Safety First

While everyone’s favorite acronym—AI—seems to be the hottest topic as #CoSN2024 kicks off here in Miami, Ashley May, M.S., M.Ed., CETL, Director, Educational Technology Spring Branch ISD (TX), reminds us what is truly the most urgent and present concern for all edtech leaders. Security—whether online or in-person— is always issue number one.

eSchool News was able to interview Ashley about various aspects of ensuring student safety online, where she emphasizes the importance of collaboration between technology services and academic teams when it comes to data privacy, culture building, parental involvement, and the evolving landscape of educational technology. Have a listen:

The discussion highlights the necessity for proactive measures to safeguard students in the digital space, as well as the continuous review and adaptation of practices to address emerging challenges.

Key Takeaways:

• Collaborative Approach: Ensuring student safety online requires a collaborative effort between technology services and academic teams within the school system. This includes aligning strategies for content filtering, resource vetting, and data protection.
• Culture of Safety: Building a culture of safety involves not only implementing technological solutions but also fostering awareness and responsible behavior among students, faculty, and parents. This encompasses aspects like data privacy, password security, and vigilance against phishing schemes.
• Parental Involvement: Educating parents about online safety practices and providing guidance on monitoring their children’s digital activities are crucial components of a comprehensive approach to student safety, especially in remote or hybrid learning environments.
• Continuous Adaptation: As technology evolves, educational institutions must continuously review and update their practices to address new challenges and emerging technologies. This includes assessing privacy policies, evaluating the impact of artificial intelligence, and addressing potential biases in educational.
• Proactive Measures: Rather than being reactive to incidents, schools should take proactive measures to mitigate risks and ensure the safety of students in the digital space. This involves implementing robust security measures, promoting responsible use of technology, and fostering a culture of awareness and accountability.

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Below is a machine-generated transcript of the conversation:

Transcript 

00:00:03 Speaker 1 

OK, Ashley. Thanks so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it. 

00:00:07 Speaker 2 

Thank you so much for having me. 

00:00:09 Speaker 1 

And as we sit here talking, we’re preparing for next week where hopefully we’ll see each other in person at at codes in 2024 in Miami. Looking forward. Well, I’m in. I’m in Trenton, NJ. So the weather here is pretty rotten, so. 

00:00:21 Speaker 1 

I’m looking forward to to Florida, but how? What’s the weather like? 

00:00:25 Speaker 1 

In Houston these. 

00:00:25 Speaker 2 

Days. It is beautiful. It is a nice balmy 78° outside right now with a nice breeze and we will enjoy that for about two more days before, before fall spring comes, you know, goes away and we’re on. 

00:00:38 Speaker 2 

To the next day. 

00:00:40 Speaker 1 

Well, we’ll be clustered in conference rooms anyway for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and I know Wednesday you’re going to be part of a a special session talking. 

00:00:48 Speaker 1 

About. 

00:00:50 Speaker 1 

I would say the continuously most important topic that I find that our readers at East School News and our listeners at East School News need to juggle with even after COVID and even after AI, which is student safety, which is basically baked into probably any district’s main mission statement. 

00:01:09 Speaker 1 

What they want to do, first and foremost, I think especially. 

00:01:14 Speaker 1 

Coming out of the pandemic where with an emphasis on social, emotional learning and a lot of the aspects of keeping students safe both physically and and mentally, so maybe you can kind of give us a little bit of a preview of of what you’re hoping to share. 

00:01:31 Speaker 2 

Though on the session that we’ll be sharing is keeping kids safe online a collaborative approach, and the idea is that it’s not the responsibility of just the CTO or just just technology services. 

00:01:42 Speaker 2 

But that keeping our kids safe in an online or in a digital environment really involves A collaborative effort between technology services and the academics team. So what’s happening in our classroom? How are we preparing students? How are we preparing teachers? How are we betting our resources? What kind of content filtering do we have set up? What are? How are we protecting students basically on all fronts? 

00:02:03 Speaker 2 

And how that’s not the sole responsibility of one team or one department, but it really requires A collaborative effort of everybody inside the school system. 

