Why use Clever? I remember that when I was in first grade, I had all my passwords memorized. Now, people are getting lazier, and lazier, and even some Rosemont students use Clever badges to sign in, as nothing needs to be memorized. First of all, did you know that Mr. Laing was one of the people who brought Clever to our district? If you look on the Clever website home page, you will see this:

Mr. Laing said that the district got Clever because every time the district got a new curriculum, “…they all came with an online platform.” Clever makes this easier to manage.

Sometimes, people question the safety of Clever, so I asked Mr. Laing what he thinks about this subject. He said that when the district was choosing Clever, they looked at how they used the information they were given, and decided that it was safe. Mr. Laing says that the chances of Clever getting hacked are very low because hackers usually hack something when money is involved. He also mentions that you can sign into Clever using a QR code, which requires not memorizing, while google single sign on that the district used before clever, still required you to memorize your chromebook sign in information, which is a big advantage for Clever.

Another thing that you might be wondering related to school tech is: “How does the school have a router powerful enough to cover the whole entire school?” Well, they don’t. Each classroom has a small, squarish-looking thing on the ceiling that has a blue light on it. That is what serves as a router for each classroom.

The district has about 25-26 thousand students, and everyone has a chromebook. But it takes only 1-3 people to manage all of the Chromebooks in the district. And don’t think that no one knows if you try to go on a blocked site. If you see the Umbrella Chromebook Client extension block a page, a report gets sent to the district. Though accidents happen, if you go to a blocked page many times, a district or school official might talk to you.