Student Login Strategies, Tips, and Tricks

When deciding what to use as student logins school districts, teachers, and admin face a dilemma of what to use.  Do you create new accounts for each program or tool that are simple so that younger students will not have a hard time logging in, then you have to worry about what to do with these accounts as students get older and they need to use a more complex login.  Do you use the same type of accounts that students will be using later on in their school career, which are more complex and harder for students to learn.

Teachers don't get much say when your district controls the logins of certain district used programs, but teachers do use other programs and have to decide if they want to use the district standard so that students don't have to remember so many usernames and passwords.  This is a tough decision, but some solutions and tricks can be done to help.  These are not all my ideas, but are strategies that I have seen around my district.

Option 1:  You choose to have one complex login for most programs.

Tips to help students and teachers in the classroom:

1. Allow Time the first time you log in.  I like to talk through the logins and patterns that are used in their accounts.  Is there a pattern you can point out how many numbers or letters in the log ins.  Does everyone have the same ending @____.org(.com).  Do passwords have the same number of characters.
2. Have a Plan.  Can you have races to see who can login the fastest.  Can you set a goal time to have the whole class logged in by, or can you set in place helpers that can help slower students.
3. Remember Students can and will be able to log in quickly.  If you use this same generic login for some game related or program, students really enjoy using, they will learn it.  Especially if they have free time at the end of the day and you tell students they can login and use this program but you cannot help them.  They will learn it.  

Option 2:  You have multiple logins for students.

Tips to help organize the processes:

1. Have something to organize student logins.  One example is to get paint sample strips from the hardware store and write different logins for each program on a different paint color.
2. Be clear which login that you will be using for a given activity.
3. Create log ins for each program that are similar for all students so you can reference patterns and other qualities of the login during the login process. 

  Tech Tip / Tech Tool

Classrooms with 1 iPad could be using the iPad to collect example pictures or videos of students doing procedures correctly.  This creates a collection of examples for teachers to use to redirect students when they are not doing something correctly.  Also one other tip would be collecting reading samples of students using the iPad.  Video students reading a passage upload it to Google Drive, or a Google Site so students can compare their growth throughout the year.