Best Classroom Management Software

With online learning becoming a norm in the 21st century, teachers and administrators face the challenge of managing today's digital instructional environments. Educators and instructors struggle to strike a balance between technology and the traditional essence of education. The challenge lies in providing a distraction-free classroom environment and preventing the misuse of technology. Here comes the role of the classroom management system. 

The classroom management system has multiple tools to help teachers create stimulating and distraction-free classroom environments for students' 360-degree development.  It blocks all distractions such as games, messaging, social media, web surfing, unproductive apps, and more to ensure that the students stay focussed on the classroom material only. Classroom management software also has features to equip teachers to implement modern teaching pedagogies such as Flipped learning, Blended learning, Gamification, and many more. 

However, finding the best classroom management software is not an easy task. You need to analyze multiple factors related to classroom technology and its implementation, to choose the most suitable classroom tool for your purpose. Therefore, this buyer's guide intends to assist the buyers of classroom management software in making a prudent investment decision.

Classroom management is the process that ensures the smooth functioning of classroom sessions to achieve the educational objectives without disruption. It is a set of activities designed to increase students' success by creating a productive learning environment. 

Classroom management ensures that various elements necessary for classroom effectiveness are properly managed and well-structured.  Such as:

• teacher-student interaction
• student-peer relationships
• teaching methodologies
• course pedagogies
• digital devices
• scheduling of sessions
• learning environment 
• educational objectives

Schools and colleges adopt classroom management technology to manage all the above-mentioned aspects.

Classroom management software is a set of application tools that allows teachers to manage and streamline their classroom activities effectively. It has features to keep students engaged with a distraction-free learning environment.  It helps teachers customize their lessons, align the session with the learner's pace, follow the best educational practices, and enable positive interactions and make learning more interesting and easily graspable. 

75% of teachers believe that digital technology will replace printed textbooks in the next few years. Classroom management software helps to achieve complete digitization of classrooms by providing necessary features to support digital classroom technology.

Extension of horizons in the online teaching and digital classroom modules led to the development of classroom management systems. These systems come with an engaging interface and interactive platform. 

• Classroom management software provides a one-stop solution for effective classroom management by eliminating all hurdles in imparting quality instruction. 
• A classroom management system works by managing classroom administration, reporting, documentation, digital learning, group-interaction, examination, evaluation, and analysis of the student's progress and learning activity. 
• The class management software optimizes class activities and delivers simplified learning with minimum hand-holding.
• It enables teachers to provide content online and regulates the student’s activity. Digital study material can be created and distributed with a classroom management system easily. 
• With the classroom solutions, teachers can assign homework, projects, make quizzes, initiate discussions, take attendance, and many more reliably. 

On-Premise

Schools and colleges that want to house their classroom management system on their own in-house servers and IT infrastructure deploy the on-premise classroom software. Schools purchase the license to use the software, and their IT employees handle the maintenance part. 

Cloud-based

Schools and colleges that use cloud-based classroom software deploy a third-party service provider to host the classroom management system for them. The costs of cloud-based classroom monitoring software are lower than the other types of classroom software. Monthly and annual subscription pricing models are available in this software. Schools can effectively scale up the system anytime depending on the overall usage and teacher-student requirements. Data can be backed up regularly, and schools only have to pay for the resources they use. For international schools and large school chains, having a national or global presence, the cloud-based virtual classroom technology is the best option. 

Open Source

Open source classroom management software lets the schools access the source codes, and modify, configure, and reprogram it to meet their specific needs. Open source classroom management system software is installed on the school's internal local desktops, and their IT admins look after updates, configurations, settings, and maintenance. 

Web-based

Web-based classroom software is an already configured system that is ready to use immediately once the school subscribes to it. With instant service, time spent on installation is saved. Furthermore, only computers, mobile devices, and online connectivity are required to use this type of software.

To mitigate challenges associated with digital learning

The 'digital classroom' tag can be achieved even without deploying classroom management software. Still, the issues and challenges associated with digital classroom environments can be mitigated only with an industry-grade class management system. For instance, schools can claim to have smart classrooms with students bringing in their digital devices (BYOD-Bring your own devices), but it is not easy for schools to eliminate the digital distractions associated with smart devices. 

Students may engage in unproductive activities such as chatting, social media browsing, web-surfing, etc.  Issues may get further complicated when students use their mobile phones for malicious activities. Therefore, to prevent the misuse of digital technology and engage students purposefully to achieve measurable learning improvements, schools need a robust classroom management software. 

