Protect, Deter, Recover: Data Risks in K12 Schools #SXSWedu

Protect, Deter, Recover: Data Risks in K12 Schools 
SXSWedu 2017 Panel

Hosted by Absolute: Empower K-12 staff, parents and community by learning best-practices for digital citizenship, including device safety and security, cyberbullying and Internet crime. Learn how to promote a healthy environment for students and faculty, including education on device safety and scenarios where they may be at risk; and how to work with local law enforcement to protect devices and data. Harold Reaves, Level V Certified in Homeland Security, shares best practices to protect student-assigned mobile devices and risks regarding social media and the Internet; and education consultant and former IT director can provide real-life scenarios, lessons and best-practices.


Empower (Educate) K12 Staff, Parents, and Community

Students don't think much about safety and security. Parents may think a lot about it but don't necessarily know what to do.

Communities expect we manage devices paid for by their tax money well. There's also an expectation that we protect students when we give them access to devices and send devices home with them. Helping parents have a role and responsibility in this is important.

Use your website and other communication tools to help educate parents with videos and other modes of information.

Show that your organization understands their responsibility by making it a community collaboration to help keep students safe.

Educating community members who are not tech savvy can trickle down and help everyone.


Digital Citizenship

Schools and districts often have curriculum for digital citizenship, but it is just as often not implemented because it's not tested.

Students are connected to devices 24/7. They rarely unplug.

Digital citizenship cannot be taught one time in drive-by lessons. It has to be continually taught, retaught, and revisited.

Do students know they should keep their devices out of sight when they aren't using them to protect them?


Work With Local Law Enforcement to Protect Devices and Data

When doing a big new tech rollout, get local law enforcement involved from the beginning. They can consult with you on how safe your site is where you are storing the devices. Also it's good to establish the communication with them ahead of time in case technology should disappear later.

Publicize to the community the security measures you have in place on district devices.  This lets them know you are being a good steward of the resources and also may help deter theft.


Protect Student-Assigned Mobile Devices

Teach students how to treat them properly: carry them, store them, etc.

Data Risks

Are we teaching data backup? What happens if a child drops and breaks their device. Teach good data stewardship.


Find Partners to Help You With Awareness Programs

Pro-active training strengthens the reputation of your program and builds public confidence. Districts can demonstrate they have taken measures.

Absolute has developed a curriculum for mobile device safety training.


What do you thing is the most common security issue facing students and teachers today?

Device security.

Putting out too much info on the internet. Lack of awareness of how this could endanger them.

Not thinking about how much personal information they are giving over to apps and extensions when they install them. (Think of all the access an extension might ask for when you install it in your browser. Do we ever even read that?)

Recommended video: Privacy is Dead; Get Over It


Online Resources

• Common Sense Media
• Digtal Citizenship Webquest
• Tech Learning
• Elements of Digital Citizenship
• Edutopia
• Microsoft Security and Safety Site
• Raising a Digital Child

Absolute Resources

• IDC White Paper
  Student Technology Analytics: How K12 Leaders Make the Case for Better Technology in the Classroom
• Safe Schools Program
  Absolute Safe Schools Program Helps Promote Safe Digital Citizenship
• www.absolute.com 

*********************************************************************************All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

Your Kid's Future Depends On Their Online Behavior Now

Photo by Paul Hocksenar
Used Under a Creative Commons License

Whether you are a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, pastor, educator, or any other adult who has a vested interest in or cares about a child, teen, or young adult, I hope your care extends to what the young people in your life are doing online.

Do you understand how much of their future could be depending on the things they are posting right now on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Vine, or pick-whatever-social-media-tool is popular today? Do they understand it?

Based on what I see kids in my own community posting on Twitter, I think there's a huge lack of understanding out there.

I've read stories and talked about them over and over and over, but I don't think my retelling of such tales has any impact. At least, not as much as the original tales themselves should have.

So, I started collecting the stories, including direct interviews of and original Tweets posted by those who may hold the future opportunities of kids just like the ones you care for in their hands. You'll see many examples relating to athletes, but there are non-athlete examples as well.

