Muddiest point - Data protection

One ethical and legal issue that seems muddy to me is the issue of protecting student data and when considering metadata and the move toward cloud computing.  During my interview with our district technology director, I asked about cloud storage and cloud computing.  My interviewee shared he thought this is where we are headed more and more with technology.  We actually had two different interviews as the first recording stopped after the first 30 seconds.  During the first interview, I asked about protection of student data with respect to cloud computing.  One thing my interviewee shared was the quandary about how much needs to be done with respect to guarding our computers versus the impact on usability of the system.  He mentioned his experience with adding in firewalls and virus protection; it seems he decided he had gone overboard with protecting the computer and files because the computer slowed down to the point it was impractical to use.  Dr. Brown touches on this with corporate compromise of personal information.  Last year, I received a letter from a hospital where I had some medical testing completed over twenty years ago.  It seemed a hospital laptop was stolen from an employee’s vehicle – from the trunk in the hospital parking garage, if I remember correctly.  Patient information was on that laptop; therefore, the hospital provided patients with a subscription for identity theft protection and credit monitoring service.  I am sure this was quite costly for the hospital.

As an online teacher, I am often in a quandary about how to work efficiently without compromising student information.  We need to be diligent in guarding our students personal information.  When I was in the brick and mortar, this involved being careful about files I carried home on my thumbdrives.  I was also very careful to guard my school and personal laptop with password protection.  I know teachers and parents who gave their own children their passwords for email and computers.  That is a very dangerous thing.  As an online teacher, I have to train our parents not to give their students access to the online parent account.  Yes, I have had very serious conversations with parents about students having the parent account information.  There have been cases involving students “figuring out” the password, but I have also had parents give the password to the student, so the student can enter their own attendance and the like.  This is a major violation of school policy, as it gives access to parent messaging and assessment answer keys.  Password protection for our computers is not enough.  We need to realize that there is software available for download from the internet to strip a computer of its password.  This means someone could power up our computer with a disk and access everything we have stored on the computer.  That is frightening.  Dr. Brown advised we be careful where we leave our laptops.  Remember my experience with the hospital laptop theft?

Part of our end of the year procedures includes sending student report cards (full of student data) and a final copy of our weekly report (an Excel spreadsheet full of student data).  The report cards are sent to families via a “secure” internal messaging system in pdf format.  We have to individually upload each student report card.  Our administration asked us to send the report cards copies to them in a zip file via the “secure” internal messaging system this year.  This was to protect student information.  I spent hours trying to get the file compressed to an acceptable file size for the system.  Then, it took more hours trying to get the file to upload.  It was frustrating to say the least.  Then, administration discovered the “secure” internal messaging system seemed to be corrupting teacher zip files.  This had not been an issue in the past.  Furthermore, I had used a program that would compress the folders to an acceptable file, but that did not work.  We had to copy the individual student pdf files into three separate folders, compress those folders to a smaller acceptable size for emailing, and email the folders in three separate emails. 

In this instance, as in many other instances, how much is too much?  How far do we go to protect student and staff information?  What role does efficient use of time play?  How will cloud storage influence our decisions?  These are some issues I am encountering now and will encounter in the future.