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and each kid has a computer because of the subject area. Some of this won't apply to you if you have laptops probably, because they may not be using them all the time. Mine have full monitors taking up almost all their desk space.
If you can arrange the room in a horseshoe so you have line of sight to all the monitors, it'll help you out a lot - otherwise they will be off task at least some of the time. (Some of them all the time).
Another thing I learned early on is that any time I'm addressing the class as a whole and want their undivided attention, I tell them to physically shut off their monitors. In my current room I can't arrange the furniture to see all the screens, but I can see the glow of the monitors on their faces to tell if they are surfing when the monitor's supposed to be off. A casual "turn your monitors off for a few minutes here" works really well - I don't want to make this sound like an ongoing struggle because it's really not, it's just something you have to establish up front as a routine. (In your case, closing the laptops would be simple to see.)
One of the big advantages was that I can do some automated quizzes (either as self-assessments where grades don't count or as grades if I want), and the kids can get instantaneous feedback. Classmarker.com lets you set up a teacher account and enter an ID for all your students so they can take your quizzes. I am not in a subject area where I do a lot of quizzes in general, it's not my normal style of teaching - as an art teacher we are more project based. But actually the kids did enjoy it much to my amazement, I think because it felt like the online fun quizzes they were used to taking. Not having to take time to grade the tests was a big luxury for me.
I set up a forum (like DU) with an area for each of my classes, and they submitted their work online through the forum. It solved my messy desk problem, and I gained the ability to grade everything from home without hauling papers back and forth. They lost the ability to accuse me of losing papers - either things are posted in the forum or they aren't. The forum helped keep the kids organized, I kept all their assignments posted online, numbered in the subject line - and they can click their own forum profile to pull up just their own posts. By scanning through their posts, they can see easily by subject line what's missing. Also, they are able to submit work from home.
I'm the only teacher teaching that way in our school, I dread the thought of ever getting laid off and having to readjust to a classroom of papers. I love that I can combine the best aspects of both distance learning and classroom face-to-face contact.
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