Maybe seeing these stories will convince you as a caring adult to not bury your head in the sand and ignore the online behavior of the kids your care about. Or maybe showing these original examples to the kids you care about will help you educate them and get their attention. I don't know. But having this resource can't hurt.

I am using an online tool called Storify to curate these stories, and I will continue adding to the list. So feel free to bookmark or favorite or pin this post and revisit it on occasion.

And please, do more than just save it to your list of resources. Use the information here to educate yourself and others that the online actions of immature young people can slam shut doors of future opportunity for them. Use the information to convince yourself that you aren't being nosy or intrusive or overbearing when you take an interest in what the kids in your life are doing online and offer them advice and guidance. If you're an educator, come up with ways to integrate this topic into your classroom, even if it's just an occasional informal discussion. If you're a parent, use it as a reason to set clear expectations for online behavior early on with your tweens.

Here's hoping for a bright future for all of the kids we love and care for...

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 All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

Digital Citizenship Chat Preview for June 11, 2014

Image Source

Hello everyone! Tonight it's my turn to moderate Digcit Chat, and since the questions require some reflection back on the current school year and looking ahead to the next one, I thought I'd give a preview of the questions. So, if you have time, check them out and get your wheels turning, then join us at 7:00 PM ET / 6:00 PM CT / 5 PM MT / 4 PM PT for an hour of chatting!

Here are the questions for tonight:

• Q1: What was your biggest win or success regarding #digcit and your Ss and/or fellow Ts this past school year?

• Q2: What was your biggest challenge regarding #digcit and your Ss and/or fellow Ts this past school year?

• Q3: What is something you will definitely do again or continue doing regarding #digcit next school year?

• Q4: What is something new you’d like to try or something you’d like to do differently regarding  #digcit next school year?

• Q5: How can you continue to promote #digcit among Ss and Ts during the summer?

• Q6: What topics would you like to see discussed in #digcit chat next school year?

If you've never participated in a Twitter chat before, #digcit is a great chat to start with, as it usually has a manageable number of chatters. A Beginner's Guide to Twitter Chats will give you a nice overview of what to expect.

Basically, get on Twitter a couple of minutes before the chat starts, search for the #digcit hashtag, and then respond to the Tweets you see with that tag for the next hour! Another tool you might want to try is TweetChat, a website which makes it easy to focus just on the Tweets from the chat you are participating in.

Hope to see many faces old and new in tonight's chat!





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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

Resolve to Promote Truth

Photo courtesy photos-public-domain.com

OK educators. It's time to put the skills you have to work with ALL of the people in your lives, not just the ones you call your students. This may also include yourselves.

It's time to promote self-restraint. And critical thinking. And research skills.

It's time to be OK with gently correcting even the adults in your life.

Why this call to action? Because I firmly believe that until we can promote the idea that ALL of us, regardless of age, are responsible for conducting ourselves wisely online, convincing our young people to be responsible digital citizens will be an uphill, frustrating, and in the long run a losing battle.

An area where I believe we can easily make an impact is in the area of promoting the truth. Stated another way, let's resolve to

• Not pass along information without doing some quick fact checking. 
• If you don't have time to fact check, just don't pass the info along.
• Let people know when they are sharing incorrect information and ask them to delete and post a correction.
• In the process, teach others how to do their own quick fact checking.

An Example of How to Promote Truth

Following through on a resolution to promote truth is not all that difficult. Here is a scenario which played out for me earlier this fall:

• A friend posted an address on Facebook where people could send cards to wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington D.C.
• Thinking it was a good idea, but wanting to be sure it would truly work, I went to my favorite rumor checking website, snopes.com, and searched for Walter Reed cards for soldiers and quickly found that the address shared by my friend would not work.
• I then posted a comment on my friend's Facebook post, sharing that the information was inaccurate and that Snopes is a good place to check on these types of things before sharing. Then, I gently suggested she might want to take it down and let the person who shared it with her know as well. (She did take it down!)

