As we begin a new school year, everyone is busy setting up classrooms and preparing for students – and this includes the digital space of our classroom! In Issaquah, we use Clever at the elementary level to function as a teacher web presence, a place to curate resources, and a single sign-on. This post will cover some beginning-of-year reminders about Clever, as well as introduce a new highly requested feature – the ability to share Clever teacher pages with others!
Organizing Your Teacher Page with Categories
Consider the organizational flow of your Clever teacher page for both a student and family/caregiver audience. We recommend having a category at the top with the important information for your classroom: your contact information, schedule/calendar, list of important dates such as homework, class expectations, and a general summary of learning. Many teachers choose to include a link to a OneDrive folder with class newsletters as the “summary of ongoing learning” so that it can be easily found by families. In addition to the class information section, you may add other categories such as content-specific links and resources.
Cleaning Up & Adding New Resources
As you are setting up your teacher page, you may also want to do some clean-up (for example, your class information from last year or resources that you won’t introduce quite yet).
You can add new resources in the form of apps, links, and PDFs, though PDFs are not able to be translated. Instead, we encourage you to create links to your OneDrive, where you can upload word documents. This way, families can translate those documents in the language of their choosing. If you would like information or a refresher on how to generate a link to a OneDrive folder, click here for a short video tutorial.
Some teachers also link to the PTA website, school lunch menu, etc. to assist families in using Clever to find the information that they need. Select one of the icons that Clever provides or upload your own image!
You will use the green “Add” button to either search for an app or add a link. For example, if you wanted to add a link to the ISD website, you would follow the same process as above (adding a OneDrive link). You can add/delete resources at any point throughout the year to ensure that your Clever page evolves as your class needs change.
Check Sharing Settings
Once your Clever teacher page is set up and ready to launch, you want to check to ensure that it is shared with the appropriate section. For classroom teachers, Clever will default to sharing with all students that you teach, and there won’t be any action required from you (unless you changed this setting). For specialists who choose to create multiple teacher pages, you will need to edit the sharing so that each page is shared with the desired section. Double-check these settings by clicking on the icon in the top right-hand corner of your teacher page tile.
Introducing Clever’s NEW Feature: Sharing Teacher Pages
New feature alert! Teachers will be able to share their Clever pages with others in the same building!
This has been a highly requested feature of Clever from Issaquah teachers. There are many reasons why sharing Clever pages is going to be extremely helpful. First and foremost, long-term substitutes will have access to the primary teacher’s Clever page and they can copy resources from there, rather than needing to re-create a separate page. Teachers who co-teach or work together closely now have the capability of seeing each other’s Clever page and adjusting or planning their own accordingly. Specialists will be able to see classroom teacher Clever pages to streamline collaboration, and vice versa. Sparking ideas about how to use teacher pages is another great reason to share with others!
Note that you cannot modify another teacher’s page – you can only view it.
Where to Find Teacher Pages & How to Share Them
In your Clever dashboard you will see a section for your teacher pages, as well as the district page (which cannot be altered). A third section now appears with the roll-out of this feature, called “Shared with Me” and this is where you will find any teacher pages that have been directly shared with you.
You will share your teacher Clever page with other teachers in the same way that you share with class sections. Another drop-down will appear where you can share with other teachers in your building directly.
For more information visit this article.
A final note on Clever: Last year, we launched the Clever Parents portal so that families and caregivers could access Clever teacher pages. Families will be automatically invited by the district to sign up for Clever Parents if they do not yet have an account or are new to the district. The best part – there is no action required by you to connect families to Clever or to your new class!
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