Software and Services

Much of the power of the technology in use is thanks to the powerful software packages that Overlake provides and utilizes. The following software packages are used by students, faculty, staff, and parents for learning, teaching, communication, and logistical coordination of all things Overlake. Your Owl ID is at the center of accessing these tools.

Your Owl ID is at the center of your access to Overlake services. It is a single username and password that unlocks access to all the services that Overlake provides. Your Owl ID username and password gives you access to Canvas*, Overlake.org and Veracross Portals. Parents have to setup a separate login and password for SchoolDoc and Vidigami, though we are working to integrate more robust Single Sign-on into those platforms. Parents and Guardians can reset their Owl ID access a forgotten username or password here, and Employees and Students can access a forgotten username or password here.

 

*Note that only parents of students in grades 5-7 can access Canvas as an observer. See the Canvas section below for more information.

What is Canvas?

Canvas is a robust Learning Management System (LMS) utilized by many colleges and universities as well as K-12 schools. To learn more about Canvas visit their website.

What is the role of parents and faculty websites on Canvas?

Two of the primary goals of an Overlake education are to inspire academic excellence and to teach responsibility. As a result, the school has purposefully chosen when it is and is not appropriate for parents to have access to the day-to-day operations of the course. Parents of students in grades 8-12 will have no access to Canvas courses. In grades 5-7, parents can access anything that a teacher shares with the entire class, including assignments, pages, calendar events, etc. Parents cannot view grades, student submissions to teachers, discussions, or private messages between a teacher and a student.

How will I know what is being taught in a course?

We have found that parents are most interested in the scope and sequence of topics. Faculty will provide a copy of the syllabus within the first few weeks of class.

What about access to grades?

Parents currently have access to marking period grades and comments through Veracross Portals.

What technology do I need at home to access Canvas?

Because it's built using web standards, Canvas runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android or any other device with a modern web browser.

Though Canvas supports the last two versions of every browser release, we highly recommend that you use the latest version of Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Apple Safari when accessing Canvas. Visit the Canvas Support page to find the most current list of supported browsers.

The Overlake School provides Microsoft® 365 to all students, faculty, and staff at no cost.

The subscription is free as long as you're an actively enrolled Overlake student.

Microsoft 365 is a cloud-based set of productivity and collaboration tools that will provide students with anywhere access to email, documents, and calendars. Overlake students will receive the following services as part of the Microsoft 365 package:

  • Communications tools like Teams and Outlook for collaboration with peers and Overlake faculty and staff 
  • Unlimited storage for files in OneDrive (online storage space)
  • Free access to the latest web-based version of the Microsoft 365 applications
  • Licensing to download the latest version of Microsoft 365 on up to five devices including smartphones and tablets (devices must connect to the internet once every 30 days to renew their Microsoft 365 software license)

How to access your Microsoft 365 Account

Go to https://portal.office.com.

Log on using you Owl-ID@overlake.org and password.

If you want to forward your email to another account? Auto forwarding in Microsoft 365 is easy. Learn how

Veracross is Overlake's School Information System and contains information from student's class schedules to their applications to family contact information to advancement data to communications and accounting. To that end, employees, parents and students use Veracross Portals to access the following information and perform the following tasks:

  • Access student schedules
  • Update family profile information
  • Access student grades, comments and rubrics
  • Access directories of students, households and employees
  • Access calendars of school events
  • Access invoices and payments

All students, employees and current parents have access to their respective Veracross Portal at https://portals.veracross.com/overlake. Please contact veracross@overlake.org with any questions.

Calendars & Schedules for employees, students and parents can be found on the Calendars & Schedules page on Veracross Portals.

Overlake utilizes a comprehensive digital asset management platform called Vidigami to host photos and videos. Launched for the 2017-18 school year and the school's 50th anniversary, vidigami.com is home to tens of thousands of images organized by year, category, tags and even facial recognition. Email Susan Messier, Director of Communications,  for more information.

Scoir

Overlake utilizes Scoir, to assist families through the college admissions process. View the college counseling page, or email Regina Quiban, College Counseling Assistant, for more information.

Contact

Information Literacy & Technology Help Desk
help@overlake.org
425-602-7007