Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Reading, writing, and cybersecurity: Practicing good cyber hygiene

Key points:

The school bell is about to ring in another academic year, and as children pull out their lunchboxes and teachers decorate their rooms, schools continue to face an onslaught of cyberthreats while also grappling with perpetually insufficient budgets, legacy IT, and under-staffing concerns.

The increased level of connectivity in today’s schools means richer opportunities for learning and community, but it also puts at further risk the financial data, personally identifiable information (PII) and other sensitive information that educational institutions hold.…Read More

FCC proposes $200M for K-12 cybersecurity

Key points:

  • The FCC is calling attention to the urgent need for more tools–including funding–to combat K-12 cybersecurity risks
  • A new proposal would allocate up to $200 million over three years to harden cyber defenses and determine the most effective methods to protect schools and libraries
  • See related article: Are ransomware attacks the new snow days?

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel is asking her fellow Commissioners to support a proposal that would take further steps to enhance cybersecurity protections to protect school networks.

In a speech before the School Superintendents Association and the Association of School Business officers, Rosenworcel said she would be sharing with her colleagues a plan to create a pilot program to invest in cybersecurity services for eligible K-12 schools and libraries.…Read More

Safeguarding K-12 school networks with proactive cybersecurity approaches

Key points:

  • School districts need bigger cybersecurity budgets and support mechanisms
  • Cybersecurity threats are not going away, and knowledge is a large factor in protecting networks
  • See related article: 4 steps to avoid a ransomware attack

Now more than ever, safeguarding students and staff from targeted cyberattacks is critical to the health of our U.S. education system. Local K-12 schools are a top target for cybercrime. Estimates from the nonprofit organization K12 Security Information Exchange reveal more than 1,300 publicly disclosed cyberattacks against U.S. schools since 2016.

The size and scope of these threats amplified during COVID-era hybrid learning, when schools were forced to rapidly adopt cloud-based collaboration technologies at scale. But even though students have returned to the classroom post-pandemic, just like every other industry, the K-12 threat landscape isn’t slowing down. …Read More

Report reveals surprising data about mobile broadband usage in schools

A recent Mobile Beacon report analyzing mobile broadband usage by non-profit organizations, including schools, finds that schools utilizing Mobile Beacon’s 4G LTE internet service indicate that the ability to supplement and/or extend existing school networks is the greatest benefit of the service.

The report, “Creating Opportunity Through Connectivity: How Mobile Broadband for Anchor Institutions Impacts Communities,” analyzed survey responses from Mobile Beacon’s non-profit clients. Mobile Beacon enables non-profit organizations—including schools—to purchase LTE-enabled mobile hotspot devices for $70 and offers uncapped, unthrottled data plans for $10/month.

While schools reported that the two main drivers for acquiring Mobile Beacon’s mobile broadband services are the desire for mobile connectivity (41 percent) and to save money on internet access (28 percent), they reported that the main benefits of using the services were 1) the ability to supplement/extend an existing network in their building (42 percent) and 2) having unlimited data access (22 percent). The report analyzed data consumption by schools over a five-month period (Sept 2016-Jan 2017) and found the average monthly data usage is 373 GB. During this time frame, data usage trended strongly upward, with consumption increasing so rapidly that the report predicts average school use could double in the course of a year. The sharp increase in data usage provides insight into school data usage trends when bandwidth is not capped or limited.…Read More

Lightspeed Systems releases updated school web filter

Version 3 of Rocket Web Filter features increased speed, live reports, easy SSL traffic handling

Ed-tech solution provider Lightspeed Systems announced the release of version 3 of Rocket Web Filter for content filtering in K-12 schools.

The release features a new user interface as well as a variety of new features to simplify school network management.

Rocket Web Filter — which is powered by Lightspeed Systems’ proprietary Rocket appliances, either on school networks or in a cloud — was built specifically for schools. With a reputation for robust content filtering without over-blocking, Web Filter quickly became the K-12 market leader for filtering. The new version features improvements to filtering speed, scalability and SSL handling as well as live traffic reports and other tools to make filtering and reporting fast and easy.…Read More