security Archives

Digital ethics for kids

iKeepSafe, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing a safe digital landscape for children, schools and families, recently launched the sixth installment of the Faux Paw the Techno Cat narrated e-book series, Faux Paw and the Unfortunate Upload. This e-book covers digital ethics for kids, helping them to understand how their behaviors online can impact their relationships in real life.

The Faux Paw e-book series is a free resource for parents, educators, and caregivers to help teach children the importance of safety and security online. “With more children spending time online due to COVID-19 school closures, it’s more important than ever for parents and teachers to ensure their children are staying safe while using digital devices,” says Jacalyn Leavitt, founder of iKeepSafe and former First Lady of Utah. “This book — and the rest of the Faux Paw series — is an excellent resource for parents and educators to help keep their children safe when using the internet.”

Each book in the Faux Paw series covers a separate online safety topic for kids, including how to handle a cyberbully, balancing real life with screen time, and how to make healthy media choices. The books are available in PDF format through the iKeepSafe website, or can be viewed on the iKeepSafe YouTube channel as either a narrated e-book or animated cartoon.…Read More

3 districts that battled malware–and won–with endpoint security

It’s not exactly a secret that most educational institutions are vulnerable to data breaches and security hacks. All it takes is one attack to freeze school operations and disrupt learning, to say nothing of putting sensitive data and private information at risk.

Being proactive is better than being reactive, and one of the biggest proactive steps districts are taking today involves targeting endpoint security and beefing up endpoint resilience.

Endpoint security, essentially, involves protecting the endpoints, or the devices and tools, connected to school and district networks. As BYOD and mobile initiatives expand, endpoints multiply, underscoring the importance of this security strategy. Endpoint resilience combines protection and response in a way that allows a district to recover quickly from an attack.…Read More

Is facial recognition in schools reassuring–or invasive?

In the wake of all-too-common school shootings, school and district leaders are confronted with decisions about how to prevent–or respond to–violent incidents. Some are turning to facial recognition in schools as a way to track visitors and keep schools safe.

Technology is a double-edged sword, and it’s no different when applied to school security. Some argue that advanced emotion-detecting AI technologies and facial recognition in schools infringe on privacy and can’t always identify people correctly or aid in prevention, while others see the technologies as yet another tool to keep students and educators safe.

Schools in Florida’s Broward County plan to use an experimental surveillance system in order to boost safety and security efforts in a district now known for the Feb. 14, 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 were killed.…Read More

5 new developments in physical and network safety

As technology improves, so do solutions to keep students and teachers safe in school buildings and on school networks. This is the main reason why school safety, including cybersecurity and physical safety, retains its place as a top concern for education leaders.

Balancing access to educational resources with security needs remains a top challenge for school district IT leaders, according to new findings from the Speak Up Research Project for Digital Learning.

Seventy-one percent of district administrators and IT leaders are concerned about the security of their network against malicious attacks or misbehavior, as outlined in the data, which comes from a collaboration between the nonprofit Project Tomorrow and cloud security provider iboss.…Read More

96 edtech predictions for K12 in 2019

We asked 49 edtech executives to look into their crystal balls and share their thoughts about what will happen in 2019. In addition to the usual suspects—more augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) apps—a lot of people believe this will be the year that social emotional learning (SEL) and interoperability become part of the mainstream. There are also a lot of predictions about improving safety and security. Read on to see what’s in store for 2019…

Berj Akian, CEO, ClassLink

• With 2019 here and 2020 in arm’s reach, there’s an ever-growing expectation that next-generation tech tools should do a better job of informing educators on which resources improve learning outcomes. I’m pleased to say that more and more education leaders and technology products providers are regularly talking and doing something about this. I hope this topic always remains the main problem to solve, and that the slow, steady progress the industry is making continues.…Read More

Beware of ransomware: Here’s how to protect your district

A new, disturbing pattern has cropped back up that is reminiscent of some nasty behavior from the early days of Internet nefarious exploits: targeting schools and students and the innocent. Ransomware attacks have been making headlines in recent months—particularly as a threat to K-12. Both Roseburg (OR )Public Schools and Leominster (MA) Public Schools were two of the latest victims of cyber-abuse.

