Happy summer from the Technology & Innovation department! I know from my conversations with teachers and students over the past few weeks that many of you have been looking anxiously towards summer break this year, and I hope that everyone has a chance to relax and enjoy themselves over the next couple of months.
While our department’s staff are year-round employees, the pace certainly changes during the summer as projects get underway and the day-to-day work feels a bit more relaxed (at least until August). This summer, we’re focusing on a handful of projects, including one project about which I want to go into a bit more detail.
ClassLink / Clever Badge Login Change
Starting today, June 2nd, the District will migrate from using Clever Badges to ClassLink Quickcards as the primary K-2 login method. In a nutshell, rather than holding a Clever badge in front of a Chromebook camera to log in, students will need to hold up their ClassLink QuickCard – which looks very much like a Clever badge – to log in. This change does not impact anyone who logs in with a username/password, as those will not change.
Prior to the end of the school year, our department printed badges for all current students in grades K-3, and they should have been distributed to students by their classroom teacher prior to the end of the school year. Students in grades 4-12 will continue to use their current username and password. The Help Desk will be available over the summer to help provide badges and passwords for all students when needed.
The district will continue to support Clever, and everything that is currently set up in Clever will remain unchanged except for the login screen and home screens on Chromebooks. Clever will be easily accessible by students logging in using ClassLink, as Clever is available from the ClassLink’s LaunchPad dashboard.
The Office of Technology and Innovation has collected and created the following resources that can be utilized to ease the transition to ClassLink Quickcards and will be available to students over the summer who need assistance with the new service.
| Feature | Link | Description |
| Teachers: Quick Guide | Link | Quickstart guide for teachers containing an overview of the most common features. |
| Profile Settings | Link | Overview for customizing icons, themes, colors, and more |
| My Apps | Link | Overview for managing your launchpad (dashboard) |
| Classlink: Student Overview | Link | ICCSD specific student Overview |
| Classlink: Teacher Overview | Link | ICCSD specific teacher Overview |
Other Summer Projects
Beyond the ClassLink QuickCard implementation, we don’t have a ton of summer projects that will have a direct impact on our students, teachers, or families. Our Enterprise Services team will be working throughout the summer to complete lifecycle network upgrades, along with a project to add a secondary data center and internet service for the district, as well as a project to expand Wi-Fi coverage at our outdoor athletic and activity facilities. Our Data & Research Services team is working hard on data product and platform development this summer, while our Client Services team is focused on classroom technology testing and service, along with processing of devices for new students and staff.
In addition to these summer tasks, we’re also focusing heavily on internal professional development this summer. While the COVID-19 pandemic pushed some of our regular cross-training and professional learning opportunities to the backburner, we’re implementing a new catalog of professional development opportunities for our staff over the summer, and are excited to develop our capacity to support our students, staff, and community in new and more efficient ways.