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Every week it seems there is a front-page headline proclaiming another government agency data stick lost, or a laptop stolen exposing personal details of thousands to persons unknown.  Clearly the amount of damage done will be limited to the nature of the data exposed and how accessible it is to those who have obtained it, but exposing personal data to persons unknown could be career-threatening.  Data that is encrypted to a suitable level will never present a security risk yet many teachers carry data sticks that contain personal details of pupils such as names, Unique Personal Numbers, details of academic achievement and behavioural/health issues - all wide open to the next person who picks up the mislaid data stick in the street.

Schools need to assess the risks of sensitive data being removed from their systems.  A Shropshire County Council policy for schools information security can be found here, and  Becta offers some Data Security advice for schools .  One of the basic Technological safeguards suggested is that removable data be encrypted.  Data encryption used to be a potentially arduous and expensive task.  It’s not so difficult or expensive any more and with this in mind it might be suggested that encrypting personal data held on portable devices is essential.  Becta offers a list of data encryption programs that are of varying ease to use.

Having just installed TrueCrypt I can confirm that this is a user-friendly program and I would be happy rolling out to teachers to encrypt data sticks.  It has versions for Mac OS-X, Windowsand Linux.  Data can be encrypted on an entire drive or simply within one folder/directory, and the ecrypted directory can be hidden altogether to prevent data from being demanded under duress (although I can’t see this being a problem with the majority of the kinds of information we have in education).

Now to think about an article concerning  encrypting emails…

FREE best practice events for users of all types of interactive whiteboards!

“How can the compass tool on your interactive whiteboard help your class to focus on adjectives?” intrigued? you will be!

Wait until you hear some of our other suggestions from our Teaching and Learning Advisors. All of our TLAs have themselves been teachers prior to joining Promethean, with subject experience ranging from Maths to Physical Education, primary and secondary level. Each of them are specialists in their own subject, but all of them can offer advice, training and knowledge to ensure you leave the event feeling more confident in your whiteboard abilities.

Regardless of what brand whiteboard you are using, and what subject areas you need support with, these free and local sessions will give you some inspiring ideas for the academic year ahead. What’s more, we’ll be giving away free trials of our award‐winning Activprimary software for you to try out.

To make sure that you’re really prepared for your new year, we’ll also be handing out free DVDs and magazine supplements with further ideas and suggestions for you to take away with you and share with your colleagues.

What are you waiting for? To find out when and where your nearest Love Your Whiteboard Roadshow is taking place and to reserve your place, simply visit www.prometheanplanet.com/loveyourwhiteboard

Shropshire

Radbrook Primary School, Bank Farm Rd, Radbrook Green, Shrewsbury SY3 6DU,
05-06-08 (4 - 5pm)

The slow-running computers at the Shrewsbury Centre have just been tidied up (Thanks Steve) and are now running a lot more smoothly. Question is, how many more slow-running PCs are out there? I found this article on things you can do quickly and easily to make even the most clapped-out PC run faster.
Top tips are:

• Delete any programs that you never use (Check first!!)
• Turn off your desktop background image (right click the Desktop, choose Properties, Desktop, and looking under Background)
• Delete temporary internet files
• Defragment your hard drive (My Computer, right-click your C: hard drive, choose Properties, Tools, Defragment Now) – and leave it to run – it’ll take an hour or so!
• Empty the Recycle bin!

More at http://www.tweak3d.net/tweak-guides/windows-xp/15-minute-xp-tune-up

WMnet has created a web resource that uses multimedia to show best practice in video conferencing (VC).

For those teachers considering VC as an educational tool, the site offers best practice and advice on how to use it.

For existing VC users, the resource gives ideas and guidance in how to use VC most effectively for teaching, and touches on educational leadership and CPD.

Areas covered include:

• Effective teaching using VC
• Improving communications skills
• Enriching learning through VC
• Planning and managing VC
• VC as a collaborative tool
• Engaging learners and capturing their interest

If you would like further information then visit http://www.wmnet.org.uk/vc/

Google notebook is an extension for IE or Firefox web browsers.

Clip and collect information as you browse the web.

• Clip useful information.
  You can add clippings of text, images and links from web pages to your Google Notebook without ever leaving your browser window.
• Organize your notes.
  You can create multiple notebooks, divide them into sections, and drag-and-drop your notes to stay organized.
• Get access from anywhere.
  You can access your Google Notebooks from any computer by using your Google Accounts login.
• Publish your notebook.
  You can share your Google Notebook with the world by making it public.

Further details can be found on the overview page. I see this as an effective tool for students carrying out research on the internet.  All notes have the url they were taken from recorded underneath the note, you can edit the notes and even type in your own notes which will be related to the page you are viewing.  Here is an example of a public notebook that I made searching for information about Whitchurch, Shropshire.

Personal homepages seem to be a common theme on the web atm, I have had a play with pageflakes, My Yahoo! and more recently Google. So why would I want a personal homepage, these are the reasons on the Google website:

Your personalized homepage brings together Google functionality and content from across the web, on a single page:

• Preview latest Google Mail messages
• See headlines from Google News and other top news sources
• Get weather forecasts, stock quotes, and movie showtimes
• Select from a variety of popular feeds
• Drag and drop the sections to rearrange the page.

You can also add your favourite rss feeds from any website/blog. Are there any educational uses for this kind of application?

Most people just type their search terms into Google and then trawl through its results, did you know that it is possible to set up a couple of preferences for your searching. To do so click on the ‘Preferences‘ link on the right hand side of the search box, the preferences are as follows:

Interface Language - allows you to change the language you want your tips and messages in.

Search Language - this is the language that pages you search for are written in, by default this is ‘any language’. If you are an English speaker you could change this to English, or if you were doing a French lesson you might choose French.

SafeSearch Filtering - this allows you to change the default amount of filtering that Google applies. Further details can be found on the SafeSearch page.

Number of Results - this is the number of results per page, by default this is 10 but you can increase it to 100. Bear in mind the more results per page the slower the page will be to load.

Results Window - you can either have your search results opening in your present browser window or in a new window.

You can find further details on these settings here.  All these preferences are stored in your cookies so will remain on the machine you are working until you remove your cookies.

I am sure you can remember the times when you have been digging and someone says if you carry on like that you will arrive in Australia. This Google maps mashup (If I dig a very deep hole, where I go to stop?) allows you to find out exactly where you would end up if you carried on digging through the planet.

There is an article about this application at Stanford University.

Our next stop on the Google trail is the’define:’ command. Google has incorporated its glossary function from the Labs into Google search. Enter define followed by the word or phrase. Google will find definitions on web pages and display the first one with a link to more. For example if I wanted a definition of RSS, I would type ‘define:RSS’ into Google and it would return:

Related phrases: rss feeds rss feed media rss list of rss feeds rss feed reader rss point

Definitions of rss on the Web:

Rich Site Summary.
www.intensedevelopment.net/website-design-R.html

RDF Site Summary, or Rich Site Summary, or Really Simple Syndication – A lightweight XML format for distributing news headlines and other content on the Web.
www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm

and more…..