Passwords

Thanks to my friend Sara Isbell, who sent this email recently to her staff. I thought it was great, so I stole it with her permission :) 

The top 25 worst passwords, in order (and their current rankings compared with the previous year's rankings)

1.  password (unchanged)

2.  123456 (unchanged)

3.  12345678 (unchanged)

4.  abc123 (up 1)

5.  qwerty (down 1)

6.  monkey (unchanged)

7.  letmein (up 1)

8.  dragon (up 2)

9.  111111 (up 3)

10. baseball (up 1)

11. iloveyou (up 2)

12. trustno1 (down 3)

13. 1234567 (down 6)

14. sunshine (up 1)

15. master (down 1)

16. 123123 (up 4)

17. welcome (new)

18. shadow (up 1)

19. ashley (down 3)

20. football (up 5)

21. jesus (new)

22. michael (up 2)

23. ninja  (new)

24. mustang (new)

25. password1 (new)

Spooky stuff.

From: http://www.technewsdaily.com/8391-25-weakest-passwords.html

Most experts agree on the basics of creating strong passwords. Here are some tips from the Identity Theft Resource Center:

• A password should contain at least eight characters (some experts say 10 or 14 characters is the minimum).
• The password should have at least three of the four following types of characters — upper-case letters (ABC), lower-case letters (abc), numerals (123), and punctuation marks or other special characters (!#$%&*_=+? ).
• If you’re using only one capital letter or special character, don’t make it the first or last character in the password.
• Avoid common names, slang words or any words in the dictionary. Computers can run through entire dictionaries in minutes.
• Don’t include any part of your name or any part of your email addresses.
• Choose an especially strong password for websites that hold especially sensitive personal information — for example, banks or online retailers that store your credit-card information.
• Don’t ever refer to anything that can be learned from your social networking profiles or an Internet search. In other words, don’t make it your favorite band or movie, your pet’s name, your nickname, your phone number or, especially, your birth date.

Here’s a good way to create a strong password. Pick a phrase you’ll remember. Take the first letter of each word and run them together into a “word.” Capitalize some letters and substitute numerals where it would make sense to.

For example, the phrase “I hate to work late” could become “iH82wkl8.”

Or tweak that formula and don’t abbreviate all the words. "This little piggy went to market" might become "tlpWENT2m."

From: http://www.technewsdaily.com/2347-how-to-create-remember-super-secure-passwords.html

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ClassBadges.com

Well! A new, fun thing has inspired me to create a new blog entry! There has been a movement, gaining momentum over the last few years, regarding the use of online "badges". A badge is something that you can earn for completing a set of requirements. There is a Mozilla badge project, which is attempting to standardize the use of badges across communities. The great thing about this project, if it works, is that students could earn credit for skills not necessarily taught (or tested) in your average classroom.

Let's say a student is an awesome programmer. That is a pretty marketable skill! One that colleges might be interested in! But how will they know? It isn't covered on a state test. And a programming class in one school might be extremely different than a programming class in another.

That's where badges come in. A student could earn badges for different programming skills he picks up. So he could prove his knowledge level to a potential college. Or a potential employer. Cool stuff. So then comes this cool little site called Classbadges.com. Not affiliated really with the larger badge movement I don't think, but somewhat similar in concept.

Think video games. In a video game, players earn achievements for successes and mastery of skills. These badges would do the same! Teachers can create classes in classbadges.com, and they can create badges for those classes which the students can earn. I love this idea! Check out more about classbadges.com below!

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NearPod

NearPod is a fantastic app for the ipod/iPad, designed to help teachers during instruction. Teachers create a presentation onthe computer using the Nearpod site. Then during class, they control the presentation through the Nearpod App on an iPad. Students can use the Nearpod Student App on either an iPad or an or an iPhone or iPod Touch Device.

What makes this unique is that this app allows students to interact with the presentation. The teacher can ask students to draw something on their devices, and then can see all of their drawings on the Teacher App.  The teacher can even share a drawing with the whole class (without a student name attached). There are even polls and quizzes that can be added to a presentations, and sending videos to the whole class is also possible. I would highly encourage you to check out the site at http://www.nearpod.com/ where you can see a video of what this looks like in a classroom. We did this with the Project iNSPIRE More Professional Development class this summer, and it was hands-down the favorite thing teachers saw that day.

To create a Nearpod account, you do need to have an iPad. If you don't have an iPad but would like an account, contact me and I will set up an account for you, and give you your login information.

Nearpod also offers frequent webinars that are amazing, and I would encourage you to attend if it will fit in your schedule! You do not have to have a device to attend, but it is helpful.

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Vennage

It seems that everywhere you look these days, you see infographics. They are a great way to display information because they are so visual and easy to read. Now there are tools to help you create infographics. Vennage is an easy to use tool that allows you build an infographic quickly and easily. You can add charts and graphs, pictures, and text. Easel.ly and Piktochart are other examples of Infographic creators. 

This video gives you a preview of Easel.ly so you can see how it works!

Source: easel.ly via FISD on Pinterest

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Google Research

Something new is available in Google Docs! This is groovy. Once you open your document, you can go to Tools>Research and a search window will pop open on the right side of the screen.

You can search right there, while you are working on your document!

Then hover your mouse over the source on the right and you will see options to preview the source, Insert a link to the source, or get a citation for the source.

For more info about Google Research, check out the Google Help Here

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Gzaas!

Yeah, I have no idea how to pronounce this one.

This is a groovy little tool with a very simple purpose. The only thing it can do is take small amounts of text and make them full screen. Now if you are like my, you like to have a bell ringer when the kids come in the room, and you generally put it on a PowerPoint slide so that it will show it HUGE on the screen. And you can do some cool formatting stuff with it as well.

What you see in the picture above is basically all it takes to get started. You type your text in the box and hit the orange button. It will randomly select a style for you, but you can change it at the bottom of the finished screen if you want. That's pretty much it!

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Summer Technology Courses

Check out these awesome technology offerings for the summer! Registration opens May 12, so be sure to jump in Eduphoria and sign up for the ones you want!

In particular, I want to highlight the Moodle offerings this summer. All teachers will have access to Moodle

Middle School folks, you may want to check this out. It is a great tool and especially wonderful for Flipped Classroom online environments, and offers discussion boards as well as a way for students to turn in work online.

CTE folks, there are some lunch and learn sessions that are designed for the current Moodle user, to show you the differences between the old Moodle and the new (version 2.0) It's a great idea, and if you plan to use Moodle next year I would strongly suggest that you try to attend. You can find them under cross-curricular in the learning Guide.

Be certain to read the workshop descriptions carefully to be certain you are signing up for the right one.

To see a list of offerings, check out the online Professional Development Guide here or check out my Workshop page on this blog (look at the tabs at the top).

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