San Francisco-based startup, Clever, is safeguarding data for about one-third of the country’s public and private schools.
Safeguarding student data in an increasingly digital world demands a clever solution. One San Francisco-based startup thinks it has developed the right tool for the job and about one-third of the country’s public and private schools seem to agree.
Clever kicked off its app of the same name about three years ago. The company’s product is designed to address digital age security and logistical issues in educational settings, enabling teachers and districts to more readily use a wide variety of apps to meet their needs.
Just three years after its launch, the Clever app has been officially adopted by 44,000 schools across the country, and its use continues to grow.
Student Cyber Security: A Growing Concern
The digital age has ushered in a variety of tools teachers and districts alike can take advantage of to benefit students. From apps that promote learning to those that help teachers track student progress, these tools have increasingly become commonplace in school settings.
Their introduction, however, has created a logistical and security nightmare for districts and individual teachers themselves. The problems include:
- Difficulty in keeping up with apps and individual password requirements
- Difficulty for districts in tracking app use within individual schools and classrooms
- Concerns about how apps use and store sensitive student information required for their operation
A solution was needed that could streamline app use so teachers and students could enjoy the best tools available while ensuring security and privacy concerns were adequately addressed. Recognizing the need for a single solution, Clever’s developers stepped up to the plate to tackle the task.
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What it Does
Clever is designed to act as a middleman of sorts, running interference between school district databases that store sensitive student data and apps and programs created by third parties. The Clever app enables easier integration while allowing districts to closely monitor the apps used in classrooms and the types of student information required for their use.
Going above and beyond, Clever also vets the security and privacy policies of each app its system is designed to work with. If an app is not fully compliant with federal privacy laws, Clever does not support its use.
The Clever app also addresses a logistical problem teachers and students once experienced. It allows the use of a single username and password to access a variety of apps rather than forcing teachers and students to create multiple accounts to use a particular app. All users need to do is sign into Clever and that program logs them into the apps they want to use at any given time.
The program is designed to put a lock on sensitive data while enabling easier use of technology that is valuable in the classroom. Perhaps sweetening the deal for districts, Clever is made available to them at no charge. The company makes its money by charging app developers to integrate with the system.
Changing the Face of Classrooms
Clever’s widespread adoption points to a growing trend in classrooms across the country. As more useful educational apps become available, teachers, students and districts themselves are flocking to them to meet specific needs. This growing trend is providing a way for districts to move away from one-size-fits-all digital solutions in favor of addressing needs on a classroom-by-classroom basis.
“What’s exciting is schools can buy more apps from more places and create a mosaic of learning software to meet the needs of their specific classrooms,” Clever co-founder and CEO Tyler Bosmeny said.
Clever simply enables teachers to use more software while helping districts make certain use is handled in a “responsible way.”
