Journal 3

"The ABC’s for Privacy Practices for Educators"
By: Melissa J. Dark, Clewin McPherson, & Joanne Troutner

In today’s hurried world, convenience is at the top of our list. Time saving technology is welcomed by all, to simplify tasks and make things easier. Commonly, educators are expected to maintain records and have them available for instant recall. This would not only include current documents for each student, but would also include their histories since kindergarten. It would take a caravan of moving trucks to transport such an effort. Instead of hauling around reams of paper, loading such information on a laptop, PDA or cell phone would naturally be a better choice. Unfortunately, such valuable information can be misplaced, lost or stolen. Recently, a top government official lost his laptop containing confidential information which could compromise our National Security. Less critical, but equally embarrassing, Paris Hilton also had a “techie blunder”, when someone ripped off her cell phone, containing Paris’ entire celebrity speed dial and top secret texts to enemies, friends and lovers. The article describes the best way to protect your private information in cyberspace. The authors make it as easy as ABC.

A = Asset Identification and Classification, which is to determine what needs to be asked and then select who will be privy to this information. This makes sense. I do not think the school nurse needs to know my grade point average or credit score. Likewise, the financial department should not ask about my cholesterol count even though it has to do with numbers. The article suggests to first, issue passwords that are difficult for hackers to crack, yet simple enough to remember yourself.
B = Building Privacy Policies, which means to put into writing exactly what will be asked and how the information will be dispersed. These policies protect the person giving the information that their confidential answers will not be sold, given away or fall into the wrong hands. It is a guarantee that there will be no break in confidence. Credit card companies send out disclosure statements frequently advising the card holders that they will share their private information and if the cardholder objects, they must opt out in writing. Schools and educational institutions must be held accountable for the information they gather and disperse.
C = Choosing Technologies that Enforce Policies. This is to find specific databases that list and allow information that is pertinent. Some information would have greater access, keeping more confidential information more difficult to reveal. Encryption, third party tools and authentication/passwords are some of the tools used to determine who gets in and who gets kicked out.

Question #1 Name a time when you lost something that contained private or personal information. How did you feel?

When I was in ninth grade, I lost my day planner. Now this planner not only contained my homework assignments, addresses and phone numbers; I used to write my daily diary entries in this assignment book. My deepest darkest secrets were displayed in my little notebook that I carried with me to school everyday. I was horrified and freaked out when I had misplaced it. Luckily, someone had turned it in to the PE locker room, and all was well. I quit writing in my diary after that. I learned a big lesson that day. Don’t ever write anything down that you wouldn’t want anyone to read, unless you are certain that the information is safe. In this case, my feelings were displayed for anyone to see, and that was traumatic in the ninth grade. In today’s society we have to worry about identity theft. It sure would have been a lot worse if I had misplaced a laptop that contained my social security, credit card numbers and passwords.

Question #2 As a teacher, what will you do to protect your students’ private information?

I plan on purchasing a new laptop when I get my first job. This article is a great guide as to how to protect private information. I will take the authors’ suggestions and use their ABC guide. I will first, design a username and password that only I know that will enable me to log in to my laptop. I will create a different username and password for whatever grade book program I decide to use. This way, my students’ information will be protected if, say, my friend wanted to use my laptop or if my laptop is misplaced or stolen. The article also discusses some technologies that are useful to protect privacy. I could encrypt certain files in Windows. This extra precaution would further help to make it more difficult for a hacker to become privy to my students’ personal information.