Tuesday Tech Tip: Parent access for COLE 3.0/Schoology

One of the great things about our updated version of COLE is the parent interface and some of its potential for communication and group interaction.  However, unlike COLE 2.0 (which used Moodle), parents will not access using the PowerSchool login.  And unlike Edmodo & Moodle, parents will not need a code to create an account or join a course.  

As we posted earlier, courses & groups can be made public, which means that a login wouldn't be required.  However, if you want parents to see specific information about their student, including work submitted and assessment feedback, how do they access COLE 3.0/Schoology?

Like teachers and students, parent will access COLE 3.0/Schoology using http://my.cherrycreekschools.org.  When they get to the login screen, s/he will log in using the account created for online parent forms.  (If you have a parent who logs into my.cherrycreek but can't get to COLE 3.0, it is likely that the parent has an existing account with that email somewhere in Schoology's system.  Disassociating their CCSD parent forms email from their existing Schoology account should solve the problem.)

Once logged into my.cherrycreekschools.org, parents will see several "tiles" that pertain to them. Clicking on the COLE 3.0. tile will take them directly into Schoology.  

Parents should be automatically associated with their children, so they will not need to enroll in courses or groups.  All children associated with the account can be selected using the pull-down arrow in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.


For parents who don't have a parent forms account or need to create another one, there is an option on the my.cherrycreekschools.org login page to "create a new account."  

To create a new account, parents need to know some specific information about his/her child, including the student  ID#.  Admissions will verify that the parent is one of the legal parents listed as a contact for that student.  If the information provided matches exactly to the Admissions system, an email will be sent to the parent’s email address.  The parent will need to click on the link in the email to finalize the creation of their my.cherrycreekschools.org account. 

New parent accounts will be able to access Schoology using this account within 24 hours, provided that they followed the steps above and Admissions was successful in verifying the parent.

Schoology Help has a section specifically targeting parent users, so this would be a good link to pass along as questions arise.  

Tuesday Tech Tip: Privacy & Visibility in COLE 3.0/Schoology

Using COLE 3.0?  Here are a few tips for making your course and individual course items accessible or hidden.

Course Privacy Settings

1)  Be sure to check privacy settings for your courses (available under the pull-down for “Course Options” underneath the course picture).  The default setting is that folks in CCSD can see course information (description and meeting times), updates, materials, and calendar.  A teacher can either make those areas more open (Everyone or Schoology Users) or more restricted (School, Course, or No one), depending upon the needs of the course and teacher. Rosters are always only accessible to people enrolled in the course.

Individual Availability

Folder Availability

2)  Be sure that you hide anything that you don’t want students to see yet.  You can either do this at the folder level (use the settings wheel and choose “Availability”) or the individual item level (use the settings wheel and choose "unpublish"). You can also hide items as your create them using the green visibility icon in Advanced options.

3)  Anything you create goes into your “Materials” list.  If you don’t want students to see certain categories and/or only want them to see items that you put into course folders, click “hide” for the different categories in the Materials list.  This also makes your course page look a bit cleaner.

If you want to see what kids can see, you can either do this by clicking on a student in the Members area and choosing "Preview" course from the settings wheel or you can choose "View Course As" under the "Course Options" pull-down underneath the course picture.