“PlusPortals” or “Rediker” (the official name still unclear) has replaced the old school website, Edline. The debut of this new website hit a rocky start as most students, faculty, and parents were unable to successfully create an account. This was mostly due to the fact that Plusportals requires your student email to access your account. This forced many people to try to remember the passwords they created for their student email account back in sixth grade. These passwords most likely followed the pattern of “soccermonkey123” or “dance4ever6000.” As you can imagine, this was a pretty traumatic experience.
Once I was able to jump this hurdle, I logged onto my account for the first time. The blue, white, and gray color scheme contrasts with the red and black theme for Edline; which begs the question, has RMHS lost school spirit?
In my opinion I like the clean look of the homepage, although in some ways it resembles my Instagram bio. All students are now able to look at their picture day pose from last year at least once a day. Students are also constantly reminded of their current grades as an updated grade chart makes up part of the homepage. This particular aspect of PlusPortals unsettles me; instead of having a buffer page before confronting your test grade, now you are forced to view updated grades every time you log onto your account.
On a technical level, PlusPortals falls short compared to Edline. The website tends to take more time to load than Edline. Not to mention, there are so many different tabs, ranging from “demographics” to “attendance”, that make using the website confusing and overwhelming.
Finding a class page or a homework assignment, a once simple task, has become tedious as you have to meander through several different pull downs to access a single folder. Even when you finally find the folder that you are looking for, you have to scroll down to the bottom of the page, before actually uncovering a French worksheet, for example.
I admit, there are some features of PlusPortals that I appreciate such as the little icon that looks like a file cabinet that when clicked on, a homework assignment will be moved to a separate “completed” file; this simple action makes me feel invigorated and accomplished. Although there is some oddity about the name, I enjoy using “PlusPortals,” as it makes me feel as if I going to a school in a future utopian society. PlusPortals is yet another change that students are experiencing this year, and it is not yet clear whether it is for the better or for the worse.