OpenClass is a simple open-source solution for class control, designed with the following features in mind: - small footprint - light-weight functionality - minimum of non-essential features If you already know how italc, bluelab, mythware, iClass and similar solutions work, you already know what OpenClass is. If you do not, here is some introduction. Introduction ------------ OpenClass is a small class control solution, which helps teacher to control his activities in the classroom. Among such activities, the most commonly used are: (From teacher to student) - screen projection (send content of teacher screen to all the students) in different resolutions and bandwidth usage modes - full-screen resolution-independent screen projection - student attention request (blocking student activities and asking them to look at teacher) - viewing contents of all students screens at once - direct messaging to students - share a student screen with other students - file sharing and URL sharing to enrich class activities - shutting down student computers from teacher - allow and reject students from a specific class - allow to block students from attempting to connect to a class - support for multi-seat configurations and multiple clients per machine (for example, xdmcp-based environments) (From student to teacher) - automatic teacher discovery via broadcast - receiving of teacher screen projection via multicasting protocol, suitable for both wired and wireless environments - "raise hand" functionality to call teacher attention - possibility to select teacher to connect to - automatic handling of network saturation and disconnection events (Misc) - support for Linux and Windows-based operating systems - possibility to have multiple teachers and classes on same network/vlan - multicast throttling to avoid saturating the network Usage ----- For teacher, execute teacher.py script. It will open the teacher interface and will ask you to identify yourself. This identification can be either your name or your class name, and the students will be able to identify your class via this name. When a student connects, he will automatically appear in your teacher view. If you click on his icon, you can send him an individual message. To start a screen projection, just click "Send screen" button. It will start the screen sharing activity to all the students, and will continue until you click this button again. To block students screens and call their attention, click the "Block screen" button. On student side, it is necessary to run the student.py application. It will load itself into tray area, and will ask you to login. Alternatively, if you do not want to login straight away, you could right-click on the icon and login when needed. After the student is logged in, it will automatically connect to the first available teacher (this functionality can be altered in next versions), or select the teacher to connect to manually (not available yet).