A history of hacking
21 years ago, I got a call at my first internet security startup company (Signal 9 Solutions, later acquired by McAfee) asking for help; a woman’s son had cognitive challenges and disabilities, and she thought he was the victim of hacking. She had seen a news piece about cyberhacking, and she thought this might be a case.

At the time, we focused on enterprise sales and cryptographic solutions, but we had accidentally invented the personal firewall for telecommuting, put a beta version of this new standalone personal firewall on our website, and started a forum talking about it.…Read More

Building a smarter network

Given the data, networking, and security implications of upcoming technology trends, K-12 schools will require a variety of innovations to meet dramatically increased wireless and wired network performance demands without adding more stress on overworked IT staffers.

We recommend the following strategies:

1. Adopt smart infrastructure.
To keep IT overhead low while delivering the performance required to power Internet of things (IoT) devices, augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) applications and whatever comes next, invest in more intelligent networking infrastructure. At the wired networking layer, replace your outdated switching paradigm with a modern platform that supports the new IEEE 802.3bz standard for multi-gigabit Ethernet and is driven by an advanced software operating system.…Read More

The biggest changes to school security in 2018

The complexity of ensuring our schools and education facilities are both safe and secure has grown tremendously. Brass key systems are increasingly supplemented with secure credentials as access management has become more critical. The continued development of mass notification systems and video surveillance has made them critical components of a holistic security solution. And now, a major next step is upon us in the evolution of physical security as we look to more effectively manage lock-down procedures.

In the past five years, the biggest change in school security has been to transition from the idea of the big red button–where a single action locks all openings–to a more sectored approach. The new way of thinking is that the big red button locks down perimeter and exterior doors, but interior doors are locked locally based on location, situation, and teacher and faculty decision.

When discussing why this change is appropriate, it is important to look at the specific needs of education campuses today. Physical school security can be broken down to subsections, including perimeter fencing and gates, the building exterior, visitor-access management, and interior spaces. In previous iterations of lockdowns, systems were developed that allowed one system to lock every door: the centrally controlled, universal-lockdown concept.…Read More

Report: 4 security recommendations to keep student data safe

Educators have relied on data to make informed decisions for as long as it’s been available (the foundations of standardized testing got its start in the 19th century).

For much of that time, the main worry was whether or not that data was being accurately interpreted. Technology, of course, has radically improved how we collect and analyze data, but has thrown a new wrench into its use — mainly regarding ethics, privacy, and safety.

Chief among these concerns are breaches into school systems and accidental data leaks, according to a new report on data privacy from the Southern Regional Education Board, a collective that works with K-12 and higher ed policy leaders in 16 southern states. The report, titled Data Privacy and Security, mentions a number of pressing concerns regarding education data and makes several recommendations for how states and education agencies can stay safe and transparent as they collect, govern, and share student data.…Read More

Blackboard launches New Learning Experience platform

Integrated platform enables personalized learning, streamlined communication with family and community engagement, and unified workflows

Blackboard has launched a new K-12 platform for districts and schools that brings together institutions, parents, teachers, and learners in an integrated approach that addresses fundamental requirements for student success including school safety and security, family and community engagement and personalized competency-based learning.

Blackboard’s offering combines multiple products, integrations, and professional services that can be deployed individually or as a comprehensive solution.

Technologies include: Blackboard Mass Notifications™ (formerly Blackboard Connect™), Blackboard Web Community Manager™ (formerly Blackboard Schoolwires™), Blackboard Mobile Communication App™ (formerly Blackboard Parentlink™), Blackboard Social Media Manager™ (formerly Sociability™), Blackboard Collaborate™, Blackboard Blackboard Open Content (formerly xpLor), and a choice of Blackboard’s leading learning management systems: Blackboard Learn™ or Moodlerooms™ and their mobile apps for students and teachers.…Read More