How do I get started with LearnPlatform?

This guide aims to help you get started with LearnPlatform. For more information about our professional learning and consulting services, you may contact [email protected].

Set Up Your LearnPlatform Account

Before you get started, please make sure that @learnplatform.com is a whitelisted domain in your email client and/or for your district's email provider.

You also need to have an Organization Administrator role in LearnPlatform who will be the main contact for your organization. LearnPlatform will set one administrator after they've submitted the pre-implementation survey provided by your Customer Success Manager. From there, this administrator can add more administrators to your LearnPlatform instance.

Add Administrators

We recommend that you add administrators who have access to the following:

  • Google Admin and/or Microsoft InTune (if applicable)
  • Identity Provider and experience setting up Single Sign-On
  • Jamf Pro (if applicable)
  • Student Information System (SIS)
  • PD resources and contracts for edtech products

Set Up Usage Dashboard Data Sources

Student and Educator Browser Extensions

To capture and analyze edtech usage data from web-based products accessed when users are logged into Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge browsers, you can install the LearnPlatform Browser Extensions for students and educators. Once you install the extensions, your usage data will display in the Inventory Dashboard.

Notes:

  • You will need Google Admin or Microsoft Intune access to set these up.
  • Make sure you have provided your Project Consultant with a list of all local domains (e.g. schoology.yourdistrict.org). This is to ensure these are tracked appropriately when installing LearnPlatform's browser extension. This can be accomplished either by submitting your pre-implementation survey or by informing your Project Consultant of any additional domains as soon as they have reached out to you.

Jamf Pro

If you use Jamf Pro as your MDM, you can view Jamf-provided information about iOS apps installed across your district directly in LearnPlatform. Then you can use LearnPlatform to manage processes and approval around this category of applications. You only need to perform a basic configuration of your Jamf instance and add your Jamf credentials to the Data Sources tile in LearnPlatform. You only need to perform a basic configuration of your Jamf instance

iOS Extension App

LearnPlatform offers iOS usage tracking for organizations with compatible MDMs and Content Filters. You can view usage events from native or browser-based apps being accessed on the iPads where the extension is installed.

Notes:

  • Our tracking tool does not work with all organizations. We'll share setup instructions after we confirm if it is compatible with your system.
  • If you are a prospective customer, you can work with your sales team member to determine compatibility.
  • If you are a new customer setting things up, your Project Consultant will help you figure out if it is compatible, if this was not already checked during the sales process.

Upload Student and Teacher Rosters

To filter the data from the Inventory Dashboard, upload your student and teacher rosters. This will help you gain more granular insights into your data. Additionally, you can bulk upload user records, which simplifies assigning tasks and developing workflows.

If you want your rosters automatically updated through your SIS, you can use OneRoster.

Notes:

  • To upload rosters, you will need access to your SIS. During the technical setup, your Project Coordinator will guide you and provide the server access information needed to upload the rosters to LearnPlatform.
  • LearnPlatform does not collect or display any student names. Students will also not have access to LearnPlatform.

Setup Single Sign-On

LearnPlatform supports one login method at a time: either local authentication or Single Sign-On (SSO). SSO allows any user authenticated by your Identity Provider to access your LearnPlatform account.

You can install SSO using SAML 2.0 and make sure to include your subdomain in LearnPlatform.

Note: Once enabled, our system does not notify your staff that they have access to LearnPlatform.

Conduct Internal Audit

Use LearnPlatform's Extensions Usage Data

Usage Details gathered from the LearnPlatform extension data.

To access data-driven insights about the products being used and installed in your organization, you can add the LearnPlatform Browser Extension.

Reviewing product use for at least 30 days will give you important information for the next steps. This will help you understand how your district uses edtech, including which tools are popular and which ones teachers are using that you may not be aware of.

Review Product Statuses

Once you have reviewed your product usage data, you can continue building your library. You may want to carefully consider your product statuses so they clearly show when a product is approved in your organization.