To maintain the security and privacy of student's data

As part of learner-centered pedagogy, teachers create and store E-Portfolios and catalog of students' work that tracks the students' learning journey. The student portfolio is a comprehensive document that includes the student's short biography, reflections, interests, photographs, activities, certificates, narrated videos of achievements, and work. 

While portfolios can be created using any digital device, classroom management software is required to protect the confidentiality and privacy of the students' personal data.

To deploy modern learning techniques effectively

Another area where classroom management tools can help is the flipped learning technique. In flipped learning pedagogy,  students prepare the content on their own from online resources or study material provided by teachers before the next class. The classroom session is reserved for discussions, collaboration, and problem-solving. 

While flipped learning is a great technique, it comes with a few risks. Students may not access the relevant content online, may download outdated content or substandard content. A classroom management software allows teachers to create a repository of standard content and directory of research sites to be accessed for downloading quality study material. 

Classroom software also comes power-packed with the Gamification concept to transform classrooms into gaming fields. Teachers can create live interactive graphs, mind-maps, tests, exercises to stimulate learning and engagement through graphic visualization. 

To conduct interactive periodic assessments

Periodic assessments are essential for continuous learning growth. A periodic assessment is conducted to evaluate a student’s progress on a regular basis. It enables the teachers to prioritize or modify the next steps in teaching. With classroom management software, teachers can easily conduct interactive periodic assessments for testing and improving the students’ abilities.

To grade the students automatically

The classroom software has features to allow teachers to grade students automatically. Multiple-choice, true/false, rubrics, quizzes, etc. can be graded automatically, and the software records scores in a digital grade book. 

When traditional board teaching is not bringing results

Traditional board teaching may not work with internet-savvy Generation Z and Generation Alpha students. Also, when the number of students increases in the class, it is no longer feasible to stick to the traditional classroom sessions as the teacher won’t be able to focus on all students properly. In such situations, existing classroom systems have to be replaced by class management software. So, whenever the traditional modes of teaching and learning fail to bring the desired classroom effectiveness, then it's advisable to deploy a classroom management system.

Student's disinterest in the classroom

Herman Ebbinghaus, in his landmark theory 'Forgetting Curve,' explained that humans tend to forget things unless it is reviewed again and again. The newer interactive and active teaching concepts came into existence to provide highly engaging content and interactive classrooms. Such concepts eliminate the boredom associated with traditional blackboard teaching. Teaching with modern classroom platforms and digital learning tools results in a higher rate of completion, increased student attention and engagement, and positive student feedback. So, teachers can deploy class management software if students show disinterest in traditional teaching modes. 

When you want to redesign your entire teaching module

Schools, coaching centers, colleges, and universities allow students to use mobile devices to search for information and download study material. The only issue that needs to be mitigated is content curation and limiting the web access of students to productive apps and websites. This can be achieved by classroom management software that has a feature to restrict web access to approved websites and apps only. Schools, colleges, and universities can think of redesigning the entire teaching module to align themselves with today's generation by implementing classroom technology.

When students' are not accessible simultaneously

If you have students in different geographic locations, then it may not always be feasible for the teachers to physically visit each place. For instance, if you are running a coaching program and students in the coaching demand flexibility in time to learn or you have started a distance learning course for students who cannot attend sessions physically, then deploying a classroom management software embedded with virtual learning technology is the best solution. 

When the best teachers are not accessible physically

Sometimes your school needs the best teacher in a particular subject, and you want all your students to be taught by him or her only. But, due to geographical constraints, that particular teacher is not available physically. In such a case, classroom management software can solve the issue with its remote learning features.

