Technology Newsletter

In this edition:

1. Cybersecurity
2. Seven new Microsoft Forms features
3. TED-ed Lessons
4. Teaching with Microsoft Teams
5. 99Math
6. New Microsoft Teams Homepage
7. Creative Commons
8. Digital Resource Request Form
9. Google Expeditions are back!
10. Teachflix

Did you know that October is also known as Cybersecurity Awareness Month! This was created in 2004 as a collaboration between government and industry to ensure that every American has the resources they need to stay safer and more secure online. Recently Marshall Public Schools IT staff conducted an internal Phishing attempt where we pretended to be Microsoft asking you for a “Password Reset Request”. The email showed a Microsoft Logo but had misspellings and links to resources that were not quite right. Sadly, we had 10 people click on the unsuspecting link and 7 people provided their username and password! With this information a hacker could potentially login and access your account. In the cybersecurity world this incident would be considered a “Business email compromise.” In recent discussions with my colleagues dealing with cybersecurity, a single Business Email Compromise investigation from an outside firm would cost the district $465.00 per hour for a minimum of 25 hours. That is $11,625.00 for just one initial investigation and often there is further activity which leads to additional expenses. The FBI’s 2021 Internet Crime Report indicates that annual losses from Business Email Compromise attacks are approximately $2.4 billion, which accounts for almost half of all losses due to cybercrime. Sadly, education is one of the top targets for cyber criminals.

Be suspicious of unexpected emails. Phishing emails are currently one of the most prevalent risks to the average user. 9 out of 10 Cyberattacks begin with a Phishing link. The goal of a phishing email is to gain information about you, or install malware on your device. Be suspicious of all unexpected emails. Some recent examples we have seen include emails pretending to be from “External: (fill in) Yourbuilding.Administrator@marshall.k12.mn.us You should quickly recognize that emails from internal employees should not say External. Cybersecurity is a complex problem that relies on a combination of people, processes, and technology to protect the organization’s data, systems, technology infrastructure, and networks. Mistakes by individuals can have broad impacts across the whole organization, resulting in cybersecurity incidents and data breaches that damage the whole school system.

At its heart, ed.ted.com is a library of 1,000+ educational videos called TED-Ed Lessons. It’s also a unique platform to create your own multiple choice and discussion questions for any YouTube video or existing TED-Ed lesson.

Did you know that you can sort TED-Ed videos by student level as well as sort by newest, oldest, featured, plus by subject? Go to the TED-Ed lessons page use the filtering and sorting tools located above the list of lessons ~ Subject on left side, filter by and sort by toward the right side.

Thanks to Bennett Appel for introducing me to this resource!

Free Multiplayer Math Game - Free math games to master fact fluency and curriculum standards. Choose the math skill and the program generates the problems for you. Create a link to your game and put it on your teacher Clever page to direct your students to join the game/session.

Go here to sign up for your teacher account to get started.

Creative Commons licenses and public domain tools give every person and organization in the world a free, simple, and standardized way to grant copyright permissions for creative and academic works; ensure proper attribution; and allow others to copy, distribute, and make use of those works.

From the reuser’s perspective, the presence of a Creative Commons license on a copyrighted work answers the question, “What can I do with this work?”

There are six different Creative Commons licenses - you can learn about each of them here.

Refer to the instructions below on how to find Creative Commons images in a Google search.

• Go to: www.google.com
• In the search bar, enter your search criteria
• Under the right corner of the search bar, click on the Tools button
• You should now see additional menu options below the search bar that includes Usage Rights
• Click to drop down Usage Rights and choose Creative Commons licenses
• Your results will appear on the current page.
• Refer to the types of Creative Commons license as linked to above to determine what you can do with the image you are choosing.

After a year off, Google Expeditions are back! We have one set of 30 goggles available for checkout. If you would like to use the kit, please submit a tech ticket to have the kit delivered to you (please provide at least a two-day notice to get it transported to your location). Instructions are below for using the kit:

STARTING EXPEDITION PRO APP WITH STUDENTS

(allow 30 minutes)

All devices & tablet should be charged in advance of use. Remove from case to charge to avoid overheating.

· Before students arrive, teacher downloads expedition to teacher tablet by connecting to the TigerWLAN Wi-Fi. When finished downloading, disconnect from district WIFI and connect the teacher tablet/device to the TPLink router.

· TP Link – DO NOT PLUG INTO NETWORK VIA ETHERNET CABLE.

· TP Link plugs into power source only - do this before starting up any other devices. Attach the three antennas to TPLink router.

· Plug in router to power source – all devices connect to TP Link to go on expedition (they should be automatically connected to the TPLink router).

· Students should be sitting on floor.

· Hand out phone devices and goggles to students.

· Students power on phone devices (vibrates in hand); stay at home screen (pink): DO NOT EXPLORE ON DEVICE.

· Teacher launches the Expedition Pro app on the tablet/device home screen.

· If Prompted teacher should log in with Username VRKit1 and Password Tigers413!

· Students tap the Expedition Pro app on the home screen and choose Login as Guest (Follower-only mode).

· Students choose Class and select Join for the nearby leader

· Students insert phone device into the VR goggles

· Teacher selects view tour to start the tour

· To direct students’ attention to a specific part of an image, press and hold until orange circle appears. Students will see arrow pointing them to the circle

· To move to a new scene, swipe left or right on the cards at the bottom right to select a new location.

· To exit the tour, tap on the X in the top left-hand corner.

· Students gently take phone device out of goggle. Swipe home screen to close open applications and power phone device off.

· Wipe off goggles with wipes (clorox or other cleaner) prior to returning to case.

· Teacher deletes any finished expeditions from teacher device; power off.

**MAKE SURE YOU DO A TRIAL RUN (TEST DRIVE) BEFORE DOING THE EXPEDITION WITH YOUR STUDENTS**

If you haven't checked this out, I would highly recommend it:

Here's what you'll find in the new and updated site:

📺 More than 400 instructional videos (suggested by educators)

📺 A search bar to search for keywords

📺 "Who's Watching" buttons to open videos just for elementary, middle, and high school

📺 Category pages (with cool movie posters as the buttons)

📺 Filters on category pages to narrow down the videos displayed

📺 Individual video pages with short summaries

📺 An ebook full of activities you can do with these videos

• Todd Pickthorn
• Karen Londgren
• Nick Esping
• Kent Powell

Contact karen.londgren@marshall.k12.mn.us with question