In this document:

CAOLA/Genius Student/Guardian Tutorial – page 1

How to access Odysseyware courses – pages 2-4
How to access Accelerate/eDynamic courses – pages 5-7
How to access Apex courses – pages 8-10

When you log into CAOLA (as a parent/guardian or student), you will be taken to a Dashboard. The Dashboard
features different tabs and links that can help to monitor progress and ensure success in CVVA. Useful tools and
tips are listed below:

Tabs on the left-hand side of the Dashboard:

• Messages – Sometimes, we use Genius messages to convey important information to students.
All of these messages can be found here.
• Course Information – This tab will give you the name of your instructor, their email address, and
some information about each course you are enrolled in.
• Academic Snapshot – This is one of the best ways to quickly check progress. The bars will appear
green for on-pace or ahead, yellow for a little behind, and red for very behind. The snapshot
shows current grade, number of assignments completed/left to complete, when you last logged
in, and gives information on number of zeros in the course.
• Suggested Pacing – this shows how far behind you are in each course and what you need to do
weekly to make up your work and be done on time. This tab updates daily. If you do not complete
the ‘Original Assignments’ required, you will have ‘Extra Assignments’ added. Always look at the
‘Total Assignments’ column to see how many you’re required to complete that week.
• Gradebook – Here, you can see all assignments completed in each course with the completion
date, points, and grade earned.
• Student Activity – This shows how many minutes have been logged in each course each day.
• View Transcript – This will show the recorded grade earned at the end of each course.

Academic Snapshot Directly on Dashboard:

The Academic Snapshot on the Dashboard lists course
names, start and end dates, current grade, number of
assignments completed and in total, and pacing—behind,
on pace, or ahead. It looks like this →

**An important note: ALWAYS log in

through Genius, do not log in directly
through your course vendors.

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 How to access your CAOLA courses—Odysseyware
1. Log in with your username and password at https://caola.caiu.org/genius.php
2. When you log in, you will be on your Dashboard. You will see this Academic Snapshot on the front
of your page:

3. Click on any one of the classes and you will be brought to the vendor platform. In this case, I clicked
on Algebra I Foundations and it brought me to the Odysseyware page, where many CVVA courses
are housed. It should look like this:

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4. Click the “Learn” button at the top of your page. It looks like this:

5. This will automatically take you to a page with all of your assignments listed by due date for each of
your courses. You can choose if your view is “Assignments” or “Courses” at the top.

6. If you go to the “Courses” page, for each class, it will show you your current grade, name of your
teacher, number of assignments remaining and progress, how many assignments you are to
complete per day, and how many days you have left to complete each course. All the way to the
right, you will see a colored icon under “Pacing” that will tell you how many assignments behind or
ahead you are, or if you are right on-pace. It will also show the day you started working on the class
and the last day you worked on the class.

The “Courses” page can look something like this once you get started:

7. When you are ready to work, go to the “Assignments” tab and click on the assignment you’d like to
work on.

8. The due dates for all assignments are listed to the left under the header “Due”. If the due date is
orange, it means that you are overdue in that assignment and should get it done as soon as you can.

9. Once you start in an assignment, you will complete it and sometimes, get more than one attempt to
do so. Each assignment should tell you how many attempts you have, if more than one.

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10. You can move from course to course and assignment to assignment as you please. Try to finish an
assignment once you’ve started it so you don’t lose your place or forget what you’re working on!

11. Answers to any questions about more advanced settings within Odysseyware can be found under
the “Help” button at the top of your page:

12. The ultimate goal is to look at your “Courses” page and see that you are on-task for all of them. The
bubble on the right-hand side of your page will be gray and it will say you are on-task under the
“Pacing” header.

If you have any further questions about your classes through Odysseyware, please reach out to your
counselor or the CAOLA Advisor! We are here to help you.

If there is a technology concern (for example, your course will not let you in, you need an access code
for a quiz, etc., you will need to submit a ticket to CAOLA Support. We can help you with that as well.)