00:02:11 Speaker 1 

Yeah. Talk a little bit about, you know, obviously we’re in education, technology title and cosine is a focus on the CTO. 

00:02:18 Speaker 1 

So. 

00:02:19 Speaker 1 

When it comes to. 

00:02:21 Speaker 1 

Student safety. There’s so many different ways that you can go right and and a lot of different discussions can go where you could just talk about. 

00:02:28 Speaker 1 

The pure technology, but a lot of. 

00:02:29 Speaker 1 

It has to do with with. 

00:02:31 Speaker 1 

Culture as well, right? And not only student behavior, but faculty behavior and establishing kind of a culture of safety. Can you talk? 

00:02:40 Speaker 1 

A little bit about that. 

00:02:40 

Yes. 

00:02:42 Speaker 2 

And so on. A couple of fronts, I think a lot of times as educators, as teachers, when you think about student safety, you’re concerned with what students are doing online and really the actions of the adults are what is primarily the battle that we face in terms of student data privacy. And so, you know, if you are caught up in a phishing scheme. 

00:03:01 Speaker 2 

What you have access to on your computer potentially is now exposed to a bad actor. 

00:03:06 Speaker 2 

And so when you really think about how do we keep kids safe, we want them safe physically, but we want them safe in a digital space. It requires everybody to be proactive in their own environment. So it’s not just the digital citizenship lessons. It’s not just what we block or don’t block on our networks, but it’s also, you know, how are you protecting your data and your devices? 

00:03:27 Speaker 2 

How often are you changing your passwords? You know we’re moving to a multi factor authentication and a lot of people are not necessarily happy about that, but we’re doing it because it’s in the best interest of protecting our students and protecting our. 

00:03:39 Speaker 2 

And so just the more we can build a culture around being more aware of how our individual actions have the potential to affect what happens with our students, especially in the age of ransomware attacks, we’ve not been hit by one that I’m aware of. But I think that everybody it’s on the forefront of everybody’s mind who works in our field. 

00:03:59 Speaker 2 

Outside of our field, I don’t think people are very aware that that is something that’s happening. So really just building this culture of every action that you take is a part of student safety, whether that’s in a digital space or. 

00:04:10 Speaker 2 

In a physical space. 

00:04:12 Speaker 1 

Now when we talk about these kind of big picture. 

00:04:15 Speaker 1 

Esoteric subjects, you know, you can kind of stay up in, in the clouds a while. I know a lot of our readers and listeners sometimes say, oh, this sounds great, and I agree about culture change and elements of leadership and. 

00:04:28 Speaker 1 

But what do I do? 

00:04:31 Speaker 1 

9:00 or 8:00 on Tuesday morning. How does this apply to my kind of? 

00:04:36 Speaker 1 

Day-to-day duties. Do you have recommendations for them in terms of kind of taking that cultural and and making it something that’s practical in their school? 

00:04:44 Speaker 2 

I think it’s a part of, you know, maybe don’t ignore us when we send you that refresh for your password. I think when you’re looking at resources that you want to use in the classroom with students, there’s a reason that we have approved resources. We both my team and a partner team and technology services and we even have our purchasing team. 

00:05:01 Speaker 2 

Fault and how deep we go through looking at terms, looking at privacy and security, whether or not you’re going to be targeted with ads and different things like that, how are they handling your data? So we’re vetting that for you. And so it’s great to learn the shiniest new thing, but when you make plans to put that in your lesson, we really want you to make sure that it is something that’s approved because we’ve gone through and we’ve vetted these resources to ensure. 

00:05:25 Speaker 2 

That we’re not putting anything in place that would open us up to sort of any sort. 

00:05:29 Speaker 2 

Of attack or make space for any bad actors to be able to do anything with our student data. 

00:05:35 Speaker 1 

Yeah. And I’m sure during the past few years when we went to remote learning and then to hybrid learning or with kind of the networks expanded beyond the the campus to include students at home on their parents machines, that must have been a whole new kettle of fish for you to work with. How how has that? 

00:05:55 Speaker 1 

Changed your management style. When it comes. I mean is, is that a technology solution or is that something now where you’ve tried to extend that culture out to the to the entire community? 

