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What Lies Ahead for K-12 Cybersecurity?


Episode 13: What Lies Ahead for K-12 Cybersecurity?

The K-12 cybersecurity landscape looks a lot different than it did at the start of 2020. Districts rely heavily on cloud platforms like Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 to keep students and staff connected. Schools are operating as 1:1 and students now have their own device to use. As a result, thousands of new access points have been created. Because of the cloud, access to school resources by students and staff can come from anywhere, at any time. Cloud technology in the classroom is now a necessity and IT teams are quickly adding it into their multi-layered cybersecurity stack.

The 2021 school year is coming up and in-person learning is expected to make a comeback. Will K-12 cybersecurity go back to the way it was? Or will the new cloud security strategies district IT teams have implemented stay as students opt for hybrid or remote learning models?

That’s the topic of discussion in this episode of The K-12 Tech Experience podcast. Kevin Hogan, Editor-at-Large at eSchool News and Host of EdTech Today, joins to discuss the changing technology environment in schools, the important topics for the media to pay attention to moving forward, and what he expects to come for K-12 cybersecurity.

Continue reading to learn more about Kevin and hear a bit of the conversation (edited for brevity). Subscribe to The K-12 Tech Experience podcast to hear the rest and to always stay up-to-date with the newest episode.

JK: How about we start with having you share more about yourself and your work, in case some listeners are unfamiliar.

KH: At the risk of dating myself, I’ve been writing about business and technology since before last century. I started in the early ‘90s with Forbes ASAP. I think one of my first headlines had a heading of ‘Will Email Work in Corporate America.’ That’s how long I’ve been writing about this transformation.

I got into education technology in 2003-04 I was the executive editor of Scholastic Administrator and then moved over to Tech & Learning. I had been there for about 12 years up until the beginning of the pandemic. In the past year, I’ve started on this new podcast medium with EdTech Today. I’m also Editor-at-Large at eSchool news, where I interview the educators.

EdTech Today is more of the business side of edtech and eSchool News is the user side of the coin. It’s a lot of fun. Very busy, but it has been a nice distraction and a joy to cover.

JK: How have you seen the technology landscape change over the past year?

KH: There have been many different paths on the transformation. The first was this past spring on Friday, March 13th. Every school district handed over the notebooks and laptops that they keep in carts. It’s been the largest beta test in education technology history. People expected to be back in two weeks. Here we are today and there are still districts not back in-person.

The second is the massive change in behavior. It never would have been our first instinct. But, when it comes to teachers using Zoom to talk to parents, to talk to students, for students to talk to each other, there are a lot of great benefits. It’s not the best way to do it, but the fact that we do it, people are finding a lot of great efficiencies.

Listen to the rest of our conversation with Kevin below and check out previous episodes on the ManagedMethods podcast page. Make sure to subscribe to The K-12 Tech Experience wherever you listen to your podcasts, so you never miss an episode!


The post What Lies Ahead for K-12 Cybersecurity? appeared first on ManagedMethods.

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from ManagedMethods authored by Jake Kasowski. Read the original post at: https://managedmethods.com/blog/the-k12-tech-experience-podcast-what-lies-ahead-for-k-12-cybersecurity/