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What Makes COOL Unique? 

COOL Easy Login is a service developed by Cloudwise and is a unique solution, offering a single sign-on to a student’s device, Google account, Microsoft account and other educational applications in the same interface at the same time. Taking care that students are able to quickly sign in while increasing account security. 

 

The solution is highly safe and secure. COOL Easy Login provides multi-factor authentication for all elementary students, including students with exceptionalities and multilingual learners without the need for an additional device. The security badges are unique and can easily be reset. To add multi-factor authentication to student accounts, it is possible to use a QR-badge plus a combination of pictures to sign in. Resetting QR badges and pictures can be done by the classroom teachers or IT administrators. A student’s login credentials can be reset individually or as the entire class at once. 

The COOL portal is managed and secured by Cloudwise. Cloudwise COOL is ISO27001, ISO9001 certified and is tested by white hats (ethical hackers) to ensure the security of the COOL platform.  Cloudwise COOL does not sell or provide data to third parties. The only exception is when a customer asks Cloudwise COOL to provide data to a third party. 

Users and student accounts are synced based on a read only solution. COOL creates, keeps and archives in COOL, which users can sign in with COOL Easy Login. No changes are made in Google or the Microsoft environment. This helps to keep the Azure AD flow intact.  The setup of COOL follows the set device organizational units or group, which gives the option to assign COOL Easy Login to specific devices. 

 

Value of COOL Easy Login

 

To assist you in explaining to your teams how COOL can help your school board,  the following values are described for the board level, IT department, in the classroom and how it offers added value to the application/SIS-team.  

Board Level
  • Improved security by allowing for more complex passwords for students to run in the background while decreasing the risk of a successful cyber attack on student accounts (important for insurance claims).
  • Develop a continuum for students with a progression of skills around logins and passwords by introducing MFA- like technology without bringing in phones, tokens or other devices in your Technology Enabled Learning Plan. 
  • MFA-like solution for students which can be used next to the staff and teachers.
  • Working with a European Software Company implies extremely high privacy standards which focus on data collection minimisation and forbids the sharing of data with any third party. 
  • A solution that suits both the teachers and students in the classroom and decreases the workload for IT staff.
IT Department
  • Upgrade to more secure student passwords and password policies. 
  • QR-badges and pictures can be reset by teachers or school based admin, on location without support from IT administrators or tickets to the Help Desk.
  • Allows for the creation of complex passwords, knowing students will not need to use or remember these while they are using their board-managed devices. 
  • Doesn’t interrupt any future changes in implementing new tools, while COOL uses and follows the school standard IDP. 
  • Helps to ensure younger students are able to use devices (we’ve heard from many teachers who avoid using devices because of how long it takes students to sign in!) 
  • Customize the login for each grade by selecting whether students choose one, two or three pictures in their login. 
  • Doesn’t affect any existing IT project. 
In the Classroom 
  • Save students and teachers considerable learning time by using QR-badge and pictures to login instead of time-consuming usernames and passwords. 
  • Create an equitable way for ALL students to access their learning device regardless of their age or ability. 
  • COOL is supported in French. Full technical support can also be provided in French. 
  • Empower students to independently access their digital learning environment. 
  • Teachers can stay in control by printing QR badges and resetting pictures. 
  • SSO to students’ devices, Google and/or Microsoft accounts and connected educational apps and extensions.
  • Equity focus: 
    • COOL Easy Login has been tested for color vision deficiency and low vision to ensure that it is a tool that can be used by all students and supported by all teachers.
    • COOL supports speech to text accessibility and the use of magnifiers in all COOL software.

Application and Student Information System Team
  • Sync with Aspen or Powerschool or Spreadsheet
  • API with Powerschool or Aspen based on Oneroster Standard
  • No need to add more work to staff around uploading new student accounts. The Aspen and PowerSchool OneRoster sync provided seamless integration. 

Moving Forward with COOL

 

According to the school boards we are currently working with, the following dynamics are important to ensure teachers and students adopt Cloudwise COOL Easy Login and utilize it to its fullest potential. In most cases the IT-department is usually the first team who will see the solution and will play an important role in the implementation phase. Especially, in relation to the upgrade in account security that COOL Easy Login gives them, providing  an important reason to move forward. 

However, it is advised to also bring the frontrunners or innovators in the curriculum team forward. They are the  ones who take care that COOL Easy Login is adopted in the classroom rhythm. When the solution is implemented, it is important to organize meetings with the Student Information System team and prepare the first schools who will start working with COOL Easy Login. 

 

Impact when changing to COOL for the IT department

 

With pride we can say that changing to COOL doesn’t have an impact on the organization. Everything is done in the background and even the pre-setup doesn’t bring any downtime. This is because your own IDP Microsoft/Google stays the IDP for all your users and COOL Easy Login runs in the background. When turning on COOL for the users, the login screens will change, however you can still sign in using your username and passwords for all schools, specific schools or even specific groups of users if you choose.

Therefore, COOL does not require a specific implementation window and can be done so during other projects as it doesn’t have an impact on your primary IDP and sign in protocols. Next to this, we do take care to connect SSO to your existing wifi login if needed (also done with AMDSB) to make sure users don’t have to type in a password to the wifi when signing in on the device with COOL Easy Login.