online mentoring with

remote desktop-sharing

ID: 7

Name: Online Mentoring with Remote Desktop-Sharing

Summary: Engage the services of Online Mentors on need basis, and make use of Remote Desktop-Sharing tools to improve the quality and effectiveness of online mentoring.

Need / Challenge

Many ATL students find working with hardware devices such as Arduino, Raspberry Pi, sensor & actuator devices quite puzzling and complex. They often struggle with Arduino programming concepts. They also face difficulty in writing correct programming logic, debugging & resolving syntax and run-time errors. At times, it takes students several hours or even days to resolve an programming challenge. When they don't get timely support or guidance, they tend to give up and stop learning.

This is an area where technically strong Mentors with sound knowledge of DIY hardware devices, programming concepts and tools can play a constructive role in guiding ATL students. Although there are many mentors across the country with strong technical skills, they are not always associated with the ATL that needs them. Even if they are, they may not be available for students when they need them the most. The Mentors with the right skill-sets and expertise may not even be located in the same town, city or metro where the school is. In such cases, schools can seek the assistance of an online Mentor to guide ATL students remotely. However, online mentoring also brings certain challenges. Even though many online meeting tools allow ATL students to share their screens, the quality of interaction and engagement between an online Mentor and ATL students is often wanting.

In summary, we need to address two challenges:

How to engage the services of a qualified online Mentor to assist ATL students on need basis
How do we enhance the quality of online mentoring sessions, especially in programming related tasks & challenges

Solution

1. Engaging the services of a qualified online mentor to assist ATL students remotely and on need basis:

On the basis of the ATL Calendar, an ATL can publish the list of mentoring skills and expertise needed by its students on a weekly, bi-monthly or monthly basis and share the same with the larger mentoring community through WhatsApp groups or other means. A registration link for interested mentors to respond can also be shared with the list. Mentors having necessary skills & expertise can register to conduct remote online mentoring sessions for ATL students. The ATL can then connect with a few mentors, discuss the specifics and identify the most suitable mentor for conducting online mentoring sessions during the month.

2. Enhancing the quality of remote mentoring sessions:

Online meeting tools such as Google Remote Desktop, Zoom and Microsoft Teams provide Remote Desktop-Sharing capability. Compared to simple screen-sharing, remote desktop-sharing offers better interaction and collaboration between online Mentors and ATL students. With Remote Desktop-Sharing tools, an online Mentor can gain access to ATL student's computer over the Internet, take control of the keyboard and mouse, view the remote screen, open or close software applications remotely, view software programs on the remote computer, tweak the program, debug the program, identify errors, upload the program to connected hardware devices (e.g., Arduino, Raspberry Pi, ESP8266, etc.), run and observe the output of the program together. It can bring a lot of effectiveness to online mentoring since remote desktop-sharing makes the engagement between the online Mentor and the ATL students more interactive, engaging, and involving.

The below picture shows how a Remote Desktop-Sharing tool can be used for effective interaction between an online Mentor and ATL students:

Tools

The following online remote desktop-sharing tools can be used by ATL students and online Mentors who need to assist them remotely:

Zoom: The popular online meeting tool Zoom makes it possible for meeting participants to give or request for control to each other's computers. Once given permission, you can control the remote computer's mouse and keyboard, and even copy text from their screen to yours. Click here to view how to enable remote desktop-sharing in Zoon.
Microsoft Teams: Microsoft Teams is another popular online meeting tool that allows meeting participants to give or request for control to each other's computers. Once given permission, you can control the remote computer's mouse and keyboard, and even copy text from their screen to yours. Click here to view how to enable remote desktop-sharing in Microsoft Teams.
TeamViewer: TeamViewer is an advanced software for remote control, desktop sharing, online meetings, web conferencing and file transfer between computers. TeamViewer allows users to remotely access and control desktop of other computers and servers from anywhere, on a 3G or better internet connection. It also supports live video streaming between the two ends. TeamViewer can be downloaded from this link: https://www.teamviewer.com/en/products/teamviewer.
Chrome Remote Desktop: This tool allows a user to remotely access and control another computer. In fact, it works directly from Chrome web-browser as well as from an Android App. In the context of remote mentoring, the student can share his/her desktop screen with the online mentor using Chrome Remote Desktop tool. The online Mentor can connect to the session using Chrome Remote Desktop tool and view/control the remote desktop. Chrome Remote Desktop can be downloaded from this link: https://remotedesktop.google.com.

Setting up 'Chrome Remote Desktop' tool for remote access to ATL Computer

Chrome Remote Desktop software needs to be installed both on the ATL-laptop as well as on the online Mentor's laptop. Please refer to the below steps for setting up Chrome Remote Desktop software.

