One problem with moving your teaching online to the computer is worrying if your students will be able to use the software and understand how it works. Fear no longer with great new free services such as http://join.me/. Join Me, from the makers of LogMeIn (http://www.logmein.com), allows you to quickly and easily view another person’s computer screen remotely, or even take control of another computer temporarily and for one time only. Nothing is permanently installed on either computer and the connection can be cancelled at anytime by either user.
Imagine a frustrated student trying to do digital homework on a home desktop computer and having problems completing an assignment. Now the student can get in touch with the teacher and both can go to http://join.me/. The student clicks on the “Share” side of the Join Me the home page to open the software on his or her computer and is given a 9 digit code which is shared with the teacher. The teacher than enters that code into the “Join” side of http://join.me/ and is instantly shown the student’s computer screen. When either side is done, simply click the green or orange X in the top center of the screen.
The teacher can now see the student’s screen and over the phone (or Skype) walk the student through the troublesome part of the assignment to get the level of understanding the teacher was hoping for.
With Join Me it’s simple to share your own computer screen as well, and even with more than one computer at a time, making it great for conducting a quick teacher training session even if you can’t be in the same location as the other person, or to present material during a remote tutorial session.
You won’t believe how easy this is!