Product statuses allow your educators to see what is approved, pending, and denied. These three statuses are available to you by default.

If you want to set custom statuses, we recommend staying concise and consistent when naming these. If you have already added products during the account setup phase, you can always change a product's status.

Develop Library Management Plan

A product's Privacy details tab

You may encounter products you are not familiar with when you receive product requests through the Request Workflow or when you completed an internal audit.

To help create a repeatable and manageable process for these products, you can use the following LearnPlatform tools:

  • Product Privacy Tab is the central hub of product information as it relates to privacy and compliance.
  • Product Grades allows educators to provide product-specific feedback.
  • Product Requests is a centralized location for all your product requests and processes.
  • Provider Application is a form you can use to request product information and other details from vendors.
  • Feedback Request is a form you can use to gather feedback from any teacher, group, school, or district and share with stakeholders across the district.
  • Rapid Cycle Evaluations (RCE) helps in conducting an in-depth analysis of product fidelity and effectiveness.

Create Staff Rollout Plan

The following documents, videos, and resources are designed to assist with your LearnPlatform implementation and roll out.

Announce LearnPlatform Implementation

Teacher/Internal Communication

District Library Overview

You can include the following videos in your communication or use them as a reference and develop your own video using your district’s library:

LearnPlatform Introduction

You can use the following sample communication to introduce and announce LearnPlatform to your teachers and staff:

Training Decks

You can use the following as part of your LearnPlatform training or rollout to teachers and district admins:

  • LearnPlatform training deck for admins, which LearnPlatform provided during your onboarding, is designed for LearnPlatform training district admins. 
  • Teacher-specific training deck is a shorter training deck designed specifically for introducing LearnPlatform to teachers. The deck has 21 slides and includes a brief overview of all aspects of LearnPlatform with links to additional resources. 

For more information on how to use LearnPlatform, visit the guides for educators.

Parent Communication about Public Library

You can use the sample communication to parents regarding the Public Library.

LearnPlatform also supports district efforts to provide transparency into edtech tool usage for parents and school community. The following guides show how to create and share a public facing product library:

Admin How-To Resources and Videos

If you are an admin, you can refer to the following guides for more information about product tags, tag groups, and lists:

Set Go-Live Date

Once you have set up your library, you can plan to roll it out with your educators. You can start by sharing an introductory announcement about LearnPlatform. Continue with regular updates and news as you approach the official start date.

Select Core Team and Early Adopters

Train your LearnPlatform Liaisons using the groups feature for three to six weeks before the Go-Live date for the rest of your educators. Gather feedback and iterate.

You can also use the LearnPlatform Training Deck for teachers.

Deploy Public Product Library (PPL)

The Public Product Library

The Public Product Library allows you to communicate edtech product information with parents and other interested parties. To better understand the data categories and documentation, you can explore the Public Library.

We recommend including public-facing documentation such as:

  • Vendor agreements
  • District policies and procedures
  • Tutorials, access codes, links, videos, and activities

Once you have configured and enabled your Public Product Library, you can communicate this feature with parents at your organization and/or via your website or social media.

Note: There is no sensitive information stored in the Public Product Library. You can simply share it via URL and it does not require user authentication.

Engage Your Educators

Professional development requires constantly revisiting product concepts and best practices. We recommend sharing monthly updates about new product additions, celebrating pockets of adoption and use, and letting your educators know you are paying attention to their feedback.

To help keep educators engaged while gaining actionable insights, you can do these activities in LearnPlatform:

  • Invite and incentivize educators to grade products via the product library.
  • Connect with educators that have low usage for approved products to better understand their lack of adoption while gathering best practices from educators that display high levels of product usage.
  • Assign educators as product reviewers to provide their recommendations for product pilots and approvals.
  • Gather your teachers' input on products to make data-driven decisions based on your educator's experience with that product.
  • Conduct professional development (e.g. round-table discussions) to explore Rapid Cycle Evaluation (RCE) results and gain additional insights to make the best decisions for your district.

For additional information or assistance, you may contact [email protected].