Digital Smarts Blog

K-12 schools now make up the majority of victims from ransomware attacks, according to a report from the FBI and other federal security agencies. Ransomware is a form of malware in which the attacker gains access to the victim’s computer systems and then holds the victim’s systems and/or data for ransom. Perpetrators demand money on the threat of disabling computer systems that they’ve gained control over or releasing personal data they’ve stolen (generally private student data in the case of K–12 incidents). Parents and students need to be aware of these attacks, which also disrupt service and block remote learning. Do you know your school’s policy on surviving a ransomware attack?

A clip of a Cartoon Network public service announcement that features Pearl from the "Steven Universe" show talking about the effect of systemic racism on the teaching of history has gone viral on social, attracting millions of views across Twitter and TikTok. "These textbooks are incomplete," says Pearl in the video, "There were Black Roman warriors, Black medieval knights, Black classical musicians, Black cowboys, Black fighter pilots. Where are they?"

Facebook is partnering with the Smithsonian Institution, Le Grand Palais and the Palace of Versailles to let Instagram users virtually explore museum collections using augmented reality. Augmented Reality will enable Instagram users to spin the works of art 360 degrees and zoom in closer than would be possible at the actual museums.

Voice recognition technology is growing rapidly, but the data generated – including this such as the voice of a child reading a story stored on digital media- qualifies as personal information, raising privacy and compliance issues, writes Joseph Lazzarotti of law firm Jackson Lewis. In a commentary, Lazzarotti outlines seven factors for schools and businesses to consider, concluding that "creating a robust data protection program or regularly reviewing an existing one is a critical risk management and legal compliance step."

Both students and teachers report that the shift to remote instruction during the coronavirus pandemic has affected their mental health, with teachers who participated in a survey saying they feel anxious and fearful. Rachel Prince, a high-school teacher in Arizona, says virtual instruction began with some level of excitement but shifted to a constant effort to make students feel better. Students on the other hand have reported constant feelings of missing out.

If you want to discuss with your kids how misinformation is creeping into our lives, you might want to use the upcoming Georgia runoff elections as a case study of how things are getting out of hand on social media. The full force of 2020’s most effective fake news tactics is hitting the state: fears of widespread voter fraud, allegations of violence, and claims about candidates’ socialism. But despite its much-touted efforts to add warning or fact-checking labels to election disinformation, Facebook is failing to do exactly that on more than half of the questionable posts related to the Georgia races, according to a new analysis by Avaaz, a nonprofit that tracks online disinformation. The group found that Facebook failed to add fact-checking labels to at least 60% of a cross-section of Georgia-related election misinformation that reached thousands of voters. An analysis of more than 200 posts promoting a dozen false claims about the Georgia elections in both English and Spanish showed how the posts followed a now well-worn playbook of amplifying disinformation that has proven effective in recent months. This includes falsehoods about widespread voter fraud, fake rumors about acts of violence targeting African-American voters, and allegations that Democratic Senate candidate Raphael Warnock had “celebrated” Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Years ago there was some talk about creating a font to be used for making sarcastic remarks so that the person on the other end would know the tone was meant to be sarcastic. It never came to pass but now tone indicators are making the rounds in social media posts. Put simply, tone indicators are written shorthand for the poster’s intent and emotion. For example, one might use “/j,” short for “joking” to indicate the disparaging comment you just made about your best friend was just a friendly nudge and not the ‘nastygram’ that it might be taken as.

It will be interesting to see if this trend catches on. The tone indicators are showing up on Twitter and in the comments sections of The New York Times. And if your children start using them, you will certainly need to know what they are. Here is a sample list:

/j = joking
/s = sarcasm
/srs = serious
/nsrs = not serious
/r = romantic
/lh = lighthearted
/f = fake
/th = threat
/li = literally
/nm = not mad or upset
/t = teasing
 

Ninety percent of 13- to 17-year-olds play video games, data shows -- a trend that some schools are using to build student interest in computer science and STEM. In a Texas school district, students hone their skills by developing an "edutainment game," and teachers also use video games to teach soft skills as well as to further equity and inclusion goals.

Nakia Smith, 22, is using TikTok videos to teach Black American Sign Language (developed during the era of segregated schools) to viewers, and is attracting millions of views. Smith, whose family has deaf people across several generations, is part of a movement that has attracted interest in how Black deaf people communicate and the differences between BASL and American Sign Language.

Gaming team Fnatic is working with sports scientists to determine how sleep and stress affect players' performance. Researchers will also examine the role of caffeine, alcohol and cortisol levels, with Fnatic CEO Sam Matthews noting that as esports becomes fiercely competitive, "you're always looking at edges that you can get, whether it's hardware, training, or psychology." As more and more schools offer esports teams, esports will be the subject of even more research and how it affects students in and out of the classroom.

