Blog #8

Chapter 8 teaches us about security issues and ethics that we need to be aware of when using technology in the classroom. It also discusses new and emerging technologies in the educational field. Technology is now used every day in a variety of ways by educators. Teachers record student grades, attendance, and contact parents over e-mail on a daily basis. All of this information is critical, and private. School districts must go to great lengths to ensure that this information is kept confidential. Every computer security risk must be taken into account. Computer Security Risk can be defined as any event or action that has the potential to lose computer equipment, data or software, or processing ability. One of the main computer security risks are to viruses. They can come in many forms, such as a macro, sector, boot, or file virus making them extremely hard to track at times. For this reason, schools must have great virus protection and removal skills incase their system gets one. Unauthorized access, or the use of a computer network without permission, is another liability for schools. Because the buildings are so busy and full of people, it is important to make sure computers stay in the right hands. A system failure, or computer malfunction is a common cause of information or data loss. Most schools are required to have a back up to their network, which will enable the school to retrieve information if ever lost.

Standards that determine whether an action is good or bad are called ethics. Computer ethics are the moral guidelines that determine what should and should not be done on a computer. Five areas of ethics are commonly discussed:
1. Unauthorized Use of Computers
2. Hardware, software, and information theft
3. Information privacy
4. Copyright
5. The existance of objectionable materials on the Internet
All of these are important topics to teach students, and are also especially important for educators and administrators to be aware of. There are several ways of collecting unauthorized information. Phsishing is a scam that attempts to attain personal and financial information from a reciepient through an official-looking e-mail. Schools often use employee and student monitoring to monitor what the people on their network are viewing. This is an especially useful tool for teachers, so they can see what their students are doing with their time (Like when some people play games during Education Tech, or look on Facebook... shame on you all.) Teachers must also make sure they are not using objectionable material in their lessons.

Since our last class, I have been exposed to the world of Powerpoint. Not really, I have used Powerpoint since I was in middle school. I would like to say that I have learned something profound or something new, but in reality, I already knew most of the stuff covered in training. I also did not learn anything new while making my Powerpoint (on the Great Barrier Reef by the way.... CASH MONEY $$$, yeah I said it.) I did find it interesting to learn a few new facts, snippets of information if you will, about the species that are living on the Great Barrier Reef because I would like to go visit one day. I love Education Technology. And this blog. SOLIDDDDDD.