Google and privacy

By now, most of us have figured out that when we are arranging the pickup of a large stash of cocaine; supplying arms to a rebel militia; or making a date with a prostitute, hit man, or lobbyist; we simply don't use e-mail. Most unincarcerated teachers and parents know this is something we want our children to understand as well. 

But when the issue of online privacy becomes much more nuanced than that, I get confused.  Much concern has been raised over how much privacy Google gives it e-mail users. Or is this concern simply anti-Google groups out to create a false scare. Do I stop using e-mail completely, uber-encrypt my e-mail, or just stop worrying?

Here are some things I think I do know with a certain degree of confidence:

1. No message or data that uses the Internet as a carrier or is stored on a networked server is 100% secure - but then what in life is? We've got to starting thinking about the Internet as a public space, not as our living room. By speaking, appearing, and acting in public, we all give up some privacy rights. When e-mail first came into education, our rule of thumb was "Don't put anything in e-mail you wouldn't write on a postcard." Still valid advice.

2. Google Apps for Education and personal Google Accounts have different levels of privacy associated with them. You pay for your personal Gmail account by "selling" information about your interests, buying habits, etc. to commercial interests. Don't like it? Go someplace else, and good luck with that. With GoogleApps for Education, read their Security and Privacy page. In part it reads:

Google Apps is governed by a detailed Privacy Policy, which ensures we will not inappropriately share or use personal information placed in our systems. Google complies with applicable US privacy law, and the Google Apps Terms of Service can specifically detail our obligations and compliance with FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) regulations. 

3. Students and employees using school technology resources have always had a "limited right to privacy." Students and staff need to know that school network users have a "limited right to privacy." If school officials suspect evil deeds are being done on the school networks, they can and will read one's e-mail, stored files, and browser history. But then they do locker checks too. Businesses work the same way when it comes to business-owned technology resources. Get used to it.

4. Privacy just may be a thing of the past, with e-mail security the least of our problems. See: A cheap spying tool and Google knows what you're looking at - so what? The debate over the appropriateness of NSA's data collection, the debate over cameras at intersections to capture red light runners, and the debate over allowing GoogleGlass into bars, all highlight how technology has made us both more spied upon - but perhaps more secure as well. It's a bit of a dilemma: I don't want to get a camera-generated ticket in the mail for running a red light, but if such cameras reduce red light running and keep my grandchildren safer, I am OK with that.

5. Everyone eventually gets caught. My dad taught me this lesson at a very young age - through example. I never got away with squat. I'm guessing the same would hold true today. As much as I'd like to think I could get away with illicit uses of the Internet (I can't think of any right now, which is pretty sad.), I seriously doubt I would. 

I value both my privacy and my safety. The use or misuse of data collection, monitoring, and scanning can violate the first and improve the latter. The ideologues on both sides of this privacy/safety should be listened to - but with a bit of rational skepticism.
 

Librarians: Collaborate to lead

80% of success is just showing up.
                                             Woody Allen

The booklet School Library Research Summarized (Kachel, Mansfield University, 2013) analyzes 20 years of the impact of school library programs on student achievement. In summary:

... it has been shown that incremental increases in the following [library program attributes] can result in incremental gains in student learning:

• increased hours of access for both individual student visits and group visits by classes; 
• larger collections of print and electronic resources with access at school and from home; 
• up-to-date technology with connectivity to databases and automated collections; 
• instruction implemented in collaboration with teachers that is integrated with classroom curriculum and allows students to learn and practice 21st century skills, such as problem-solving, critical thinking, and communication of ideas and information; 
• increased student usage of school library services; 
• higher total library expenditures; and 
• leadership activities by the librarian in providing professional development for teachers, serving on key committees, and meeting regularly with the principal. [emphasis mine] 

While collaboration with individual teachers is important to a successful library program, collaboration with school leaders and membership on school leadership teams is critical - and too few building librarians recognize this. Librarians tend to focus on working with individual teachers, rather than the entities who give those teachers their direction.

Not only does working with other leaders help librarians stay informed about their building's and district's goals and priorities, it also gives them a voice in helping create those goals and priorities - allowing librarians to lead.

Given the division in philosophies about how to best teach reading, how to best measure student "achievement," what priorities should be given to higher order thinking skills and creativity; and, indeed, even what the purpose of education itself should be, no conscientious educator can remain mute - or simply grumble to peers.

Librarians, you can and should be serving on at least one, if not more, of these teams (in addition to meeting regularly with your building principal):

• Building/site leadership team
• Curriculum teams
• Assessment committees
• Strategic planning initiatives
• Technology advisory committees
• New facility planning task forces
• Parent-teacher organization
• Accreditation/program review teams

By virtue of training and experience, we in the library profession hold unique and valuable insights into the way children learn, what creates a positive school climate, and what students need to know and be able to do to be successful adults. As Woody remarks above, just showing up gets one a long way. But I would advise that the final 20% consists of being persuasive when participating on committees, teams, and task forces. This means having research, expert opinion, and studies to back up one's views and values. Know the research that supports voluntary free reading; understand why creativity and higher order thinking skills, not just test-taking skills, are critical to student success; and know what studies show make an impactful library program.

In a climate in which children's futures are being sold for political points or few dollars of extra profits by educational corporations, to remain silent is unprofessional, even unethical.

Show up. Speak up. Collaborate. Lead. Librarians, make this your goal for the 2013-14 school year - and every year thereafter.

See also "Starting Off on the Right Foot"

How much should districts standardize on technology?

In One LMS for All or Digital Spaces for All,  Ryan Bretag writes:

... I’m continuing to ask these key questions:

1. Is there still a need for a “traditional” Learning Management System?
2. Is there a need to standardize on one LMS for all teachers opting to have a digital space?
3. Is Moodle (or whatever tool) still a “viable” LMS in a multidimensional learning space vision?
4. What is most valuable to learning and learners? [Ryan's post is nuanced and thoughtful - read it all.]

The push-pull between standardization of technologies and teacher/learner autonomy has been a dilemma for years.

When wearing my techie hat, standardization of any technology, hardware and applications, offers nothing but positives:

• single systems to learn, support, troubleshoot, and upgrade
• single systems on which to train
• single systems that allow teachers to share materials and lessons
• single equipment models for which to stock parts
• single systems to purchase and negotiate maintenance agreements
• fewer systems to make interoperable with other systems, platforms and devices

For usually understaffed and underfunded technology departments, standardization is not just good practice - but a survival strategy. And no one seems to complain about a common student management system, telephone system, finance system, etc..

I also believe standardization has a genuine benefit to our students. How much time would students spend learning to use a different LMS operations instead of learning content area skills? If one's 3rd grade teacher used Moodle and the 4th grade teacher now uses Edmodo, is time wasted learning how to do a similar task in two systems? If the English teacher likes GoogleSites, the science teacher prefers Wikispaces, and the social studies teacher uses who-knows-what, are students spending needless energy figuring this all out? Students do move between teachers, between grades, and between schools in our district.

Yet I personally do not like to be dictated to on which systems I use. (I use Dropbox and Evernote despite them not being "official" school adoptoins.) I do believe in teacher autonomy. And I know some systems offer features that I can use to good advantage as a teacher that others may not.

Our compromise has been to support a single set of digital storage/sharing (Google Drive) and learning management system (Moodle) which seem to work synergistically, but don't go out of our way to prohibit teachers from using "non-official" tools - and explore new ones.

I am asking, I guess, if the "personalization" of education should apply to teachers as well as students? Or are students better served by common tools shared by all teachers?