• Increases Productivity: The classroom management software boosts productivity as less time is needed to maintain student records. It also gets everything streamlined, organized, and well-structured so that teachers can create a fluid and productive class devoid of any behavioral interruptions or indiscipline issues. 
• Increased Interaction: It strengthens students’ interpersonal communication with their peers with real-time messaging, emails, peer-to-peer discussion forums, announcement posts, etc. 
• Saves Resources: Less stationery is required once you deploy a classroom management software. Save money and save the environment by reducing the use of paper. 
• Records can be accessed from anywhere: With easy access to student documents and information, teachers can analyze the performance of their students anytime.
• Transparency with Parents Increases: The classroom management tool leads to more teacher-parent interaction and transparency. Parents can be updated on their ward's progress regularly.
• Empowerment: The system empowers the students and supports them to gain steady learning progression. With a lot of self-do activities in the software, students can learn things on their own. 
• Easy Curriculum management: The classroom content can not only be monitored, managed, and organized but also polished by filling the critical gaps in the content with the classroom management software. 
• Easy delivery at multiple levels:  The syllabus can be divided into various smaller segments and formats such as audio lectures, video lectures, quizzes, forum discussions, etc., for easy delivery.
• No Geographic constraints: Students need not be present physically in the classroom to attain a session. They can access the class virtually on their devices anytime and complete the sessions. 
• Increased student interaction: Classroom tools improve the communication and interaction of the student with the trainer and the peer group. 
• Easy Collaboration: With resource-sharing tools of the online classroom management systems, the teachers can easily share modules, projects, worksheets, etc. 
• Easy tracking of student’s progress: Teachers can track the syllabus completion status, the student's hitherto progress, and assessment evaluation easily with the help of the classroom software. 
• Strengthens teacher-student relationship: Effective classroom management software helps build healthy and mutually respectful relationships between teachers and students.
• Increased accuracy: Increased accuracy in assessment and evaluation of assignments and tests is achieved.

Classroom management software presents powerful tools and workflows to go beyond the traditional teaching pedagogy and engage students in a responsive classroom environment. With the assistance of classroom management software, teachers can create more interactive lessons, real-time quizzes, and surveys, open live discussions to keep students attentive and engaged. 

Online classroom management tools boost learning outcomes, enhance student engagement, fills knowledge gaps, encourages participation, and maximizes classroom effectiveness. Teachers can also use gamification features to let students have fun while learning. Games can also be used to revise a prior learned topic. 

Some students hesitate to participate due to peer pressure and fear of the classroom environment. The core features of the classroom software can track student's involvement and can notify teachers who are not participating in discussions or activities. Teachers can adopt personalized approaches to encourage such students. Teachers can allow such students to participate and answer anonymously in discussions. 

Distraction is detrimental to the learning process. It can deteriorate the academic performance of students in the long-run. Also, some students may bring devices that are better than others. These devices may have more entertainment features, so there is more chance of students getting distracted. However, It is difficult to monitor the screen and usage of every student physically. It is, therefore, imperative that teachers use classroom management software to eliminate digital diversions and ensure safe and prudent use of the internet and digital resources. 

A classroom management system:

• warrants all digital activities of the students
• restrict students from doing unscrupulous web activities
• checks and monitors all students’ screens in real-time 
• Provides teachers remote access to students devices
• allows students to browse a selected list of websites only 
• sets the boundaries of acceptable online usage
• monitors internet usage with e-safety features
• ensures that inappropriate and malicious content is blocked

Blended Learning

Blended learning is a type of hybrid learning that combines offline and online elements to provide an integrated learning environment.  Blended learning unites traditional chalk and board classrooms with online learning. Classroom management software provides a platform for blended learning where students can log in and attend a live class that the teacher delivers. Students can raise their hands virtually, and teachers can solve their problems and give feedback. The teacher uses functionalities such as virtual whiteboard, class polling, online charts, etc. to provide an actual classroom experience to the students. 

Student Centric Approach

The modern classrooms are student-centric. Student's overall progress is the core metric on which the success of an educational program is evaluated. The teacher focuses on the responsiveness and satisfaction of the students. Students are encouraged to collaborate and interact with their peers. Collaboration tools are essential attributes of classroom software. 

Video-based Interactive learning

The futuristic classes focus on audio-visual content as the best study material. Teachers rely on videos to engage students and deliver eye-catching content.  Classroom management software has features and a video gallery to create and store interactive videos for students.

Gamification

The most crucial aspect of classroom teaching is to keep the students engaged and attentive. Boredom creeps in quickly if the session is monotonous. Gamification is a fun inducing, rewarding, and challenging method of teaching and learning. Classroom management software assists in counting scores, reward points, awarding visual badges, unlocking game levels, filing progress bars, and monitoring game learning. 

Micro-learning

Microlearning is a student-centered learning strategy that features short activities to keep students attentive and focuses on one learning objective at a time. Providing small study material to improve understanding and retention of information, and using various learning methodologies and multimedia tools to increase students' interest helps the students and teachers to increase the overall effectiveness of the classroom. Class management software is used to compile, organize, and manage these micro-sized pieces of information.

