What we should do.

Cybersecurity in the Classroom: What Teachers Can Do

classroom cybersecurity

With the ever-increasing presence of technology in our classrooms and our daily lives, it is more important than ever for teachers to be aware of the risks associated with using technology with students. We need to understand the potential perils as well as the safeguards and what to do if there is a security breach.

These essential topics can open opportunities to support critical thinkers and problem solvers. Fortunately, there are tremendous resources available to you online.

One of the best sites for educators is Common Sense Education, which offers many free resources to support us as teachers, students, and the community. Before diving into any other site, it would be worth reviewing their research, lessons, and other resources.

Many aspects of cybersecurity need to be considered, however, there are three significant areas worth focusing on for your classroom.

Classroom Cybersecurity: Password Protection

One of the most important things you can do to protect yourself from cybersecurity threats is to create strong passwords that are at least 12 characters long and include a mix of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. In addition, you should create unique passwords for each account you have. To keep your passwords safe, you can use a password manager or write them down in a safe place.

There are excellent resources to support teaching about password safety:

Sphero lessons teach the fundamentals of password creation while using the Sphero BOLT. Minimal coding knowledge is needed to create robust opportunities for students to explore password safety and other aspects of cybersecurity.

Cyber.Org has ways to test our password strength and many lessons to enrich our understanding of cybersecurity.

Nearpod's 21st Century Skills Program has additional content that a district can purchase to highlight all aspects of digital literacy, including password protection.

Think Before You Click

Phishing scams are a common way for hackers to steal personal information. Phishing emails often look as if they are from legitimate companies. Still, these are designed to trick you into clicking on a malicious link or downloading a virus. A simple pause and examination before we click can help keep us safe.

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There are so many fun ways to help our students practice these skills, including:

Be Internet Awesome offers excellent activities, slide decks, and games for your upper elementary students. The games are fun and engaging enough that students will be excited to share what they learn with one another.

EverFi has an entire unit on digital wellness that will take your students through every aspect of their digital wellness. Lesson 4 explores identifying threats and helps them learn more about passwords.

CIAS uses CyBear characters and card games to teach all about cybersecurity. Request your free classroom pack of cards and print these tremendous offline activities to teach about cyber attacks and safety.

Using Technology for Good

Students need strong support when engaging online with others. As we teach character education, SEL, and DEI, we must support students' social media use.

Students need to know essential terms such as bystander, upstander, and ally. While much teaching in the past has focused on what not to do online, we have the opportunity to help students see the potential that our online presence can do to bring social good.

Exploring our online world in the classroom can seem daunting, but there are so many incredible resources available, including:

StopBullying.gov is a great place to help us understand the warning signs and give us a toolkit to share with students to help protect them.

DigCit Institute offers month-long celebrations during which students and teachers share all the great ways they use technology for good. Check out their month-long #GlobalStudentShowcase recordings from April 2023 and follow them on social media for more opportunities to learn and participate.

Butter is a movie that your students will be on the edge of their seats while watching. It tackles mental health, suicide, and bullying in an engaging film. Then, check out the free curriculum created by Lisa Highfill, one of the Hyperdocs creators, to engage your students on these complex topics.

To share your feedback and ideas on this article, consider joining our Tech & Learning online community here.

02

There's Only One Way To Honor Cory Monteith 10 Years After His Death — And It Starts With Loving The Addicts In Our Own Lives

Cory monteith

Sadly, it was Cory Monteith's tragic death 10 years ago today that first brought him to my attention. I was not a Glee fan, but our daughter? Now that is a completely different story.

From my limited acquaintance with Monteith and his work, I understand that he was a talented performer and greatly loved by the fans of the program. It is even more tragic in some ways that someone who seems to "have it all" has to die as a result of addiction.

Of course, Cory Monteith is not the only victim of addiction.

In the United States, alcohol is responsible for around 140,000 deaths per year. There are 106,000 drug overdose deaths each year. That is equivalent to losing the entire population of a city like Richmond, Virginia (population around 229,000) every year. And, since every addict's life affects at least 4 other people, that equates to a city the size of Austin, Texas (population 974,000) being affected every year; one-fifth dead, the rest grieving.

We have all seen the sci-fi movies where crisis is averted: if these towns were to be infected, instead, by a deadly strain of virus, everything that could be mobilised in aid would be. The town would be quarantined, the president (undoubtedly Morgan Freeman) would bring in the best biologists and medics, the antidote would be found and everyone would be immunised before our popcorn ran out. Then we would all go home, having been a little bit scared but comfortable in the knowledge that with a bit of good old American knowhow and inventiveness, no problem is too big that we can’t overcome it. So where is that spirit and gumption when it comes to addiction?

RELATED: Is There A Glee Curse? The Tragic Young Deaths Of Cast Members Naya Rivera, Cory Monteith & Mark Salling

Is the unacceptable loss of life through addiction any less of a national — even global — emergency? Surely we don’t think that these losses are acceptable.

Should we not be bringing together our best brains so that we can start immunising our population against addiction? OK, you might say this is not Hollywood; this is real life and I could not agree more. This is real life, ask anyone who is involved in addiction. We need to acknowledge this problem and deal with it.

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So how do we immunise a population against addiction? We tried prohibition and it didn’t work. We have been waging a global war on drugs and it isn’t working. This type of model, aimed at disrupting the supply of substances, tends to create more harm than it prevents. To start, it creates business opportunities for criminals who will continue to meet the demand that people have for substances that take the edge off the pressures of life. And, perhaps paradoxically, the people who have the greatest pressure are the unemployed, the poor and the people who have little hope in their lives.

