What teachers and parents should know about ransomware

In the face of continued uncertainty related to the pandemic, families like mine prepared for a return to school that still looked a little bit more like normal this year. For many parents, teachers and caregivers who struggled through a year of remote learning, with all of its online homework assignments and Zoom classes, this has been a major relief.

In my case, and admittedly more so for my superhero wife, last year involved the all-but-impossible task of wrangling 6- and 8-year-old children in front of a screen two to three times a day and somehow keeping them there through bathroom break requests and hunger pangs that only conveniently cropped up during online learning sessions.

It also meant enforcing dedicated “asynchronous learning” time for children who desperately need synchronous learning routines alongside their friends to conform to normal classroom behavior (i.e. “If my friends are paying attention, maybe I should too”). Now throw in the added complication that our children’s school had no way of restricting access to apps or websites such as YouTube on their school-issued devices, and the parenting intensity meter just about redlines.    …Read More

Piazzza, the online homework helper

Created by a Stanford University graduate student, Piazzza.com is an online platform that claims to provide “high-quality answers for when you’re stuck” on homework by creating a place for students and teachers to share their questions and answers, reports the Stanford Daily—and it’s available 24-7. “It is not always easy to meet people in a large lecture format,” said Peter Pham ’11, a Piazzza user and team member. “Piazzza makes it easy to get help at those desperate times when the deadline for an assignment is hours away, even if you don’t know anyone.” Pooja Nath, the founder and CEO of Piazzza and a student at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, created Piazzza with exactly this problem in mind. Nath studied computer science at the competitive Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, where she recalled being too intimidated to ask her peers for help and wishing there were some online forum where she could go to discuss homework problems. One potential concern is cheating, but E14 Prof. Paul Mitiguy said that hasn’t been an issue. “We want people to work together—it’s not cheating,” he said. “When midterms and finals come around, if a student has not been doing his or her own work on the problem sets and [is] just copying, he will fail.”

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Online lockers keep school in students’ reach

An increasing number of students are using remote internet connections to complete their assignments and communicate with teachers and fellow students, while a portfolio of their work is amassing at secure servers online, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune. Most afternoons after classes at Mark Twain High School in San Diego, Kevin Vazquez heads to the Logan Heights branch of the city library, sits at a computer, and logs on to his school’s server to complete his homework. Using his password, Kevin has access to all of his school papers, PowerPoint presentations, messages from teachers, and other material. All of his work is archived on the server for his teachers to see—wherever they might be. The excuse “I left my homework at home” doesn’t fly anymore. Mark Twain High School is one of 28 schools in the San Diego area that use a server system called School Web Lockers. Developed by the San Diego firm Networld Solutions, the server system—which costs schools $1 per student, plus a $700 setup fee—is used by nearly 400 schools in 26 states. The web lockers offer schools drop boxes, shared folders, blogs, and message boards, as well as student portfolio spaces, said Kelly Agrelius, a sales and marketing manager for the service…

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