, teachers can have a big cheer over the new facility, for it enables them to manage multiple classes over one single iPad which has been installed with the app.
The announcement comes close on the heels of another major update, a new version of Apple’s iOS operating system 9.3 for iPads and iPhones, hitting the scene early this week. Along with Night Shift, password-protected Notes, updates to Apple News and CarPlay, there was a mention of an exclusive app for education. After this massive launch, it took only a few days for “Classroom” to arrive. Seems one of the intentions behind Night Shift was to supplement Classroom’s functionality as it switches the screen resolution to soothing colours from the brighter ones for night time, a feature to help students have a better study environment and do homework well during at night.
The company introduces the app as “a powerful new iPad app that helps you to guide learning, share, work, and manage student devices.” Remote device management being a highlight, the app enables the teacher to “launch a specific app, website, or textbook page on any device in the class, or share student work on a TV, monitor, or projector using Apple TV.”
The virtual space works on the same principle of a real-time classroom and may be a bit advanced. The teacher can start the class, choose the particular classroom and the students in each, assign students to iPad devices, organise the class, launch specific app on each student as in the way of opening a text book, navigate to specific content, look what the students see with Screen View, share student work on the big screen, lock the screen and log out.
It’s wrong if you think Classroom is an easy play-out-of-sight virtual screen. The students have little opportunity to get distracted and should stay alert as they are never off the radar, even if they wish so. The Screen View option where the teacher monitors is not in-cognito. By the time the teacher begins surveillance, the students get informed with a signal blinking on the screen. Classroom is available for free on iOS App store.
