When I first learned that schools will be re-opening without enough true protections in place for COVID-19, the pandemic that has thrown us all into a tailspin, I knew there were solutions out there that would help me better manage my child's time online.
Last semester, my school county implemented remote learning for all children through teams. Parents were sent home to work full time remotely for many households. The teachers and administration in a matter of days, procured thousands of laptops for students to remote learn on. The teachers began to teach on this platform with little to no training on the tools they were using. Despite this, they did an absolutely phenomenal job pivoting from brick and mortar based education to a completely online environment. Using this platform by itself, in the time they had, it was simply not enough to guarantee a student is paying full attention to the tasks they needed to complete.
There are many online products that assist with this job, although the reason I chose this particular one is because it is fairly lightweight, is fairly easy to implement and has some attractive features such as chatroom, message ability, unobtrusive screen monitoring, and a very high level of encryption.
The biggest draw back as far as I can tell is there is no compatibility with MAC OS, although it does support Linux operating systems.
"How do I implement it?" I hear you ask. Below I will describe the steps!
Setup
1. The very first step is a human one. You will need to discuss this implementation up front with your child. Trust is the basis of all relationships and it is a two way street. Let them know you will be setting this up on the laptop or PC to help them keep on track. Let them know you will be able to view their screen at any time and it will not be noticeable. This tool is also a great way to keep connected to them as well without having to shout from a different room to get dinner!
2. Next make sure on the child's computer you have an administrator account and password and login to the computer under the account. This account is generally the first one you setup when you bought the PC and logged in for the first time.
3. Download and install the "Radmin Server 3.5.2". As you go through the setup, click Next and select all defaults.
4. On the computer you will be doing the monitoring on, login as administrator and download and install "Radmin Viewer 3.5.2". Again, select all defaults and hit Next a bunch.
Configuration
1. Open Radmin Viewer on the computer that will be doing the remote monitoring (not the child's PC) and click the computer icon with the green +
3. You will be presented with this configuration box to fill out below.
Key configuration steps:
3.1 - Name this anything you desire - Joe's PC, CHILD 1, or anything you like.
3.2 - Enter the child's full computer name. This can be found on the child's computer by holding down the windows key + pause key at the same time.
3.3 - Press OK to save the info
4. On the child's computer open Settings for RAdmin Server
5. Click on Startup mode and make sure it is set to automatic.
Click OK once selected.
6. Select Permissions
7. Click Permissions again
8. Select Add User
9. Type in the name of the account you wish to use when logging into the child computer along with a secure password. Click OK to save these settings.
10. Select the All access and click OK.
Testing
On the computer you previously installed the viewing software on, right click on the computer icon and you should now be able to message, chat and remotely view the child PC using the username and password credentials you had configured previously on the computer.
A few notes:
1 - Full control will enter you straight into the PC where you can control the mouse. The slightest movement therefore will re-position the mouse on the screen and may be a distraction for the child
2 - View only option is the best option for reviewing the child's computer activity without mouse movement distractions
3 - Chat is a very useful feature and my favorite for sending website information or generally interacting while they are on the computer
4 - Send message is a pop up window that doesn't allow a reply like the chat does.
Screenshot of the chat feature
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