Peer Interaction

Students learn more by interacting with their fellow classmates. Maximizing the positive interaction between student peers is the goal of interactive active classrooms. Peer interaction as a concept is gaining importance in the current times for its ability to teach students a range of social and emotional skills.  Classroom software has inbuilt tools to allow students to interact extensively with their fellow classmates.

Remote Learning

Remote learning is gaining traction due to multiple reasons. Tech savviness of the modern students, availability of digital devices, and high-speed internet connectivity drives many students to attend virtual classrooms. Sometimes, students want to complete a course run by a prominent foreign university or school. In such cases, remote learning features of classroom software enables them to join the course sitting anywhere in the world.   

Teacher Portal

Teachers can create class lists and add particular students in it. They can also see profiles, progress reports, and performance analytics of each student here. Teachers can update parents about their child's progress through an inbuilt message platform. During classroom teaching, teachers can block or limit student's access to the web and online applications. 

Student Portal

Students can store their documents, study materials, assessment reports, video material, etc. in this portal. They can see their reports, progress information, attendance records, etc. in this portal. 

Screen Monitoring

This feature of the classroom management tool lets instructors monitor the screens of students remotely. A single glance surveillance system empowers teachers to keep an eye on all online activities of their students in real-time. 

Web limits

Restrict students from accessing websites, certain apps, or put a time limit for accessing the web. 

Raise hands

Students can digitally raise their hands to ask questions and ask for the assistance of the instructor. 

Screen Sharing

Students and teachers can share each other’s screens for collaboration. Teachers can also share one student’s screen to the whole class to present a solution from the student. Teachers can blank all screens to gain students’ attention. Teachers can blank or block students' screens to gain attention.

Bulk Messaging

Teachers can send bulk messages, group messages, and individual messages with this feature. 

Interactive Whiteboard 

Teachers can write, draw, and erase on this board. Teachers can also allow students to write on this board. 

Group Teaching

Teachers can divide students into groups and assign them different tasks than other groups. The group can discuss and share documents.

Attendance tracking

This feature of the classroom management software assists teachers to take attendance online. It sends automatic notifications for attendance shortage to students, their parents, and teachers. 

Assignment tracking

Teachers can create and share assignments here. This allows teachers to put students into a secure mode to conduct and evaluate the assignments. 

Network settings

Ensures that students are using secured networks for accessing the classroom management system.

Google classroom integrations

Many classroom management software come with third party Google classroom integration to enhance its functionality.

Scheduling

Enable teachers to schedule class sessions. Teachers can also schedule random meetings with students to discuss their progress on one. 

Mobile Application

The classroom software has a separate mobile-friendly application with all features accessible the same as in the desktop version. 

Student Collaboration

Students can share documents with their fellow students or teachers to collaborate on projects. 

User Management

With this feature of classroom management solution, administrators can grant access to teachers, instructors, and students to access specific parts of the application. For example, administrators can allow teachers to control all classroom devices from a central dashboard but restrict access to the fee payment module. Students can access the student portal and assignment section, but restrictions can be put to access examination and other sections. 

Reports & Analytics

This feature of the online classroom management system generates various reports about syllabus completion, student progress, assessment reports, etc. Based on the reports, teachers can decide to expedite the course, provide additional assignments to weak students, and adopt personalized approaches to some students who need it. 

Examination module

Teachers can create online tests, forms, multiple-choice questions, and quizzes with this feature. 

Multimedia broadcast

Teachers can use ppt, video player, audio player, images, etc. Teachers can use multiple media channels to broadcast their lessons. 

Student Demonstrations

Teachers can allow one student to demonstrate a solution or discuss a particular topic by displaying the student’s computer screen. 

Whether your classroom software provides these four reports?

• Students' course completion rate and progress: Classroom management tools have analytics that reports course completion percentages for the whole class and individual students.  
• Feedback Report: The students must be allowed to provide feedback after every completed module of the syllabus. Based on the feedback, teachers can modify or align the curriculum. 
• Assessment Reports: It generates assessment reports when the students' complete assignments and evaluations are done. 
• Attendance reports: This report tells about the attendance percentage and gives teachers an idea about the regularity of students in attending classes. 

