Classroom Management Software and Alice

I would encourage the Alice development team to locate schools that are utilzing different computer lab management strategies/software. My biggest issue with Alice 2.0 is that it is very unfriendly to my computer lab management software in my high school classroom.

I have used Smart Technologies SynchronEyes (www.smarttech.com) software to broadcast presentations to my lab computers, as well as manage Internet access, send out files and share screens. The software will sometimes cause Alice to cause a critical error. Sometimes the students can save their work and restart Alice. Sometimes they lose what they have not saved.

I am testing Vision Classroom Managemenet software currently (www.genevalogic.com), and I am having many issues with Alice. Alice will close abruptly on student stations, causing them to lose all work. This happens when I broadcast my screen to students, as well when I disconnect the Vision software from their pc's.

I'm hoping that your beta testing environments will include sites that are utilizing computer lab management strategies from different manufacturers for compatibility testing.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by kilpatrickg

I would encourage the Alice development team to locate schools that are utilzing different computer lab management strategies/software. My biggest issue with Alice 2.0 is that it is very unfriendly to my computer lab management software in my high school classroom.

I have used Smart Technologies SynchronEyes (www.smarttech.com) software to broadcast presentations to my lab computers, as well as manage Internet access, send out files and share screens. The software will sometimes cause Alice to cause a critical error. Sometimes the students can save their work and restart Alice. Sometimes they lose what they have not saved.

I am testing Vision Classroom Managemenet software currently (www.genevalogic.com), and I am having many issues with Alice. Alice will close abruptly on student stations, causing them to lose all work. This happens when I broadcast my screen to students, as well when I disconnect the Vision software from their pc's.

I'm hoping that your beta testing environments will include sites that are utilizing computer lab management strategies from different manufacturers for compatibility testing.

Thanks.

I am not experiencing any problems using NetOp management software with Alice. However, I did use Synchroneyes software last year and I can confirm that Alice does not coexist well with it.

What do you all use for a behavior modification program? I mean if you have classroom discipline problems? Thanks

Originally Posted by Fishman

What do you all use for a behavior modification program? I mean if you have classroom discipline problems? Thanks

The post was about ensuring proper use of Lab computers - it had nothing to do with the links you posted.

I have used LanSchool with Alice for two academic years now and it has worked pretty well. I use it primarily as a way to restrict non-alice usage and therefore don't make full use of all of its features, but those I use work well.

Originally Posted by EricSkogen

I have used LanSchool with Alice for two academic years now and it has worked pretty well. I use it primarily as a way to restrict non-alice usage and therefore don't make full use of all of its features, but those I use work well.

I have since switched to LanSchool after testing various lab management software packages. It coexists well on my Windows network with Alice 2.0. I'm hoping that Alice 3.0 is vetted with these software packages before release.

[hjussila]

Has anyone found a way to work around the problems caused by the inability for the softwares to coexist? I am looking at running a lab with proper management software, but am afraid that it might not sit well with Alice.

Harri Jussila