Seemingly innocuous digital tools and features, such as text size and cursor color, can help students learn — or hamper the experience. A built-in Chromebook feature, for example, not only makes the cursor larger, but it also draws a red circle around the object, making it easier to spot helping distracted remote learners. Gendered voices are another example. Having the option to select a particular voice can enable children and teens to choose the one that puts them most at ease. Text to speech tools are built into most devices and include other features such as voice typing and transcription, and Chromebooks have a built-in screen reader that reads aloud full pages or selected text. The tool highlights individual words as well as the paragraphs that contain them. Other features include options to adjust the speech rate and voice. Additional features are also available.

Despite the growing numbers of US schools falling victim to cybercriminals and ransomware attacks, few have signed onto federal resources aimed at improving their cybersecurity capabilities, Brandon Wales, acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said during a Senate subcommittee hearing. Wales encourages school districts to enroll in free membership in the Multi-State Information Sharing & Analysis Center and the free federal malicious domain blocking and reporting service.

Ruben Verborgh, a professor of computer science in Belgium, says tech companies' "data collection frenzy" discourages innovation and "encourages unfair competition." Verborgh is working with the web's creator, Tim Berners-Lee, on a project called Solid to help consumers create personal safes for their data.

About 90% of first-grade students at a Washington, D.C., school achieved targets in reading in March, but in the fall -- following a period of remote instruction -- every student was lagging behind in reading, and none read at grade level. Teachers and families are working to recover the learning loss, yet educators and experts say it is an example of the potential long-term effects of the coronavirus pandemic on learning.     

Moon Mark has forged a partnership with Lunar Outpost to send race cars, designed and piloted remotely by high school students, to the moon in 2021. "This is a way to get the young generation involved in discovering new technology, and stretching their minds in a way that's never been done before in history," said McLaren P1 designer Frank Stephenson, who is involved in the project.

Learning from home has been "a roller coaster," according to Samantha Nicole Vicedo, a junior at Luther Burbank High School. In a blog post, Vicedo and other students share what the experience of remote instruction has been for them, including Cheyenne Lo, also a junior, who shares frustrations with technology and teachers who ignore certain time limits. It is a good read for parents who may be having trouble getting kids to describe their issues with remote learning and would like to gain some perspective.

As digital learning is expected to expand, data shows 67% of K-12 schools – comprising of approximately 31.5 million students -- do not meet the recommended threshold of 1 megabits per second per student, according to a report by Connected Nation. Yet, data shows some improvement in median bandwidth per student and costs. Rural areas' unique issues often make broadband connection difficult, and hotspots won’t work in some districts, such as Tennessee’s Polk County School District, where some areas lack cellular towers. According a report by the National 4-H Council and Microsoft, 20% of teenagers live in rural areas without high-speed broadband internet, and 50% say they struggle to do homework for that reason.

To overcome the challenge, some districts are teaming up with private businesses in creative ways. For example, Ector County Independent School District in Odessa, Texas, is partnering with SpaceX to transmit high-speed, low-latency internet access to some students’ homes via the company's Starlink satellite system. The service will launch in early 2021 with 45 families who live in remote areas and have no Internet options.

The coronavirus pandemic has altered how students interact with school libraries. In one example, Susan Gauthier, a library services director in a Louisiana district, says that six years ago she directed librarians to limit spending on e-books to 10% of their budgets, but now e-book usage is on the rise and she is reconsidering the future of schools' collections. Interestingly enough, high schoolers have put up the most resistance to the ebook transition. Gauthier suspects one factor is the district’s focus on purchasing perpetual ebooks, the ones libraries can access forever, over more popular titles that with restrictive licenses. For example, students may login to the database of titles looking for Angie Thomas’ bestselling young adult novel “The Hate U Give,” but Gauthier has to weigh demand against the fact that the district would lose access to it after 26 borrows because of publishers’ pricing models. 

The use of students' academic and attendance data in a Florida district in Pascoe County to predict whether they might commit crimes later in life is drawing scrutiny. Law enforcement officials say the data, which has not been shared with the roughly 400 students identified, is used to target students who need additional support and mentorship, but experts on data privacy and student security are asking for an investigation, and say it could be illegal.

Thirty-nine percent of principals and school district leaders surveyed say they no longer will close schools for inclement weather, instead adopting remote learning days in those circumstances. Another 32% say they are considering the move, according to EdWeek Research Center data. Other leaders say they will maintain snow days to provide students with a bit of “normalcy” during an unprecedented year.