Florida's OCPS Adopts ClassLink for Digital Resource Access

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 06/01/15

A large district in Florida has simplified online access to digital resources and files for its users. Orange County Public Schools recently adopted ClassLink LaunchPad, which provides single-sign-on, file access, class storage and calendars and collaboration capabilities. The school system has 192,000 students and 23,000 teachers and other staff.

"We were looking for a cloud-based, single sign-on solution that would provide easy access to resources for students and staff and also fully support Google Apps integration and we found it in ClassLink," said Mariel Milano, director of digital curriculum at the district.

A major aspect of the adoption was LaunchPad's LTI compliance. Learning Tools Interoperability is a specification developed by IMS Global Learning Consortium to pull together multiple applications into a learning management system or portal, such as LaunchPad.

According to the company, Orange County is the latest of several Florida districts that had adopted ClassLink in the last several years. In 2014 Brevard County also deployed LaunchPad to its 80,500 users.

"I'm not surprised that ClassLink is gaining traction in Florida. Our districts are large and very diverse," said Matthew Frey, Brevard's education technology manager. "ClassLink allows us to promote a core set of digital tools to all schools, while also letting students and teachers customize the apps they see."

LaunchPad was a 2015 SIIA CODiE education award finalist in several categories: best classroom management solution, best education cloud-based solution and best educational app for a mobile device. Other products won in those categories.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

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