Will this be my last blog? Nah!  This blogging thing is not nearly as alien as I thought it was prior to this class. I can see how blogging will be beneficial as a teacher. I wish some of my past teachers would have used class blogs to keep students up to date on classroom happenings.

Anyway, on to Week 8.

Security is a really important issue in education and in our personal lives. In our personal lives these days we trust our computers to store so much of our important information. We keep financial information, house hold bills, budgets, family photos, home videos, music, and so much more on our computers. It is scary to think that one mouse click could take it all away. Use to it took a house fire of natural disaster to cause such a loss. Given the amount of technology that we use in our classrooms these days security is definitely an important issue. When I was in elementary school the closest thing that we had to a computer lab was a small, hastily constructed room with one computer in the corner of the seventh grade classroom. We could access the room if we behaved well enough to earn the privilege. We were allowed to spend 15 minutes at a time playing Lemonade Stand or some other game. Not much learning took place that I can recall. Now, my son’s is in first grade and already has access to and uses a more advanced computer lab than I used in during my first trip to college. Student information, grades, lessons, and other important educational documents our now stored in electronic format. Without the appropriate level of security all of this information is at risk of being lost or misused.

I am not teaching yet so I do not use a school computer lab at this time. I do use a computer daily in my current vocation as a social service worker and security is a constant concern. I have access to several state systems that contain sensitive information. It is important that I am able to navigate these systems without the fear of someone’s sensitive personal information falling into the hands of unauthorized individuals. Our network managed by the Kentucky Office of Technology who are on constant guard against malicious software and viruses. The only issue that we seem to have to deal with regular is phishing attempts. Some of which are very hard to distinguish from legitimate emails. Usually our tech team warns us before it becomes an issue but occasionally some one will fall victim to the phishing attempts before the tech team becomes aware.