The addition of safeguarding features to its award-winning teaching tools allows schools to monitor and capture concerning activity, enhancing their ability to provide a safe online learning environment at all times.
London/Peterborough, UK: 14th June 2021 – Shielding students from inappropriate content while allowing them freedom to learn within safe parameters is a fine balance.
classroom.cloud, developed by NetSupport, is making this easier for schools with the launch of a new proactive safeguarding toolkit that employs contextual intelligence to advance online safeguarding. Far from simply stopping and blocking, it actively alerts the appropriate staff to potential issues and identifies students at risk.
Developed with educators and with best practice, legal requirements and educational guidance in mind, classroom.cloud’s new keyword and phrase monitoring tool (powered by over 14,000 phrases in multiple languages) enables schools to monitor what topics their students are typing or searching for – even in Microsoft Teams. Schools can also share and exchange local terms with other schools and add any new ones to their database to further broaden their eSafety net.
full explanation and definition to
Identifying and prioritising students engaged in genuinely high-risk activity is of paramount importance in any safeguarding policy. Using classroom.cloud’s contextual intelligence Risk Index, staff can see how potentially ‘at risk’ students are in their online activity. It considers not only a student’s current activity, but also the context (time of day, device used, history of similar searches and more), creating a risk index number that indicates to staff whether urgent intervention is needed – and, if so, enables them to do so with the correct professional response.
Spotting trending topics at a glance is now made 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.
Safeguarding issues require sensitive handling and confidentiality. classroom.cloud supports this with its easy-to-use access rights that can be applied or changed as needed, ensuring only authorised 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, whilst simultaneously applying online safety controls, ensures schools can provide students with the best possible online access while being safe at all times – crucial as schools are increasingly identifying and responding to concerns around sexual harassment and peer-on-peer abuse.
He continued: “The new online safety tools also provide valuable teachable moments when staff can spot trending topics such as the ’48 hour missing challenge’ and feed it into an assembly or class update to help educate students of the risks.”
classroom.cloud is a perfect example of supporting the safe and responsible use of classroom technology and recently scored 95% in Pedagogical Approach in an independent evaluation by Education Alliance Finland.
To learn more about classroom.cloud and to sign up for a free trial, visit https://classroom.cloud/, where product video tours and a range of supporting resources are also available.
Notes for editors
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
Press contact
For further information, please contact Katie Hall, Group Head of Marketing, k.hall@netsupportsoftware.com, +44 (0)1778 382270.
