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 

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A Conversation Starter for Digital Citizenship

This video from Birdville ISD in Texas is well done and covers several digital citizenship and online safety situations which are relevant to the young students in our classrooms. Additionally, it serves as a great example of a student project. Think how much these young ladies must have internalized about digital ethics by participating in this video! What could your students learn from a similar project?

Must Read NY Times Article on Parenting and Cyberbullying

Yesterday the New York Times published the article As Bullies Go Digital, Parents Play Catch-Up. It received a great deal of buzz on Twitter and with good reason - it's one of the best articles on this subject that I've seen, touching on many sides of this complicated issue.

I reshared it on Twitter and also shared it on Facebook and now I'm blogging about it. I hope after reading the article you will also share it with people in your sphere of influence. Including your own children or students.

Interwoven throughout the article is the story of a young teen boy who was bullied by peers who set up a fake Facebook profile in his name and used it to write nasty comments about others. The targeted teen was ostracized at school because others thought he was bullying them. The lengths his mother went to to intervene for him are instructive regarding the complexity of these issues and the necessity for adults to get involved.

Some quotes from the article which stood out to me included:

Cyberbullies themselves resist easy categorization: the anonymity of the Internet gives cover not only to schoolyard-bully types but to victims themselves, who feel they can retaliate without getting caught. But online bullying can be more psychologically savage than schoolyard bullying. The Internet erases inhibitions, with adolescents often going further with slights online than in person.

“I’m not seeing signs that parents are getting more savvy with technology,” said Russell A. Sabella, former president of the American School Counselor Association. “They’re not taking the time and effort to educate themselves, and as a result, they’ve made it another responsibility for schools. But schools didn’t give the kids their cellphones.”

"This is not a “phone,” Dr. Englander told the parents who looked, collectively, shellshocked. What you’ve given your child “is a mobile computer.”

Comments which readers are making on the article are instructive as well.

This is an issue which will not go away any time soon. Parents, educators, and concerned adults need to get informed and stay informed. One of the commentors on the article said something to the effect that we often let adults get away with the excuse that the technology is too overwhelming, yet they are competent to hold down jobs and care for young people. I would agree that the technologies can be complex, but they are not beyond the understanding of adults who prioritize involvement with children under their care. After all, adults do not need to understand the back-end programming of Facebook or cell phone networks to help and guide kids, they just need to know how to use the technology and how others use the technology.

Perhaps the popularity of this article can be a catalyst to get adults involved in guiding our youth in wise use of  the technology which infuses their lives.

Why We Can Never Educate Enough About Copyright and Online "Privacy"

Stumbled across this story on Yahoo! news this morning and thought it was a perfect example to use when trying to make the points to teachers and students that

1. Just because the picture is posted on the Internet does NOT mean you have permission to use it.
2. You give up control and privacy when you post anything on the Internet. Even if people aren't supposed to use your stuff without your permission, they still do and will.

The short synopsis is a family photo that a U.S. blogger posted on her blog and used on a few other sites like Facebook wound up being used for a life-size advertisement in a store window in the Chech Republic. Fortuntately this was a fairly innocent use of the photo, however, since it could bring profit to the store some money should have probably been made by the professional photographer who took the original photo and the family that was in it. Let alone maybe the family would like to have a say in what their likenesses are used to advertise?
For the full story, and for an example to share with teachers and students (or even just your friends who post things willy-nilly all over the web), check out these links:
Story of Stolen Picture at ExtraordinaryMommy.com
Yahoo! News Story