Daily news for schools

Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 11/07/2013

Today, our headlines include an important security alert. There's a new enemy in town: ransomware. The Crypto virus is a sinister ransomware virus that has stores selling out of $300 certificates and bitcoins, except for one thing. Now the government has shut down the encryption servers and no one can get their hard drives back. Educate those you love about being wise not to click on suspicious attachments, even those that are not so suspicious from unsuspecting sources.

In other news, US schools should take the time to nominate their best math, science, and computer science teachers for the Presidential Awards in Math and Sciences.

While I'm using Socrative as my student response system (SRS), I'm testing a new system from Exit Ticket with robust capabilities for those making standards based decisions and tracking student improvement across time. Developed in the classroom, this is an excellent data driven way to use exit tickets or even assign homework.

The Hour of Code is coming up in December. If you want to call yourself a 21st century school, you can't miss this event. They have lesson plans on their website for all types of scenarios (even those without computers) and now they have very cool prizes for educators and schools participating. I got my packet in the mail yesterday, have you signed up yet?

Security Alert: Crypto Locker Ransomware

  • This link was removed because of malware on webpronews site – you can look it up but that site may have malware.

    Ransomware is a new kind of malware. The worst Ransomware to hit in some time is the Crypto virus. This virus encrypts your hard drive and you have to send them a $300 certificate (untraceable) so they'll give you the encryption key to decrypt your drive and get your data back. In an interesting twist, the US government disabled the servers running this ransomware scan and now all of the people with the virus have no hope of getting their decryption keys. This is another reason you should be very careful NOT to open suspicious attachments even from legitimate sounding sources. (Many of these messages appeared to be from Fedex and UPS.) The greatest internet filter ever created is the human brain. Educate teachers and others – not through fear but through a skeptical empowerment that always thinks before it clicks and especially before it downloads.

    tags: education news malware ransomware digital citizenship

Principals, Teachers, Parents, and Students can nominate the best math and science teachers for the presidential award

  • Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Sciences are open. Anyone – principals, teachers, parents, students or members of the general public – may nominate exceptional mathematics or science teachers who are currently teaching grades K-6 for the 2014 award year.

    tags: education news math science award

New Student Response System: Exit Ticket

  • ExitTicket
    A new website that is easy to align to standards (and share information with other teachers) with your students as you give “exit tickets” but also other activities during class. I like how easy it is to share your questions with other teachers. I'm still testing and learning this system but am impressed that this is an alternative for student response systems that some may want to test as well. For those who do data driven decision making, this is a must test. tags: education srs data datadrivendecisionmaking news

The Hour of Code has Prizes

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Vicki Davis

Vicki Davis

Vicki Davis is a full-time classroom teacher and IT Director in Georgia, USA. She is Mom of three, wife of one, and loves talking about the wise, transformational use of technology for teaching and doing good in the world. She hosts the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast which interviews teachers around the world about remarkable classroom practices to inspire and help teachers. Vicki focuses on what unites us -- a quest for truly remarkable life-changing teaching and learning. The goal of her work is to provide actionable, encouraging, relevant ideas for teachers that are grounded in the truth and shared with love. Vicki has been teaching since 2002 and blogging since 2005. Vicki has spoken around the world to inspire and help teachers reach their students. She is passionate about helping every child find purpose, passion, and meaning in life with a lifelong commitment to the joy and responsibility of learning. If you talk to Vicki for very long, she will encourage you to "Relate to Educate" or "innovate like a turtle" or to be "a remarkable teacher." She loves to talk to teachers who love their students and are trying to do their best. Twitter is her favorite place to share and she loves to make homemade sourdough bread and cinnamon rolls and enjoys running half marathons with her sisters. You can usually find her laughing with her students or digging into a book.

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The Cool Cat Teacher Blog
Vicki Davis writes The Cool Cat Teacher Blog for classroom teachers everywhere
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