Classroom Management

Private School Turns to Tech To Manage Classroom Activities Online

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 03/30/16

A private school in Fort Worth, TX with 167 students in grades preK-8 has adopted a new Internet management tool to keep students on task. All Saints Catholic School chose NetRef from a company with the same name to enable its teachers to set Internet access boundaries in their classrooms.

All Saints, which runs a dual-language program in English and Spanish and maintains a computer lab, also is increasingly using tablets in its classrooms. NetRef helps the educators manage student Internet usage via a touch-screen panel. Teachers can program allowable domains and applications that are relevant to the lesson and receive real-time alerts when a student wanders off-task.

"At All Saints, we are committed to imbuing our students with the linguistic and technological skills as well as a multicultural, compassionate worldview that will best prepare them for the future," said Principal Arica Prado in a prepared statement. "Technology helps foster language skills, so it plays a critical role in our intensive bilingual curriculum and culture. Our new investment in NetRef will help our teachers and students maximize the Web as an educational and collaborative learning tool."

The company said its software operates with all major browsers and smartphone environments and that it complies with COPPA, FERPA, CIPA and PPRA cyber safety and data privacy regulations.