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I teach in a computer based classroom, where students are very skilled at getting around the filter and going places on the Internet that they shouldn't be. I would like to have the capability of viewing the student screens from a second monitor on my desk. I do not need to be able to take over their computer or control their mouse...I just want to see what they see on their screen. I need this capability for monitoring up to 5-6 computers at once. I cannot use a software product like LanSchool because these computers are not connected to a server that I can control. Also, these computers are not networked together. We get our Internet through Charter Communications. Is there a way to hook the student computers into some sort of cable box, and connect that box to my computer and 2nd monitor? What hardware would I need? Is this something a KVM switch would help solve?

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    Put a mirror behind them....
    – Solar Mike
    Oct 25, 2017 at 17:23
  • If they're all connected to the same router for Internet access, that counts as "networked together".
    – u1686_grawity
    Oct 25, 2017 at 20:40
  • Trust me it'd cost far less and be much more useful to you to put the computers on a network. With that you can use any of various tools including remote desktop or software that just downloads a png screenshot of each screen every 5 seconds.
    – jdwolf
    Oct 25, 2017 at 23:49

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Given long enough cables to reach from their computers to yours, you could put splitters on each machine's video out cable and run them to an input selector switch at your desk that runs to a separate monitor (or to your own, if you put yours on the switch too). Then by changing the switch's input selector, you could switch back and forth between all the screens to see who's doing what. This is not going to be a very cheap option, because long cables and a switch capable of handling 5-8 inputs will be expensive.

You could also use some remote desktop sharing software like VNC or TeamViewer (or a host of other options) to login remotely to view their screens. VNC has free options (depending on which install/brand you choose) and TeamViewer is free for "non-commercial" use (not sure if they would count schools under this). The advantage to using these options, besides being possibly free, is that you could be logged into all of them at once but shrunk to all fit on your screen at the same time. This way, you don't have to be seeing their details, but you could tell if someone has Facebook or a game up on their screen.

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