ECSD Technology Newsletter

They Cyber Safety Edition

Cyber Safety

Cyber Safety is something that we ALL need to be aware of and practice. Teachers in K-12 and Students in kindergarten all the way to our seniors need to know how to be safe online. The newsletter this week will focus on several Cyber safety practices and resources for students and teachers.

What's the Deal with Passwords?

Don't you just love this video! I laughed so hard the first time I saw this. But it really is amazing how easily it is to give up passwords. Passwords are just that passwords. They should not be easy to guess or have identifiable information. I know, I know, we have so many different things to log into now. Today alone before work and after work I have logged into (in no particular order) Bank, personal Gmail, School E-mail, Illuminate Ed, Acadience, DOE Website, Clever, Blackboard, Google Drive, Google Classroom, and Infinite Campus. Crazy!! I'm trying to think back to when I was a new teacher in 2000-2001 and how many logins I had there. Probably not even half of that.

It's frustrating but very important to have a strong password and to keep it secure. Sometimes we are guilty of writing passwords down on sticky notes and placing them on our keyboard because that is probably secure right? .... WRONG. Check out this story about how high school students got a teacher's password. It is never ok to share your professional passwords with students or have them visible for students to see or to take pictures of. Here are some ways to make strong password.

Tips for a strong password

Google Support offers several options for creating Strong Password

Create a unique password for each of your important accounts
Make your passwords longer and more memorable - Maybe your password is a lyric from a song (dibbs on the lyrics of U Can't Touch This . . wait did I just give up my password?)
A series of words that are meaningful to you
An abbreviation: Make a password from the first letter of each word in a sentence
Enable 2 factor authentification for important accounts - Many programs (Including G-Suite) now offers the ability to send a pin via text or email whenever you are prompted to log into your account.

Teaching Cyber Safety to students

We all have a responsibility to teach our students the importance of being safe online. We are fortunate to have tools such as GoGuardian to be able to keep our students safe but it is also important to have conversations with our students about doing the right thing online. Fortunately, there are some FANTASTIC free resources to help teach our students about cyber safety.

1) Be Internet Awesome - This is a great resource for teaching Elementary school students about the importance of being safe online.

2) Pear Deck - Pear Deck has lessons integrated into our ECSD Peardeck subscription.

3) Common Sense Media - Has Free lessons divided by grade level for all students in grade K-12

PL Opportunities

Clint will be offering the following Virtual PL classes after school during September. All courses will be virtual and will last from 3:30 - 4:30. These are offered for any staff in the district You can sign up HERE

September 29th - Top 5 Features in Google

October 1st - Hyperdocs in the Classroom

October 8th - New features in Illuminate Education

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September 29th 3:30 - 4:30

Meet link - meet.google.com/pzs-rrbz-uqq

This class will go over all of the features from the "Top 5" Technology Newsletter"

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October 1st - 3:30 - 4:30

Meet link - meet.google.com/zkw-nzoe-tky

Hyperdocs are a great way for students to work both synchronously and asynchronously through assignments.

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October 8th 3:30 - 4:30

Meet link meet.google.com/rma-hjax-jtb

This class will discuss some of the new features for Illuminate Education

Tech Tool Kit for Families and Guardians

Google has recently published resources for teachers to share with families to learn more about the Google Suite for Education. I think that this is a great way for us to be able to better familiarize our families with Google for Education. Below is the link to the document

TECH Toolkit for Families and Guardians

Pear Deck Support

We are fortunate to be able to have the new tool "Pear Deck" in Elbert County. This is a tool to make google slides interactive for all students. Teachers who attended the 1:1 bootcamp before school started were able to hear about these features. Below are a couple of resources about Pear Deck. If you would like to learn more I will be leading a virtual training at 3:30 on August 24th. You can sign up HERE

Getting Started with Pear Deck

Cool Things you Can Do

Pear Deck Knowledge Base