Spotlight on: Clever Portal

In this first Spotlight post, we want to focus on one of our most fundamental tools for teaching and learning with technology - the Clever portal! For those familiar with Clever already, there are some feature updates in this post that will get you up to speed for the coming year. Read on!

Clever icon

What Is Clever?

Clever is the service that gives us one-click access to many of our digital learning tools, without extra login steps. It does this by acting as a go-between for PowerSchool and other software services we use. With Clever's help, we can log in one time only to access many other learning platforms...tools like Star Assessments, our math textbooks, and much more. 

What Do I Do With It?

Well, if you're a teacher, the first thing to do is bookmark it! Our Clever login page is linked here, but you can also install the Clever Chrome Extension to get quick access to it from your Chrome browser's toolbar.

Select any app from the District Page to sign in instantly with your WRSD account. You will notice that many of these apps don't just sign you in automatically; they also automatically create sections and rosters that conform to your PowerSchool teacher schedule. These rosters are updated every 24 hours so that you don't have to create or manage classes in Clever-integrated platforms. This also means that it will take up to 24 hours for student name changes and class transfers to be visible.

Your students, on the other hand, will be presented with the Clever portal as soon as they sign into a district Chromebook. They will be able to select and open all of the learning apps that the district has enabled for their grades and subjects. For example, this year, all students will see a Google Classroom link, but only middle school students will see a McGraw Hill link.

New for this year!! Your teacher Homeroom page, which is the landing page you see when you sign in, has an updated look and feel this fall. Now, instead of seeing the list of District apps out front, you see My Teacher Pages instead. You can select District Page in the upper part of the page to view the entire list of district-managed apps and links.

Clever Homeroom Screenshot

What Should I Explore?

Consider adding material to your Teacher Page and directing students to it, especially if:
  • your younger students struggle to find the correct app in the big District list
  • you want to highlight a different set of apps for different classes you teach
  • you want to post a link to an important file, site, or form, right alongside our learning apps
Clever has created an interactive walkthrough of the Teacher Page feature. It's VERY short (about 3 minutes to click through), but helpful. For a slightly more in-depth look, here's Clever's introductory video on the topic.

Potential Pitfalls & Time Sinks

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Some of Clever's additional features overlap with other tools we frequently use at WRSD. There are things that can now be done in Clever, but that doesn't necessarily mean you should. In the interest of completeness, here are some of the features that we think are unlikely to make it into your regular work routines. 

There is a built-in Messages area that allows teachers to send announcements and direct messages to students and families. However, we find that most teachers use Google Classroom and email to communicate with students and email contact groups or PowerSchool to communicate with families.

You can now share your Teacher Page with other staff in the district. This can be helpful in sharing resources you have curated with paraprofessionals working in your room, for example. However, it does not grant your fellow staff members co-teacher access to your Clever-enabled apps. If you need other staff to access student work in tools like Securly Classroom or Great Minds/Eureka Math, please file a Mojo Helpdesk ticket and IT staff will arrange it. As always, if you need to add co-teachers in Google Classroom, you can do that yourself on your class's People page.

The Library of apps that Clever markets to teachers is useful for browsing, but please know that it includes apps that require a paid subscription. Therefore, you may come across a tool that you will not be able to access. If you're looking for the right learning app for your lesson or unit, your best bet is to contact your Tech Integration Specialist for assistance. If a new app is selected for the situation, we will work to add it to the Clever portal and manage it at a district level. 

In the Classes area, you can use the Launch app feature to force your students' Chromebooks to open a new tab and sign them into a particular learning app. This can be a useful time-saver in settings like the lower elementary classroom. Many teachers prefer to use Securly Classroom to accomplish this because Securly also provides additional oversight features, such as monitoring student screens.

That's it for this spotlight! If you have feedback or questions about the Clever's features to explore or maybe ignore, let your Tech Integration team know!

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