I first stumbled across the concept of Claco on my PLN of choice, Twitter. I began a conversation with someone who was asking about Chromebooks and EdTech. What a fortuitous discovery!
Claco, or Class Connect (as it was previously called), is a mashup of a few different types of sites that have recently come into popularity. Have you used Pinterest? Pin your lesson plans to Pinterest right from Claco! Have you used a site like Share My Lesson? Subscribers can follow your updates and search for your files by keywords. Have you used LiveBinders? You can collect lesson plans, images, and links and organize them into different folders. Claco can do all of these things in one site!
Claco is also focused on aligning lessons to the Common Core State Standards. Though I teach in a parochial school, I want to make sure that all my students are reaching the same standards as any public institution. When you upload or link to a file on Claco, you can tag it with keywords. You can set the grade level, to what subject the file correlates, the Standards it fits, and any other keywords by which you could search for the document.
One of the drawbacks right now (which I’m sure they’re working on) is the ability to find and add subscribers to your list. You can connect Claco to your Twitter and Facebook accounts, but that is mostly for the purpose of spreading the word about newly uploaded items. If you know an educator on Claco, you can type their name in the search box and hit a subscribe button. In the search box, you can also type in a topical area you’re interested in. For example, I typed in “6th Grade Reading” and it came up with a list of users that fit those categories. Very helpful if you don’t know anyone personally. I’m not sure how, but I have gained 11 followers so far! I clicked on their pictures and subscribed back to them.
One last thing that I also really like about Claco is their user interface. The top title bar with the search tool and profile links is quite nice looking. Moving between the stream of updates, binder pages, and other profiles is quite easy. To get back to the main page, just click on the Claco logo.
I am really looking forward to seeing this site explode with new users. They are working on opening up beta access, so sign up and see where it can take you!
I was asked by Claco to write this blog post, but I am not being compensated for it. All opinions are my own.
