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How do I best prepare to administer CaliforniaColleges.edu lessons?

This article was last updated onDecember 2, 2024

Follow these steps to prepare for your work with students on CaliforniaColleges.edu.

Two Weeks Before Lesson

Logistics

  • Confirm date, time, location, and group of students who will participate in the lesson. You may need to meet with your CCGI Site Lead, counselors, or teachers to gather this information. 

Account Management

  • Sign in or register your account on CaliforniaColleges.edu.
  • Pull the report, How many students have accounts on CaliforniaColleges.edu at our school site? to see who has or hasn’t registered accounts. Check out our How to Confirm Student Account Registration tutorial for detailed instructions.
  • If students haven’t registered their accounts, consider asking them to register ahead of the scheduled activity.

Technology

  • Verify which computers students will use with the appropriate technology person or administrator at your site.
  • Confirm computers have been reserved.
  • Confirm there are enough computers.
  • See if a shortcut to CaliforniaColleges.edu can be put on each computer’s desktop. 
  • Ask the appropriate site or district technology person if there are any limitations on the district network related to bandwidth and/or the blocking of websites. 
  • If needed, ensure CaliforniaColleges.edu is on the approved website list.  

One Week Before Lesson

Logistics

  • If you haven’t already, reach out to your Site Lead to ensure they know about your planned activity. 
    • Ask if the district or site has password convention recommendations or requirements. 
    • Ask if the district is enforcing a district email domain for usernames.
    • Ask if the district would like students to use Google sign-in.
  • Meet with your CCGI Site Lead and/or any other co-presenters for 20-30 minutes to review the lesson. 
    • Discuss your site’s use of student worksheets that are part of the lessons. You may want to pre-print student worksheets in case you have any new students who don’t yet have an account on CaliforniaColleges.edu or if you encounter any internet issues.

Technology

  • Meet with the CCGI Site Lead or appropriate site technology person to ensure they’re aware of possible support requests on the day of your activity.

Two Days Before Lesson

Logistics

  • Print any necessary materials (as determined in your previous meeting).
  • Review and prepare any examples related to the lesson. For example, if researching colleges is a part of your lesson, you may want to pull up a few examples ahead of time to acquaint yourself with the information found on the college facts sheets.
    • This is also helpful in the event that internet access is unavailable or the website becomes bogged down. It’ll give you talking points you can use with students. 

Account Management

  • Check out the Student Account Management tutorials on our Tutorials page.

Technology

  • Ensure you’re clear how students sign in to your school computers. If you have questions, ask your CCGI Site Lead or site technology person.

One Day Before Lesson

Account Management

  • Run the How many students have accounts on CaliforniaColleges.edu at our school site? report again (see our How to Confirm Student Account Registration tutorial for detailed instructions). Find remaining unregistered accounts and ensure you see all of your students reflected in the report.
  • Consider following-up with students who haven’t registered. Ask them to register now.
  • Note any students who don’t have accounts. Depending on their account type, you may need to update their information in your district’s Student Information System (Partner Accounts) and/or in the files your district sends to the California Department of Education (Basic Accounts).
    • If you have any questions regarding this process, please Contact Us.
    • After you’ve confirmed that an account has been created for the student, instruct them to register their account. Consider using our How to Register Your Student Account tutorial.

Technology

  • Sign into your CaliforniaColleges.edu account to test the tools you’ll be using. If you encounter any issues, contact your CCGI staff Point-of-Contact.
  • Consider asking a student or two to also sign in and review the tools. You can also ask a student assistant or college office secretary.

Day of Lesson

Logistics

  • Make sure you have the key or other credentials to access the computer lab or carts.

Account Management

  • Be prepared to create single student accounts if there is a new student or if a student has been left out of the file upload to CCGI. 

Technology

  • Go to CaliforniaColleges.edu and test the tools you plan to use. If you encounter any issues, contact your CCGI staff Point-of-Contact.

Troubleshooting Suggestions

Follow these steps to resolve issues that may arise during a lesson.

Account Management

We have made every effort to simply the sign in process.  However, we know signing in is a common challenge for students. 

  • If you’re in a Partner District, Student Accounts are generated from the transcript file your district sends to CCGI on a recurring basis.
    • If a student is new to the district and was not part of the district’s last transcript file upload to CaliforniaColleges.edu, the student must wait until their information is included in the district’s next file upload to CaliforniaColleges.edu for their account to be created.
    • If a student can’t register their account, search for the student from within your Educator Account.
      • If you don’t see the student, contact your CCGI Site Lead to alert them that the student hasn’t been included in the CCGI transcript file.
      • If you do see the student, verify the student is entering the correct ID number (local or SSID) and birthdate.
      • If the registration attempt continues to fail, contact your CCGI staff Point-of-Contact or Contact Us. 
    • If you or your students forgot your passwords, you can reset your passwords in real time. Direct students to our How to Reset Your Password tutorial for detailed instructions.

Technology

  • CCGI monitors the responsiveness and activity on CaliforniaColleges.edu in real time. In most cases, we can see issues ahead of any reports of slowness. When we know of classroom activities, we’ll alert the appropriate educators ahead of time. However, there are times when we’re unaware of activities happening. 

Clear Cookies and Browsing History

It’s always a good idea to clear cookies and internet browsing history. Work with your CCGI Site Lead, site or district technology person to do this for the computers your students will be using. You may consider taking this step the day before your lesson. If you can’t get support, follow these steps to clear cookies and browsing history yourself. 

Steps for Google Chrome Users

  1. On your computer, open Chrome. On your browser toolbar, click More > More Tools > Clear Browsing Data.
  2. In the Clear browsing data box, click the checkboxes for Cookies and other site data and Cached images and files.
  3. Use the menu at the top to select the amount of data that you want to delete. Choose beginning of time to delete everything. Note: This option does not appear on all devices. 
  4. Click Clear browsing data.

Steps for Internet Explorer Users

  1. Select Tools > Internet Options.
  2. Click on the General tab and then the Delete button.
  3. Make sure to uncheck Preserve Favorites website data and check both Temporary Internet Files and Cookies.
  4. Click Delete.

Slowness or Tools Not Functioning as Expected

Like any website, there are times when CaliforniaColleges.edu may load slower than anticipated or tools may not function as expected. Follow these steps if CaliforniaColleges.edu doesn’t load for students or is unusually slow or unresponsive. 

  • First try going to a common website like Google to see if that page loads. You are looking to see if another site loads quickly or at all.
  • Contact your site or district technology person to see if there are any district-wide issues with internet connectivity or bandwidth. Confirm there are no firewalls preventing the use of CaliforniaColleges.edu.
  • If your site or district technology person confirms there are no reported issues on the district side, reach out to your CCGI staff point of contact. Share as much detail as possible (time of attempt, page on platform, tool using, etc.) You may also contact us at the bottom of this page if you’re unsure who your CCGI staff point of contact is. 
  • Review CaliforniaColleges.edu Technical Requirements on our Educator Help page.

If you encounter a situation where you can’t use CaliforniaColleges.edu as expected, we recommend the following back-up websites: 

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