That's how easy it was. Instead of clicking Share without thought, I took about five extra minutes to confirm that what was being said was true. Hopefully, anyone else who saw this play out will  hesitate the next time they are about to share information and take a moment to check.

Develop Your Suspicion Muscle

One thing we all need to do is become more suspicious of the things we read online, especially the ones that are "feel good" (like sending Christmas cards to soldiers) or "cries for help" (like missing children alerts). Often these tales started out true. Many missing children posts began as truth. A lost stuffed animal's journey began as truth, but I continue to see the picture of the "missing" lion popping up on Facebook, even though the story has already had its happy ending.

Here are some of the types of posts that almost immediately make me pause and verify before sharing:

• Reports of the death of anyone famous
• Requests to help find missing people
• Photographs circulating during and after disasters (Just look at all the pics supposedly related to Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy. Anyone ever heard of Photoshop?)
• Any report of a scandal
• Stories/photographs that support a specific political point of view. (Even the views I agree with. Especially those! Why would I want to damage a cause I believe in by spreading falsehoods?)

It is hard to categorize everything that gives me pause, which nowadays is almost anything. But whenever I experience a mental "Hmmm..." alert after seeing something online, especially when social media is the first place I see it, I

• Head to Google where I specifically look for news references if it is a current event topic. And I try to find verification on two or more sites.
• And/Or I go to snopes.com if it seems to be something that might have been around for a while.

Whether I verify the information or not, if I choose to correct or reshare, I always include a link to a reliable source with the information. Again, hoping to model appropriate sharing for my online connections.

I Hate to Say it, but We Need to Trust Less

In the digital age, it is too easy to spread inaccurate information. Many of us who remember getting information pre-Internet have not made the mental transition from the days of print media and the days when news came to us only through networks on television. We trusted that what we read and heard from journalists had been verified. Frankly, many people, regardless of their age, are just gullible, assuming if it's online, it's true.

Today, anyone is capable of being a "journalist," of sharing the latest "news." People with zero journalistic training from your high school friend on Facebook to a social media specialist hired by a news or pseudo-news organization. Some of those specialists prioritize getting visits to their site and shares of their information far above sharing accurately. So it benefits us and those in our circles if we treat the information we encounter with healthy suspicion, and verify before we share.

Who's With Me?

As I write this, one year is ending and another is beginning. But no matter when you are reading it, I hope you will join me in a resolution to promote truth. 

I would love it if you would share in the comments below your thoughts on this topic, ways you verify information which finds you online, or information you shared a correction on because you found it to be false. It will be encouraging to know we have partners in the truth crusade! :-)

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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

Excited to Join the Digital Citizenship Chat Team in 2014! #digcit

Digital citizenship is a topic that has become increasingly important in recent years as young people and adults alike negotiate what it means to be a participant in the largely public and searchable online world. Hardly a day goes by where we don't hear a story in the news about someone making a misstep in the digital realm that translates into consequences for them and those around them. These issues span a spectrum including cyberbullying, lack of professionalism leading to job loss, and online posts leading to indictment and incarceration.

What we don't hear enough about are the positive aspects of engaging online. Sharing ideas in areas of interest or expertise through blogging, creating a portfolio of our best work to show off to colleges and  prospective employers, and coming together to raise awareness of a cause are just a few of the ways people of any age can leave a positive impression of themselves as citizens online.

Digital citizenship has been a huge interest of mine for several years now because I think we can never discuss it enough or continue to grapple with topics related to our online conduct. Which is why I'm excited to have been invited to become part of the Digital Citizenship Chat team! On the second and fourth Wednesday of each month, you can find #Digcit chat on Twitter.

I was going to take time here to tell you all about it, but one of the advantages of being on a team is no one has to do all of the work alone. Below is a Smore digital poster designed by one of our team members to tell you all about the first 2014 chat taking place January 8th at 8 Eastern / 7 Central as well as introduce you to all of the team members. I hope to see you at one or more of the #Digcit chats in 2014!



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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.