Tech Notes
October 2019
Goal: Phishing Prevention
Goal: Phishing Awareness
Audience: All Staff
Measurement Tool: KnowBe4 phishing campaign software.
Current Status (if known): About 7% of staff clicked a link in a phishing e-mail in the past two campaigns (Spring 2019). About 14% clicked in the October 2019 campaign.
Target: 4% or less staff click a link or reply to a phishing e-mail by May 2020.
Rationale: Phishing attacks represent a threat to the district that encompasses the possibility of compromised information, identity theft, monetary theft, system outages, data loss, and erosion of trust.
A quick Google search on schools being compromised by phishing scams, malware, and ransomware will turn up plenty of results; some relevant stories with actionable suggestions and data are also linked below. Most suggestions boil down to being observant and trusting your intuition if a message seems out of character or unexpected.
EdTech magazine article: K-12 Schools Remain Vulnerable to Phishing Attacks
EdWeek: K-12 Cybersecurity lessons learned from "constant barrage of attacks"
We will run another phishing campaign soon. Staff who click a phishing link or open an attachment in one of the phishing e-mails will be added to a "clicker" group and be offered the option of reviewing training materials on this topic. Reviewing the training materials will be optional. Some tips for identifying a phishing message are attached below.
Goal: Infinite Campus Parent Portal Accounts
Goal: Infinite Campus Parent Portal Accounts
Audience: All Parents
Measurement tool: IC reporting on portal accounts
Current status (if known): 74.47% for district as of September 2019.
Target: 90% of households have accounts.
Rationale: As we expand our use of Infinite Campus to include On-Line Registration (which allows annual enrollment “paperwork” to be completed) we have opportunities for improved communication and efficiency that can be realized if we make access and use of IC a priority.
Ideas we will be exploring for increasing parent access:
- Better communication about what information is accessible to parents in Infinite Campus.
- Reminders to visit the portal when certain documents are made available, such as report cards.
- Improve our outreach to non-English speaking households through additional and updated translation of materials and production of video tutorials.
- Working with each school to commit to adopting the use of On-Line Registration for the 2020-2021 school year.
What ideas do you have? Send Bryan a note with your suggestions!
You can use the camera on an iPad to scan a QR code.
From Apple's support site:
- Open the Camera app from the Home screen, Control Center, or Lock screen.
- Select the rear facing camera. Hold your device so that the QR code appears in the viewfinder in the Camera app. Your device recognizes the QR code and shows a notification.
- Tap the notification to open the link associated with the QR code.
Staff iPad & MacBook Refresh
Once the iPads are done (and as needed in the interim), we will continue with the current wave of staff MacBook replacements. As of now, this wave (year one of three) is about 37% complete (111 of 298 deployed).
Staff receiving a newer MacBook Air should also review the Tech Tools article that explains our rationale and criteria for dongle requests.
Summer Projects - Status Updates
- Chromebooks at Middle Schools and CFC: Refresh/Replace most of the existing older HP Chromebooks. - done.
- Wireless Access Points: Oldest model replaced district-wide (about 200). This will be done in two waves, the first wave will replace the older 3600 series model. That wave is started; 15 out of 95 done. The second wave will be selected 3700 series models and known network "gap" areas.
Shakopee Instructional Technology Services
Email: helpdesk@shakopee.k12.mn.us
Website: https://techtools.shakopee.k12.mn.us/
Location: 1200 Shakopee Town Square, Shakopee, MN, USA
Phone: 5100
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/shakopeedlc/
Twitter: @ShakoTechDrozd