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 How to access your CAOLA courses—Accelerate & eDynamic
1. Log in with your username and password at https://caola.caiu.org/genius.php
2. When you log in, you will be on your Dashboard. You will see this Academic Snapshot on the
front of your page:

3. Click on any one of the classes and you will be brought to the vendor platform. In this case, I
clicked Basic Drawing and it brought me to the Accelerate-Ed./Buzz page, where some CVVA
courses are housed (eDynamic courses will look identical). It should look like this:

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 4. To learn more about online learning/if you are new to online learning, click the “start here”
button that looks like this:

To access your course, click on the icon that has the name of your course and it will take you to
the Dashboard for that class, which looks like this for Basic Drawing:

5. You will see all of the modules or units that you must complete throughout this part of the
course. This page will show you the activity you last visited or the activity you are currently
working on so you don’t lose your place. You can also search through the course in the search
bar. Click on each folder to see the assignments and lessons you must work through.

6. At the top of the page, you can view your grades by clicking the following icon. It will show you
the name of the assignment, your score, the date it was submitted, etc.

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 7. If you want to see everything you currently have due, click the “To-Do List” tab.

8. Accelerate features a way to predict your final score by entering projected scores for any
activity. This can help you toward the end of the marking period to see what you need to earn
on each assignment in order to earn a specific grade in the course. Click the “Grades” icon from
step 6, then click “What If”.

9. The amount of time spent in the course and on each individual activity can be viewed under the
“Activity” tab here. It shows start time and duration.

10. The best way to ensure that you are on-pace is to complete all activities in your “To-Do List”.

11. To reach your teachers/graders, you can click on the messaging icon in the top right, which will
open up a message where you can send any questions or concerns. The icon looks like this:

**Please note that while we used an Accelerate-Ed. course to show the platform for these
instructions, eDynamic courses will look the exact same and will follow the same steps.

If you have any further questions about your classes through Accelerate-Ed. or eDynamic, please reach
out to your counselor or the CAOLA Advisor! We are here to help you.

If there is a technology concern (for example, your course will not let you in, you need an access code
for a quiz, etc., you will need to submit a ticket to CAOLA Support. We can help you with that as well.)

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 How to access your CAOLA courses—Apex
1. Log in with your username and password at https://caola.caiu.org/genius.php
2. When you log in, you will be on your Dashboard. You will see this Academic Snapshot on the
front of your page:

3. Click on any one of the classes and you will be brought to the vendor platform. In this case, I
clicked AP US Government and Politics and it brought me to the Apex page, where some CVVA
courses are housed. This will show you your grades and progress in each course, along with any
overdue activities. It should look like this:

If you hover over the Progress bar for each of your courses, it will tell you what percentage you have
completed and whether you are on schedule, ahead, or behind. If you click the red icon under
‘Overdue Activities’ it will show you a list of all activities not turned in on time, how many points
they are worth, and the scheduled due date. These are the best ways to check pacing and stay on-
task in your Apex courses.

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 4. To send a message to your teacher, you will click the plus sign icon next to where it says
‘Messages’ on the right-hand side. To go to your inbox and view all of your previous message
threads, click the ‘View’ button next to the plus sign.

5. Also on the Dashboard is your Calendar. You can click the ‘View’ button here to see a layout of
all lessons/assignments in your Apex courses by date.

The calendar will look something like this:

6. From your Dashboard, to access your course content, simply click on the name of the course and
it will take you to all units for the part you are enrolled in. Across the top, you will be able to see
how many units there are—if they are green and checked off, you have already completed that
unit. If the circle is blue, you are in progress. Any unit you have not gotten to yet will be greyed
out and will tell you how many lessons are in that unit. It looks like this:

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 7. Click into the unit you are currently working on and the system should show you where you left
off. It will say ‘In Progress’.

Anything else you have completed will also be green and checked off.

8. To access Resources for your classes, you will look in the upper left-hand corner. The icon looks
like a briefcase—click this.

All Resource pages look different depending on the course and instructor, but most will include a
‘Syllabus’ link and a ‘Key Terms’ link. There will be an ‘AP Exam Information’ link most of the time if
the course is Advanced Placement.

If you have any further questions about your classes through Apex, please reach out to your counselor
or the CAOLA Advisor! We are here to help you.

If there is a technology concern (for example, your course will not let you in, you need an access code
for a quiz, etc., you will need to submit a ticket to CAOLA Support. We can help you with that as well.)

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