Note: Although the focus of this blog is on creative ways to use technology for teaching and learning, occasionally I may share something else that crosses over into the technology realm, but also addresses the human condition. For as much as we are all technology enthusiasts, we are still just people, with our hopes and loves and pains and messes. Sometimes technology can help us understand our humanity a little better. In those cases, I have a second blog called "Eric the Rad" where I post my thoughts on life from a nerd's point of view. Today I am cross-posting a new entry from that blog here. It deals with the importance of a strong password, so I feel it will have value for all us tech users, but also addresses the need for positive self-talk, which has value for all of us as humans. If you are looking for the latest cool way to use tech in your class, this post may not be your cup of tea, and that's ok. I'll be back with loads of great tech integration ideas next. However, if this does resonate with you, then feel free to check out my other blog "Eric the Rad" where I have and will continue to share more things like this. Thanks!

I have never been really good at positive self-talk. And there I go again. That is a great example of how I am not very good at it.

However, I do believe in the power of self-talk, both positive and negative, to have a great impact on our thoughts, feelings, and attitudes. Psychology tells us that what we say aloud to ourselves really makes a difference. Negative statements can bring us down, while positive, encouraging words can build us up. It may be just bit by bit, but every bit makes an impact over time.

Historically I just have not been very successful at taking advantage of this. If anything, my self-talk is often negative, pointing out where I fell short, or forgot to do something, or let someone down, or don’t feel well, or am tired. Hearing these words from my own mouth day after day after day becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[7 Back to School Updates for Google's Applied Digital Skills Curriculum]

At first when I think of positive self-talk, I can’t help but visualize Stuart Smalley from Saturday Night Live. I can see him sitting in front of his mirror saying “I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me”. As much as I love that character, I am not sure if that approach fits my personality.

As I have said many times before, I am a nerd. So I have been trying out a technology solution to this problem.

Passwords.

Yep, I said passwords. Passwords are something everyone has, and probably more than one. They are also something that we have to type in often, maybe multiple times per day.

Plus it is important to have a strong password that will not be easily hacked, to improve your security. A common suggestion for this is to use a passphrase rather than a password. A passphrase is a group of words or even an entire sentence. Since it is a sentence conveying an entire thought, a passphrase can be much easier to remember. Of course you can still get creative with capital letters, numbers in place of some letters, and use of punctuation.

So I have decided to make my passwords stronger, and in the process try to make myself stronger as well.

• 4GiveYourselfAndMoveOn!
• BTheChangeUWant2C!
• Stop&CTheGood2Day!
• I*Love*MyselfAsIAm!
• IAmGr8ful4MyLife!

There are endless possibilities for the positive passphrase you could use. The key is to choose something that builds you up, helps you heal through the pain, and grow toward your goals. Something that acknowledges your value and the value of others. Something that helps you process the past and embrace the present. It will be unique for you.

On our work domain we have to change our password every three months. Of course I can change it sooner if I want. On my Google accounts I can change them anytime I wish. The point is I am now creating a passphrase with a positive message for myself.

Now for the next three months, day after day, maybe multiple times per day, I have to type in that message. When I log into my work computer first thing in the morning. When I unlock it after lunch. When I log in on a different computer for a training. And on and on.

Each time I do this, I am reading a message I sent to myself weeks ago. I am being reminded of a powerful encouraging truth that can help me heal and move forward in my life.

And sometimes it is perfectly timed. I have had those mornings at work when life has not gone well. Maybe nobody in the cubicles around me know that I am struggling, that I feel like a failure, that Facebook just had to choose this morning to show me a picture from 9 years ago of a happier time, that I am feeling lonely, that I am anxious, that I am depressed, that I am angry.

And then I type in my password. A message from myself to myself. It reminds me to forgive, to grieve, to stop beating myself up, to find the beauty, to take one day at a time, maybe even just one step at a time. And sometimes that is exactly what I need.

cross posted at www.controlaltachieve.com

Eric Curts is an education trainer and consultant with over 20 years' experience throughout the U.S. He is an authorized Google Education Trainer and a Google Certified Innovator. Read his blog at www.controlaltachieve.com and follow him on Google+ and @ericcurts on Twitter.

