I am a little bit obsessed with finding tools that make it easy to collate and share links to websites. I had a look back through and realised I had blogged three times about this before. The latest, in 2010, being here. I think that it is very important for children to be able to load the internet, be presented with a range of stuff and then access it quickly. This helps to get to the learning quicker and will help reduce potential errors when typing long addresses. There is a time and a place for using Google to find things, but that is not every time you want them to load Education City.
I usually use 3x3links (www.3x3links.com/riders being our current page) to share links and this works well as the children access a website and on there are a list of tools that I want them to get to. I can adapt it in seconds meaning that if they find a useful resource, I can share with others too. This has worked for me for four years and will continue to have a place, but I needed something more. We have a range of online tools and some of them require usernames and passwords. Some also have school codes. One such example is Sumdog. If you go to Sumdog.com, you can’t login with a school account but if you go to a special URL – http://www.sumdog.com/sch/riders-junior-school – then it knows you are from my school and you simply login. Some tools, such as BrainPOP, have provided us with a URL that includes our username and password so by clicking it, you visit the site but log in along the way meaning that there are no usernames to remember.
If I was to include these on our school website, they would be publicly available meaning anyone could get to our paid content for free. We’d be breaking all kinds of licenses too. So I needed a tool that was behind a login screen, but ideally linked to our Google accounts. The majority of children are accessing the internet via a Chromebook so they are logging in to get online and to have a different login would be a bit of a pain.
Around a year ago I became aware of a company called Airhead. They were offering a solution that gave children access to a page or launchpad with a variety of links. I could either use the pre-made links or I could create my own from the huge library.
Adding a tile can sometimes give the option to store the username or password too. I have to admit, this can be a bit hit and miss as to whether it works, but it is improving. I’d like to see the option to add school codes as these are what we use for tools such as Sumdog and Purple Mash.
It takes seconds to make a new page and add it the list that I already have.
I could have a pad for different subjects e.g. Art and photo tools. These can then just grow and grow over time.
Once I have made a page or pad, I simply share this with different users. This has already been setup through our Google Groups so this makes sharing easy.
The children simply click the link to visit Airhead.io and it knows their Google login and signs them into the launchpad that they need. There is also a new feature that removes the need to login at all. This is perfect for our infants, they will simply click the login on the desktop and be presented with a range of links. I have also used this option on our tablets. This is on the home screen of every tablet giving pupils a quick way to load the various tools they need to use.
The tech support has been fantastic so far with questions answered often within minutes. One teacher did point out that I could make a Google Site and only share this with certain users and this would work in much the same way, I just like the simplicity of Airhead so far.
So what do you use for accessing resources online? How do you manage the multiple usernames and passwords that are available?
