SSO Savior

This week I received a Google Alert for an article from EdSurge called "Here's How Single Sign-On Saved One District 2,500 Hours of Instructional Time Per Month" (McMahon, 2018). Now the skeptic in me saw the 2,500 hours and immediately thought, that can't possibly be correct. However, after reflecting on my school's technology use and issues that arise on a daily basis due to technological issues, I may become a believer just yet.

The main focus of the article is about single sign-on (SSO) technology that allows schools to store all of their apps within one technology. This eliminates the need for countless passwords which ultimately will be forgotten not only by students but by the teachers as well. My district has created google accounts for every student which they can use to log in to any of the COPPA-approved apps or programs that we use online. This year, they have begun migrating all of those apps and programs to a site called Clever, which requires a Google login, but hosts all of those apps in one place so they are easier for students to locate instead of spending valuable classroom instructional time searching for them.

Wendy McMahon writes in the article, "Usernames and passwords were gigantic frustrations among teachers and staff members." "IT staff at our schools reported that teachers were stressed out about logging in to the point where some would just give up on using technology and go back to their regular pen and paper process" (2018). I have personally experienced this frustration with malfunctioning technology or student user-error, especially because students have never been taught how to troubleshoot properly. Often when they have an issue with their device, I ask them if they tried refreshing the page and their response is "Oh, I didn't think of that." Basic technological skills are missing with so many of these kids and we are expecting them to remember a ridiculous amount of passwords and other login information that is taking away from the time that should be spent learning. I can't imagine how frustrating this must be for L2 students who need extra time for their assignments and can't even get their Chromebook login to work because it contains an email or password that they can't remember or spell.

McMahon concludes by describing the positive impact that SSO has had in her school district. She describes the amount of instructional time that teachers have gained back from this technology and can now spend allowing students to collaborate and conduct research without the limitations of a separate login. She also states that SSO helps to improve security because all of the school's data is now encrypted and changing a password in the case of a breach is very simple. Finally, McMahon explains the impact SSO has had on the IT department. The staff can now focus on projects that help the district instead of working on fixing student logins all day long. I have seen this in my own district as well. The tech department spends so much time fixing issues with logins that they are swamped all day long and can't support teachers with other tasks or work on larger projects for the school.

Hopefully, now that we have adopted Clever our school will see an improvement in the IT department's responsivity to tech tickets and other requests and instructional time will not be held hostage by failed login attempts or forgotten passwords.

References:

McMahon, W. (2018, October 1). Here's how single sign-on saved one district 2,500 hours of instructional time per month. Retrieved October 3, 2018, from https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-10-01-here-s-how-single-sign-on-saved-one-district-2-500-hours-of-instructional-time-per-month