Kevin Hogan stopped by the Netsupport booth at ISTE 2018 to discuss their school-wide IT management system. Managing director Marcus Kingsley highlighted the system’s ability to manage a wide-array of ed-tech but emphasized a focus on digital citizenship and a changing narrative in online student safety.

Only 19% of schools have fully implemented SSO although it is the most popular interoperability initiative

—2017 CoSN K-12 IT Leadership Report

Single Sign-on (SSO) solves a critical need for districts that are managing increasingly complex digital ecosystems. SSO replaces the need for teachers and students to remember dozens of user names and passwords. It improves network security and decreases lost instructional time.

Every year, schools waste thousands of hours of instructional time by asking students and teachers to remember and sign in to an ever-increasing number of websites. As the number of digital educational resources increases, the problem grows exponentially. In addition, growing data security concerns and rostering requirements pose challenges for teachers and IT staff trying to get the most out of their technology tools.

The inability to quickly find and log into digital materials is an impediment to learning. Teachers and students waste valuable instruction time while some students are blocked from equitable access to instructional digital content and tools. Instead of experiencing all that digital learning resources can offer, students spend their time struggling to remember and physically type in usernames and passwords. This is more than frustrating at the individual level, and it’s a barrier to organization-wide adoption of digital learning—a barrier that single sign-on (SSO) can, and should, eliminate.

Keeping K–12 users secure in the evolving IT environment is also a major challenge. And as districts continue to embrace more web-based applications and bring thousands of mobile devices onto their networks, the problem gets progressively worse. In many cases, poor password selection, the large and ever-changing student user base, and the need for extensive user management on the part of a district’s IT team can all create cybersecurity issues. When students struggle to come up with and remember strong passwords, for example, the burden usually falls on the IT team to manage an overwhelming number of password reset and log-in problems.

Security and Analytics

Spend more time learning; less time logging on

At Mountain Brook (AL) School System, Director of Technology Donna Williamson says the need for improved security drove the decision to invest in a web-based SSO solution. “Our previous solution was no longer meeting our needs,” says Williamson. “We knew we needed a new portal for security reasons and to give users 24/7 access, which is what they’ve become accustomed to with everything else in life.”

“When districts have a clear strategy in place for identity management,” says ClassLink’s VP of Education Success Kate Anastario, “the ability to establish and orchestrate a secure environment for students is much more attainable. By pulling users out of browser dependency—which they may not even be aware of—and allowing them to use one secure log-in, the cybersecurity vulnerabilities are significantly reduced.”

The ClassLink SSO platform incorporates analytic capabilities that can help districts understand whether and how frequently their learning and productivity resources are being used. The platform also provides details including who is logging in and what applications are being used.

Anna Baldwin, director of e-learning and integration at Anderson (SC) School District Five, says ClassLink Analytics helps the district assess the applications and software that it has purchased to see how those investments are being used. “We can look within our SSO platform and instantly get data that tells us whether students and teachers are using the products we bought. With a click we can summarize the charts on a daily, weekly, monthly, or whole-year basis to determine if there are schools that have less usage,” Baldwin says. “That data helps us really get the full bang for our buck across all of our software purchases.”

Rostering and Data Privacy

Historically, school technology departments have spent the months of July and August extracting class roster data from their student information systems and then creating unique data files for each digital resource. In most cases, the resource providers require essentially the same data. Unfortunately, they often require this data in unique formats, usually in the form of different spreadsheets and CSV files.

A group of committed school technology leaders and major education publishers came together, through the IMS Global Learning Consortium, and developed a new data standard called OneRoster. This data standard is a common file format for those roster data files. Using OneRoster, school data teams create one data file—and that same file is accepted by all publishers. What used to be a laborious, time-intensive, and repetitive exercise is now a streamlined process that benefits schools and the providers that serve them. ClassLink Roster Server simplifies the rostering process with publishers, ensuring students and teachers have instant access to the digital learning resources they need to improve learning.

For more information on Single Sign-on, download the Single Sign-on Buyer’s Guide. You will find a full description of the technology and 12 questions to help you evaluate potential SSO providers.