Passwords - Remembered but Hard to Guess

In todays world we have to have passwords for everything and as teachers some of these passwords protect our gradebooks and sensitive student information.  So the question is how do you make a password that is so hard for someone else to guess but really easy for you to remember.

First here is a few simple tips on what passwords should have in them:

•  At least one uppercase letter and one lower case letter
• At least one number
• At least one symbol like @#%^&*
• Be at least 8-12 characters long
• Never use the same one twice

Now with all these rules you are probbly saying there is no way I will remember a oassword such as ""T0o1n2y3"" but if you look closely it is really not that hard of a password to remember.   Today's most popular passwords are 123456, password, or for teachers the name of the school.  

So back to the question how do you create a password that is so hard to guess but easy to rememeber?  If you look back at the password I created it is my name with numbers after each letter and quotes around it.  The trick is to not remember the password but to remember a rule and make the rule work so that every place you need to create a password can have a different one.

Here are a few simple examples to get you thinking the right way:

•  Use the sites name broken up by your favorite number then use quotes around it - "T7o7n7y7s7"
• If it is a secrect question never use the real answer use parts of the question and something else you will remember.

If you notice nothing here is hard to remember and it will make your passwords so hard to guess you will be more secure.

Steve Gibson founder of Gibson Research Corporation and host of Security Weekly on the TwiT network has a great site designed to help you see how secure your passwords are.  It is called a Password Haystack because it is like hiding your password(needle) in a huge haystack.

Create a password and then pop it in Steve Gibson's site and see how great your new rule will be in protecting yourself online.

ABC News Link

This is a great video where Steve Gibson talks about his password haystack and explains why complex passwords are not always more secure.

Social Bookmarking

There are many sites online that allow you to store and share your internet bookmarks.  Here are a few great options for teachers to use in their classroom.

1)      Diigo.com – Diigo has a few great options for bookmarking.  The first is they have a free educators program that allows you to set up classes and get private logins for each of your students.  This allows you to use the service with younger students and still keep their information private.  The second option Diigo has is the ability to highlight and annotate your bookmarked pages and to share this information with others on the web.  Finally Diigo allows you to join groups to share and see links from other people.

2)      Delicio.us – This is a bookmarking site by Yahoo and was slated to be closed however recent news has showed that it is staying around.  Delicious is an easy site to use since it has lots of plugins for your browsers.  These plugins allow you one click access to add the bookmark to their site and to save them for future use.  Delicious allows you to search by tags and popular bookmarks on their site which gives you great research opprotunities as well as the ability to share your links.

3)      Pinboard.in – This is a new social bookmarking site that offers a very simple interface to bookmark sites.  This site is very new and growing.  One of the cool things about this site is you can sign up for their premium services for a one-time fee and this fee goes up based on the number of people using their service so the earlier you join the cheaper it is.

Personally I have started using Diigo in my classes and I have found that their options make it really easy for a teacher to manage their classes.

Are Snow Days a Thing of the Past?

Snow days have been looked forward to by students and teachers alike for decades now, but is it time to end snow days.  With the rise in computers and the internet education now has a viable way to teach students when they are not in a classroom or at the school.  According to ITU (International Telecommunication Union) in 2010 the US had 77.3% of its population online and this does not look at the rise in mobile internet access that cellphones now bring.  With over 75% of our population having internet access I think it is time we start looking at using it to keep the learning going when the school has to shut down for a natural occurrence such as snow or a public health issue like the swine flu outbreak we had last year.

At least two school districts are already doing this.  The first is Convent of the Sacred Heart in Greenwich, CT (http://tony.fm/eLq3KJ ).  When school was closed for snow students found messages from their teachers with lessons using online video and websites and homework attached to be completed before they came back to school.  This school gives all its students laptops so web and computer access is not a problem and their teachers regularly use the internet to post content and create online spaces for their students to work.  A second school district moving to online for snow days is Mississinawa Valley School District in Darke County, Ohio (http://tony.fm/hsFOam).  They decided to use at least two of their snow days as online days which means they do not have to make them up and they do not lose that important instructional time.  Teachers used PD time over the summer to create online lessons to use in the case of snow days.  Students that do not have access to the internet have been given local libraries and fire stations that they can use to get access to their assignments, this gives all students access to the materials.

There are at least two places moving to get rid of snow days so how can we move everyone else to do the same well here is my strategy to move online during snow or public health emergencies. 

• Conduct a survey of all students and their parents to find out if they have access to the internet at home or through their cellphones.  With this data a school can start to make a plan for those that do not have internet access. 
• For the students with internet access schools need to work with their teachers to develop online lessons using a CMS like Moodle or Blackboard or just setting up documents and activities using Google Docs and other free online websites.
• For the students without internet access finding them locations to access the internet might be difficult during an emergency so my plan would use a text messaging service to have teachers’ text home assignments for their various classes.  This gives them the ability to use their books and home resources to complete the assignments
• For students that do not have access to the internet or a cellphone the school could have the teacher call the student’s house to give them their assignment.  This group of students should be very small with the wide spread use of cellphones and internet.

If your school district has started to move snow days online share your experiences here.

Do Your Kids Share Too Much Online?

The Today show on NBC interviews Dr. Jenna Taylor and Amy Astley of Teen Vogue about Teen Sharing online.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Connected Safely (http://www.connectsafely.org/) a great site has just released an updated Guide to Facebook for Parents (http://www.connectsafely.org/Safety-Advice-Articles/facebook-for-parents.html).  For any parents that looked at this video and wants to really understand how to start the conversation with their kids and understand what is going on in Facebook read this book and it will get you started. 

Online Textbook and Resources

Textbooks are the most important part of most teachers’ lives in the classroom.  These books give them examples, exercises, and help on planning their lessons.  However in today’s world of technology and the internet there is a great new way to do textbooks.

Online textbooks and resources give teachers access to vastly more information than a single textbook from one publisher.  Here are a couple of great examples of online textbooks and resources.

CK12.org Flexbooks (http://www.ck12.org/flexbook/)

CK12.org gives you the ability to create a textbook that works for your class and your individual students.  These books are updated frequently and mistakes in them are reported and fixed without the need to republish the book.  Books can be printed and used in the classroom, however they also have the ability to be downloaded to the iPad or the Kindle for easy electronic consumption.

Henrico County Mathematics (http://henricostaffdev.org/math/)

This website is created and run by Henrico County Public Schools in Virginia.  The site has online resources organized for mathematics on two different websites. 

The first one http://henricostaffdev.org/math/courses/ is broken down by course and is setup like you were actually taking the class.  Each course has the topics laid out with information about the topic, examples on how to do them, and then exercises to complete.  Some of the topics include video explanations and interactive activates for the student to complete.

The other website http://teachers.henrico.k12.va.us/math/index10.html or http://henricostaffdev.org/math_links/ has all the activities and all the courses loaded together and give you the ability to pick anything you want to see.  Once you choose your topics and activity you will see all the resources available for you to use.

These two websites are great examples of collated resources for teachers to use.  If you have other great sites like these please leave them in the comments for others to see and use.