Whether your Classroom management software fulfills the below criteria:

• User Support: Quick access to user support gets teachers through the server downtime or technical glitches. 
• User reviews: Always check the reviews posted by teachers, admins, students, and users on verified sites before investing in the classroom management software. 
• Industry Experience: Check the classroom software vendor's service history to analyze the vendor's experience in the field. This is crucial as vendors with more than five years of experience do away with errors and flaws in the software and offer refined and improved products with upgraded features. 
• Free Trials and Demo: Once you list down your exact requirements, contact vendors, and ask for trials, demo sessions, and price quotations. Free trial and Free Demo of vendor's services can help you understand the product better. During the trial period, let the students and teachers participate in understanding the features thoroughly. You can ask your vendor to solve a particular problem using the functionalities of classroom management software. 
• Compatibility: Students use laptops, tablets, and mobile devices to access the virtual classroom. Also, many students use different types of operating systems. You cannot ask a student to shift to a particular operating system or buy a new device because your vendor doesn't support it. Therefore, confirm it from the vendor that the software is compatible and fully accessible on all operating systems and devices.
• Works with low internet bandwidth: A classroom software that can work on lower bandwidths smoothly should be your first choice. 

Whether the software falls under your budget?

• Cost of the software: The cost of the classroom software should meet your budget. Prefer Buying affordable software that best suits your needs is preferable. 
• Return on investment: You should calculate the monetary benefits on investment by comparing the costs v/s the expected gains. Monetary value. In the long term, ROI should always exceed the buying and implementation costs.
• Hidden fees: Apart from the monthly subscription fee, there can be multiple hidden costs, such as installation costs, registration costs, agreement costs, etc. Some vendors will charge you later for additional users, more storage, etc. Consider these costs before purchasing the classroom software. 

The classroom management software market is estimated to grow by USD 8.82 billion during 2020-2024. It shows that the development in Edtech is immense. Schools and colleges that adopt Edtech to make their education infrastructure capable of delivering modern teaching pedagogies with ease provide their students with a unique competitive advantage. 

Classroom technologies have achieved significant progress in current times. One can imagine the role schools can play in students' educational and mental development by deploying a classroom management software by the following example: 

Classroom software vendors have recently developed AI-based classroom software that monitors students' mental health and helps them navigate anxiety and depressions. 

Implementing online classroom software enables schools to teach their students outside the classroom to enhance the learning curve.  Thus, the school is not limited by school hours. With classroom technology, schools and teachers can explore the potential of learning outside the school campus. 

The future of schools, colleges, and coaching centers opting for timely deployment of classroom management software will be bright. 

Class management software vendors offer a number of niche products to help schools and colleges to make their classrooms smart. Many also offer a free online classroom management system for a limited number of students.

The costs of classroom  management software depend on a large number of factors such as:

• A number of admins, teachers, and students it allows
• Features it offers
• Type of installation required by schools: Cloud-based, Web-based, on-premise software, or open-source
• The number of devices it can work upon simultaneously.
• Privacy and the data encryption it provides 
• Quality of service and user support offered 
• User interface and experience

These variations can significantly alter the pricing estimations of the classroom software. 

If you need a free and open source classroom management system, you can opt for Veyon or OpenSIS. The enterprise version of Edusys will cost you around $100 a month for 100 students. Software such as Net Control 2 Classroom will cost $279 (one-time purchase) for a limited version and $3290 for the unlimited version. Classmate Gradebook comes for $ 49 per user and $300 for a school with lifetime validity. For other online class management software or free classroom management software such as MyClassCampus, Gradelink, Faronics Insights, LanSchool, and many more others, you need to contact the vendor for detailed pricing. You can get the list and all information from the GoodFirms class management software page.

Amidst equally appealing options and lucrative marketing from a plethora of software vendors,  schools find it difficult to identify their requirements and evaluate vendors. Therefore, GoodFirms assists schools and seekers of the best classroom management software by presenting the market-leading classroom management software solutions that provide a wealth of features to manage, optimize, and streamline classroom environments.  

GoodFirms is among the few frontline IT market research companies who have a rich heritage of providing buying assistance to B2B IT service seekers. The astounding research and analysis of GoodFirms and its understanding of the IT products and services are second to one. With a behemoth listing of thousands of IT services and products, GoodFirms has a lot to offer to service-seekers of IT products.  Currently, GoodFirms hosts a listing of more than 9000 software products and services with around 15000 reviews from users. The unbiased and genuine reviews and GoodFirms analysis can combinedly provide a robust understanding and extraordinary glance into the features, functions, capabilities, advantages and disadvantages, pricing, installation types, and many more aspects of the listed software services. The readers of this buyer's guide for classroom management software are advised to navigate the list of thoroughly researched classroom management solutions to find the most suitable ones for themselves. The lists consistently undergo thorough revision to put forth the best and top-performing ones.