00:06:06 Speaker 1 

Ready. 

00:06:07 Speaker 2 

We try to do some education with our parents, just sort of around how to help keep your set your kids safe. What you should be monitoring, what you should be paying attention to in a lot of ways. When we were at home learning during the pandemic, people sort of opened up the box just to kind of here’s here’s anything and everything that works because we’ve got to make something happen. 

00:06:27 Speaker 2 

That’s not something that we did as a district. We already have some pretty tried and true resources and practices. 

00:06:32 Speaker 2 

In place and so really trying to we want to teach people how to fish. We want you to go out and find the exciting new things. But also we want to educate you on. These are the things that you should be looking for. These are the things you should be paying attention to. As a parent. I do talk to my my kids, my personal children, about privacy policies and what app you want to download on your phone. 

00:06:54 Speaker 2 

Well, let’s take a look at what it says it’s doing with your data and what does that mean and how does that affect you in your future. And so I really think it’s a lot. It’s about not being afraid to have the conversation. 

00:07:04 Speaker 2 

Yes, it’s it’s a lot of information and sometimes it’s scary and you may not understand at all, but having that initial conversation and being open to discussing it, I think it’s the first step both as educators as parents and as community members. 

00:07:17 Speaker 1 

Yeah. Now this also isn’t something that is like a a problem or it’s not a solution to a problem, right? I mean, this is just something that is it’s going to be a continuous part of the dynamic of of. 

00:07:28 Speaker 1 

How districts go. 

00:07:29 Speaker 2 

As long as we are are in the cloud, as long as we are online, as long as we’re logging into the Internet, we’re going to have to be aware and we’re going to have to be proactive instead of being reactive and really ensuring that we’re doing the best things that we possibly can for students online. 

00:07:46 Speaker 1 

And what so when you look at on the horizon, are there things that you were getting ready to tackle next or concerns or priorities when you look at the manager of the district that might be the the next thing coming down? 

00:07:58 Speaker 1 

The Pike and I’ll give. I’ll give you an added difficulty that don’t say AI. 

00:08:05 Speaker 2 

Without saying a, I think that we’re we’re we’re in a place in the district where we continue, we continuously review our practices. So where are we in the process of how we vet resources? You know, we’re already in a place where we have data. 

00:08:07 Speaker 1 

Yeah, I’m just kidding. Say AI. 

00:08:20 Speaker 2 

Sharing agreements in place with our major vendors who we’re spending our money with and we have very good relationships across the academics and technology services aisle and that extends down to our campuses as well. So when our building leaders want to purchase something, there’s an open Ave. and a process to allow that conversation to make sure that everybody is sort of a part of it. 

00:08:38 Speaker 2 

I think as we do look at artificial intelligence and we look at the way these tools want to make their way into K12, we really have to take completely close look at what are those privacy policies look like, how are we utilizing them as adults? How are we utilizing them as students and then making sure that yes, we’re keeping ourselves safe. And I think that safety. 

00:08:59 Speaker 2 

Also has to. 

00:09:00 Speaker 2 

Take a look. 

00:09:00 Speaker 2 

At how these tools are designed and whether or not there’s bias built into them, there’s, you know, there’s so many different avenues that you can go down when you’re looking at AI and crafting policy. But really, how are we keeping students as safe as possible? And I think that includes both protecting them from the bad actors and also making sure that they understand how to use that resource so they’re not. 

00:09:20 Speaker 2 

Being subject to a ton of misinformation. 

00:09:23 Speaker 1 

Yeah. Well, it’s certainly a fascinating subject, even though it might not always be pleasant. It’s a hugely. 

00:09:29 Speaker 1 

Important one and I appreciate the work that you do in your district and thank you for sharing those those insights with our readers and our listeners and look forward to seeing you next week and continuing the conversation at Cos in 2024. 

00:09:46 Speaker 2 

Thank you for having me. I’m excited and I hope hope we get to meet in person and maybe I’ll see you in the session. 

00:09:51 Speaker 1 

Fantastic. Thanks.