Never before have citizens in the UK had more rights. The introduction
of the new General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) in May this year brought
about a number of changes that have had significant impact in schools. The best
bit for me with it all has been the conversations around protecting children
and their data that have had to happen because of it. The requirement foreveryone to take more responsibility for the safeguarding of the sensitive datathey hold in schools has been a positive one.
I will always remember the difficulty of ensuring all colleagues in one
school I worked in moving away from USB sticks and ensuring complex passcodes
for devices rather than just simple 4-digit codes; some even refused to have
those because of the “inconvenience” having a secure password entailed. Just
like it is our professional obligation as teachers to safeguard our learners in
real life so it is our responsibility to ensure that we take care with their
data in their digital lives too, when it relates to our professional work with
them in loco parentis.
The deadline for GDPR may have passed but schools are still coming to
terms with the changes. Just last night I read on Facebook about a school
facing a Subject Access Request (SAR) from a parent. The ensuring conversationtalked about the difficulty and time such a thing will take. There are lots ofchanges and it’s difficult to know exactly what to do and how to do it.
It is recognised that when organising trips into the world outside of
school risk assessments are important and so how do you ensure you mitigate
against risk for your learners around online safety, security, and data
protection? Fortunately, there is lots of great advice and software around to
help you as an educator not only find out about your obligations and what you
can do but also how you can safeguard your learners too.
Microsoft have a great blog titled GDPR: The five things teachersshould do first which is a great read with some fantasticadvice. Added to that their brilliant free eBook packed with great advice, the GDPR for Education book
is worthy of a good read. Another great resource to check out for all schools
is the DfE’s Data Protection Toolkit: For
Schools.
One of the key ways that schools can help to safeguard learners
is through the careful management of the devices that they use. Microsoft’s Intune isa device management solution that is competitively priced and gives some great
features to help manage the devices in your school. Through their admin console
it is possible for everyone to get groups of devices up and running very
quickly. The admin portal you have access to gives options to help anyone, from
a teacher in the classroom to network administrators to accomplish everyday
things that you need to do with devices in classrooms.
As I know from personal experience, students can often forget
their login passwords for devices and lots of time can be wasted with learners
having to travel to a technician’s office to get their password reset. One of
my favourite features in the console is SSPR (Self-Service Password Reset)
which is something that can be done by a teacher in the classroom. This one
little efficiency can help keep students from getting off-track while using
their devices and lets you as a teacher concentrate on the important part of
the job; your teaching and their learning.
Other features such as SSO (Single Sign On) for apps also means
that learners will be more efficient in their logins to the crucial software
you will want them to use. It has the additional benefit of ensuring that once
authentication has taken place through logging in, through the SSO you can rest
assured that their use of the software will be safe and secure.
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