AACPS OIT Byte

Written by Tracey Brown - Instructional Technology Academic Specialist   I’ve been around in AACPS long enough to remember a time before we had Classlink. Honestly, that probably isn’t a big feat! Many of us remember the days of the splashpages that we built and set as the homescreens to help students and staff get to their everyday applications with just a click or two. Classlink made things even better, by not only giving you a button to get to the application, but by signing you into it automatically too. At this point, I don’t know what I would do without it! That is why I am sometimes puzzled when I see Classlink load and instead of someone clicking the sign-in button, they quickly open a new tab and go to google.com so they can type in http://nearpod.com . When I ask why they don’t just use Classlink, they often roll their eyes and say something like, “Ugh, I hate that page! I can’t find anything!” If you are one of the people who navigates away from Classlink without giving ...

by Debbie Ray, Office of Instructional Technology Teacher  Specialist Many of you may remember the Office of Instructional Technologies’, Splash Page. This was great as it helped users access approved applications in one place. The problem was that users had to sign-in to all those applications which took up very valuable instructional time, and you could not customize your page. So the county needed a customizable application that would provide a way for all users to access applications without having to login multiple times. ClassLink provides that single sign-on solution that enables teachers and students to access web-based applications on any device. There may be some applications that need a login, but ClassLink is the portal that opens the door to all of the applications in AACPS.  Believe it or not, we have had ClassLink for about five years now. What an asset it has become for teachers and students! I know as I accessed ClassLink each day, I wondered if I could change...