RELATED: 7 Devastating Truths About Loving An Addict

If we are going to immunise society against addiction, we need to inject it with a powerful antivirus — and the most powerful antivirus of all is hope.

It is hope that stops us from giving up when things get tough. It is hope that makes the difference between success and failure. It is hope that makes us strive and grow as people who want to build a better future for our children. Where there is no or little hope, people do not respect themselves or others and addiction tends to flourish.

So where does Monteith fit in here? After all, he had it all: money, fame and an adoring public.

Agreed, he certainly does not seem to fit the addict model, but we know that poverty and hopelessness comes in many forms. Many years ago the sociologist Durkheim showed that there was a high rate of suicide among people who seemed to be very successful. In explaining this apparent anomaly he coined the phrase "anomie" to account for the no-man’s land that successful people can find themselves. This is a place where they are no longer comfortable with old friends (who may be jealous of their success) and new friends (who use them for their own ends). So, the anomie they experience is a poverty of the spirit.

RELATED: To The Man Who Chose Drugs Over Me

How do we inject hope into our society? I wish I could say read on and this article will provide all the answers. It won’t because we don’t have them all. What we do have are lots of questions that will help start the conversation. Here are some of them:

Why do we persist with policies that don’t work? Why don’t our politicians address the root causes of addiction? And it isn't just politicians; society itself does not truly help. Why do we reduce hope further still by continuing to spread the myth that "you cannot help an addict until they are ready to change"? If this really is true, we might as well close all treatment centres, as they are wasting their time. However, this myth flies in the face of all the research and treatment practices of the last 30 years.

If you live with an addict and have been trying for years unsuccessfully to get them to change, you might say it is not a myth at all. "You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink."

While we agree to some extent, the point that we make continually is that "you can gallop the horse and make him thirsty." What that means is that maybe we can’t actually make someone change, but we can most certainly exert a powerful influence that will make them much more likely to change. We need to teach people the correct way to help their loved ones and friends; to show them that interventions, planned and skilfully applied, are much more powerful and successful than random confrontations.

RELATED: The 5 Excruciating Stages Of Loving An Addict (As Told By His Ex)

We want to end this article with one suggestion, one we hope that Monteith would have liked.

If you live with an addict or have a friend that is showing signs of alcoholism or addictive behaviour, don't ignore them.

Make a resolution to say to them every day for a week, "I love you but I’m scared. I don't want to lose you."

If it saves just one person, then that is the most fitting epitaph for Cory Monteith; to be remembered as an agent for recovery rather than as an addict.

Goodbye Cory. We hope you have found peace, and a place in a new and even better choir.

RELATED: 'Glee' Curse Death Theory: Naya Rivera, Cory Monteith, & Mark Salling Sang About Their Deaths Before They Happened

John McMahon has a PhD in Psychology and was senior lecturer on the MSc course on alcohol and drug studies. Lou Lewis is a Counselor and author of the book 'No Easy Answers',.

This article originally appeared on YourTango

03

Robotics can - and will - change our lives in the near future

Will robots change our lives in the future? It's a funny question to ask when they're changing our lives now in so many ways and they have been for years. From the first time you saw a toaster pop up by itself, we've casually accepted that machines can be trusted to do things for us.

They record our shows, cook our food, play our music, and even run our cars. We just don't see it because these "robots" don't have a face we can talk to or a butt we can kick.

Technically robots are automatic motorised tools, but they're generally known as clunky humanoid foils that have bumbled about popular media for almost a century - mechanised characters of humour, or menace without status, rendering their violent removal a minor plot without guilt.

Boom, there goes another one. The hero saves the day.

Sad actually. Mobile robots have gotten a bad rap from a lot of prejudicial movies and video games, and not the least from the unfulfilled promises of the 20th century. What's taking these scientists so long? If robots are coming, then why can't I just buy one to do my work while I watch TV?

Well, if you do watch TV, you'll "know" that's a recipe for disaster (which ain't true, but whatever...), which is why, after a lifetime building robots the old "serious" way, I decided to introduce something new to the mix: funny robots with personality flaws.

Since 2004 we've sold millions worldwide which has certainly changed some peoples lives and attitudes (mainly kids), and not one of which has ever threatened a single 007 agent. All part of my plan to get robots out of negative fiction and into entertaining reality, where yearly I foist my new devices on an unsuspecting populace.

But it's not world domination I'm after. I know four things robots can do right now that will change our lives for the future, and all in a good way. The first is entertainment (done that), the second is grunt work in dangerous places (coming up), third is elderly care, and last but not least is telepresence shopping, tourism, and assistance.

Imagine sitting at your computer and controlling a video game character through a mall or market, except it's not a game, it's a robot shopping for you in Tokyo while you sit comfortably in London. With a live video and audio feed so you could haggle, you drive a legged humanoid robot about your size so you get a good sense of what would fit, and afterwards you go for a walk to see what the countryside has to offer.

In a future where the cost and inconvenience of travel will likely rise, why not rent-a-rob for an hour just to make sure that resort is up to standard? Or to check in on your mum? Or to help out at a disaster site? Or just get outside in anonymity?

Right now all modern technology is designed to bring the world to you; phone, radio, television, internet, but if trends continue, robots will soon bring you to the world, everywhere, and at the speed of thought. A mind and a hand where it's needed while you sit safely at home and run the show.

It's a future goal -- something we know we can do if we can urge the market towards it, but it's one I like, and might even be able to do something about.

If it works, robots won't just change our lives in the future, they'll expand them. Not just for fun, but for necessity. We've taken the first steps into welcoming them into our homes, we just have to wait a bit to proctor them into making us more human.

It'll be good I think.

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