Tag Archives: digital
Teaching with Technology in the Facebook Era
As educators, we know all too well how prevalent Facebook has become in the lives of today’s students. While almost all students use Facebook, many have a love/hate relationship with it. They like staying constantly connected with their friends – and their friends of friends – but they also know how much time they waste on it. They might not be willing to admit it, but students actually want to get away from Facebook in order to study. At StudyBlue, we learned this lesson firsthand. Continue reading
Should Students Be Allowed to Use Digital Devices at School?
I taught high school for 10 years and I’m still a certified teacher. I know that battling academic dishonesty in the classroom is like battling a Hydra. Every time you think you’ve lopped off the cheating monster’s many heads, it sprouts two more.
Yesterday on Twitter’s Tuesday #educhat, educators discussed student use of digital devices in the classroom. For the most part, cell phones aren’t allowed in schools; however, some schools are beginning to not only allow them, but also to encourage students to use their mobile devices in the name of learning. I had a guest post about using cell phones as clickers last year. I haven’t tried it myself, but I know that the technology works in classrooms Continue reading
Protecting Data Privacy on School Computer Systems
K-12 and higher education school computer systems contain private data of staff, students and parents/guardians. Cybercriminals are motivated to gain unauthorized access to school computer systems because the data on these systems could be used by the attacker to commit crime, such as identity theft, computer system vandalism, fraud using stolen credit card numbers, and privacy breaches to students’ education records. Continue reading
Protecting School Computer Systems from Cybercrime
K-12 and higher education school computer systems are under attack. Cybercriminals are targeting school computer systems because if they can gain unauthorized access to these computer systems, then they can steal student and staff private information, such as Social Security numbers, medical records, and other private data. Cybercriminals are also motivated to commit other crimes, such as changing grades, causing damage to school computers’ hardware and software, and other crimes. Some examples of these crimes can be found by doing Internet searches for articles related to school computer security breaches. By typing “hacked school computer systems” in the Google search engine, you will find over 600,000 hits related to this topic. Some links even provide guidance on how to illegally hack into school computer systems. Some important stories are: Continue reading
User Beware: A New Type of Phishing Attack – “Tabnabbing”
As educators, we’re online a lot. We enter our grades and attendance online, we e-mail parents, we store our lesson plans electronically and we sometimes check our personal e-mail accounts or online bank statements. In other words, teachers aren’t so different from most people: we’ve become used to using the computer for all kinds of work and personal tasks and we wonder how we ever lived before Google, Excel, and Farmville. Continue reading
Students Online: Time Wasters or Innovators?
Your students are spending a lot of their free time online. Think of the number of hours you estimate they spend online. Double it. The doubled number is probably closer to the truth.
According to the Norton Online Living Report 2009, parents believe their children spend 21 hours online. The reality is that students in twelve countries reported spending 39 hours online. Don’t tell me these kids don’t have time to finish their assignments or clean their rooms. Continue reading