A. Steps for an ATL student or ATL in-charge to enable remote access on an ATL-laptop:

1. The student / ATL in-charge needs to login to a Windows laptop in the ATL in order to set it up for remote access.
2. The student / ATL in-charge needs to install Chrome Remote Desktop software on the ATL-laptop from the following URL: https://remotedesktop.google.com.
3. The student / ATL in-charge needs to turn on Chrome Remote Desktop software for remote sharing by generating a 6-digit PIN number. (This Pin number needs to be shared with the remote Mentor who wishes to access the ATL-laptop remotely)

B. Steps for online Mentor to connect to ATL-laptop over the Internet:

1. The online Mentor needs to install and run Chrome Remote Desktop software on his/her laptop, tab or desktop from the same URL mentioned above.
2. In order to remotely connect to the ATL-laptop, the online Mentor needs to key-in the 6-digit PIN number provided by the ATL in-charge or ATL student.
3. Once the online Mentor is connected to the ATL-laptop remotely, he/she has view & control the ATL-laptop's desktop screen and applications.
4. In case an Arduino is connected to the ATL-laptop, the online Mentor can remotely open Arduino IDE tool on the ATL-laptop, review the sketch created by the student and even upload it to the Arduino board. The response from the Arduino board can be viewed on the Arduino IDE's Serial Monitor screen.
5. In case a Raspberry Pi is connected to the ATL-laptop, the online Mentor can open Putty tool on the ATL-laptop and login to the Raspberry Pi via a command-line interface. He/she can then fire-up a text editor on Raspberry Pi to review the Python code written by the student. In addition, the online Mentor can run the code on Raspberry Pi and view its output.

Example: Online Mentor debugs and resolves student's software programming error remotely

Here is an example of how Google Remote Desktop tool can be used by an online Mentor to remotely assist an ATL student:

Ram is a 10th grade student who is trying to read data from a sensor device connected to Arduino micro-controller board at an ATL attached to his school. He has written a Arduino sketch to read data from a sensor. When Ram tries to run the Arduino sketch, it gives an error. As he is not very experienced in programming skills, he doesn't know where the problem lies. The problem could be in the hardware connection, it could be a logical programming error, syntax error, run-time error or something else. Ram tries to resolve the issue on his own for a while, but is unable to make progress.

Remote computer's desktop appears as a window within the local computer's desktop screen. One can take control of the remote computer's keyboard & mouse and interact with it as if it is a local software application.

Ram reports the issue to the ATL in-charge who in turn reaches out to an online Mentor for help. The online Mentor agrees to support the student remotely. Ram and the Mentor get on an online meeting using Zoom / Teams / Google Remote Desktop tool. Once the online Mentor is able to see Ram's desktop remotely, she asks him to give remote desktop control. Ram enables remote control on his end. This gives complete control of his desktop to the online Mentor. The Mentor then takes control of the desktop screen, reviews the Arduino code, scrolling up and down the screen. She then debugs the program remotely and quickly identify logical errors in the code. She tries a few options on her own before suggesting Ram to try the solution. Ram makes the corrections to the code and runs the program again. This time, the Arduino program works correctly! The Mentor also recommends Ram to use MIT Scratch visual programming tool to hone his skills in programming skills. With that, she concludes her short mentoring session and logs out of the remote session.

Thanks to Remote Desktop-Sharing tool, the online Mentor could take control of the remote computer, debug and identify the programming errors very easily. The same would not have been as effective with simple screen-sharing tools. In all, the online Mentor spent about 10 minutes helping out Ram as she had strong expertise in Arduino programming skills. Ram was very happy since he was able to make progress on his innovation project without getting stuck for long. In addition, he got few tips on how to improve his programming skills and learnt a thing or two about debugging code better. The remote session proved highly productive for the Mentor since she had to spend only 10 minutes of her time rather than visiting the ATL in-person - which would have taken her several hours of to/fro commute.

Benefits of Online Mentoring with Remote Desktop-Sharing

For Students:
- - On-demand remote mentoring provides greater convenience to students as they can get guidance and support from qualified mentors when they need it most.
  - Remote access enables significantly improved support and guidance for challenging programming tasks.
  - Chances of students giving up on programming tasks due to lack of support is reduced.
For Online Mentors:
- - On-demand mentoring allows greater flexibility for Mentors since they don't need to visit the ATL in-person.
  - Online Mentors can provide better guidance and support to students since remote desktop-sharing tools make the interaction highly interactive, engaging, collaborative and involving.
  - Usage of remote desktop-sharing tools increase online Mentor's effectiveness in providing solutions to tinkering or programming challenges faced by students.
For Atal Tinkering Labs:
- - ATL in-charge does not have to rely only on Mentors assigned to the ATL. Instead he/she can reach out to the wider mentoring community and seek 'on-demand' remote mentoring assistance for his/her students. The ATL is likely to receive positive response and support from more than one online Mentor at any point in time.
For Atal Innovation Mission:
- - By encouraging use of remote-access technology tools, Atal Innovation Mission can deploy the services of Mentors on need basis to any ATL at any time.

Role of Stakeholders

Role of School Management: Encourage use of Remote Desktop-Sharing tools during online meetings between ATL students and online Mentors.

Role of Students: Learn how to use Remote Desktop-Sharing feature in Zoom / Microsoft Teams / Google Remote Desktop and make use of the same when needed to work collaboratively with your team members or with your Mentor.

Role of Mentor(s): Make use of Remote Desktop-Sharing feature in Zoom / Microsoft Teams / Google Remote Desktop to provide remote assistance and support to ATL students.

Role of ATL In-charge: Assist ATL students on using or enabling remote desktop-sharing / giving or receiving remote-control during online sessions with Mentors or students.

Submit your Initiative

Put to use at least one remote desktop-sharing tool for the benefit of students and Mentors in your ATL. Submit the link / screenshot(s) / video-recording of the desktop-sharing tool being used in your ATL.

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