Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The
GABer
Apple Ambassador..................................................................... 2
Panera Bread
161 Washington Ave. Ext.
Albany, NY
Education SIG............................................................................ 4
Internet SIG................................................................................ 3
GAAB Internet Addresses.......................................................... 8
The
January 2017
Serving the Apple ComputerGABer
User Community Since May 1984
Apple
Ambassador
by John Buckley
What is a VPN
Over this past year with all the talk about hacking
computers, there has been much talk about how to protect
your data. One way is to use a Virtual Private Network.
There are other ways of protecting your devices including
those built into your Apple Devices which we will discuss
at our meeting.
Membership Director
John Buckley
272-7128
Treasurer
Tim Cook
408-996-1010
Education SIG
John Buckley
272-7128
Internet SIG
Lou Wozniak
465-2873
Continued on page 6.
The
GABer
January 2017
Internet SIG
Hack-Proof Your Life:
5 Key Steps to Boost Your
Safety Online
by Kim Komando, Komoando.com
GABer
The
January 2017
Continued on page 8.
Education SIG
Whats on the Horizon for K-12 Ed Tech in 2017
by Roger Riddell, educationdive.com
4 School and District Tech Chief Weigh in with their Predictions and Concerns
To say the least, 2017 promises to be an interesting year for
K-12 education. The incoming administration of Presidentelect Donald Trump and impending implementation of
the Every Student Succeeds Act alone promise to keep
educators hands full, to say nothing of ongoing tech
challenges.
As educators and students gear up to finish out the latter
half of the 2016- 17 school year, we reached out to four
district tech chiefs and thought leaders for their thoughts
on ed tech predictions, concerns and trends facing
administrators in the new year.
Next year, I think
CIOs, CTOs and
tech directors
will continue the
trend to focus
less on devices,
programs and
apps and more
on instruction.
Its been great to
have conversations about student learning and goals over
whether we should purchase this device or that. I also
hope to see the conversation around decentralizing the
MakerSpace open up. Whereas weve been spending the
past few years liberating computers from a lab setting
and putting them in classrooms in the hands of students, I
hope to see the same happen with maker ed. Our district
is focusing on this essential question now: How can
makerspaced pedagogy support and enhance learning in
all content areas at all grades?
More school districts will begin to invest in cyber security
from employee training to technologies geared to abate
cyber attacks. The focus upon digital equity and the
homework gap at districts, states, and the national level
over the past few years begins to grow. This growth will
drive districts and states to begin investing at a higher rate
in innovative technologies or programs to provide students
network connectivity outside of school. Makerspaces will
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January 2017
5
align to support student-centric teaching and learning. The
pedagogical shift to collaborative learning environments
will support the continued purchasing of technology and
furniture to support a new classroom model. As cost and
limited curriculum hinder widespread adoption of these
technologies, the further investment in virtual reality (VR)
and augmented reality (AR) curriculum development
aligned to standards sets the stage for these technologies
becoming widespread in classrooms within a few years.
Districts continue to struggle with big data, but the industry
will begin to develop e ective programs to provide schools
with actionable data in a near real-time for teachers and
administrators to assist students.
I think [this last point] falls into all there categories,
perhaps. The nation is suddenly very cognizant regarding
fake news articles. The impact these articles played in
the presidential election and likely are going to play in
everything from politics to information knowledge is going
to be tremendous this year and going forward. There is
going to be a vocal call at all levels for educators to add
further critical thinking assignments and text analysis to
the work already going on in class. To help meet the need,
schools are going to increasingly rely upon Common Sense
Media for resources to build lessons around text analysis
(both online and printed). I also anticipate publishers
and other vendors jumping into the fray with curriculum
offerings to deploy.
I can speak to trends and changes here at Garnet Valley.
We have begun developing our own Cyber Program to
complement other education offerings here. We call the
Cyber Program eSchool@GarnetValley. We are moving
to incorporate blended classes where students meet faceto- face with teachers a few days per week and online the
other days. We are dipping our toes into virtual reality with
Google Expeditions and NearPod VR. We have redesigned
our large learning spaces (libraries and labs) into more
modern, student-centered spaces. We have changed our
professional development model to o er more choice.
We adopted a new SIS, Alma, which has allowed our
students to choose their own learning path each day and
has simplified our SIS and software integrations. GV has
also signed on with the U.S. Department of Education for
their #GoOpen Movement with OER.
As for predictions, virtual reality will hit the classroom in
a big way as prices come down. Also, we have begun to
replace all our of older SMART Boards with flat screen TVs
as their prices have dropped. And as more software become
web-based, hopefully no more software/app downloads,
which will allow schools to be device agnostic.
GABer
The
January 2017
Apple Ambassador
Continued from page 2.
What Is a VPN?
Put simply, a Virtual Private Network,
or VPN, is a group of computers (or
discrete networks) networked together
over a public networknamely, the
internet. Businesses use VPNs to
connect remote datacenters, and individuals can use
VPNs to get access to network resources when theyre not
physically on the same LAN (local area network), or as a
method for securing and encrypting their communications
when theyre using an untrusted public network.
When you connect to a VPN, you usually launch a VPN
client on your computer (or click a link on a special
website), log in with your credentials, and your computer
exchanges trusted keys with a far away server. Once both
computers have verified each other as authentic, all of
your internet communication is encrypted and secured
from eavesdropping.
The most important thing you need to know about a
VPN: It secures your computers internet connection to
guarantee that all of the data youre sending and receiving
is encrypted and secured from prying eyes.
Whether the VPNs youre familiar with are the ones
offered by your school or business to help you work or
stay connected when youre traveling or the ones you pay
to get you watch your favorite shows in another country as
they air, theyre all doing the same thing. For much more
detail on what VPNs are, how they work, and how theyre
used, check out this How Stuff Works article.
Why You Need a VPN, or How You Can Benefit from
Using One
A VPN alone is just a way to bolster
your security and access resources
on a network youre not physically
connected to. What you choose to
do with a VPN is a different story.
Usually, VPN users fall into a few
separate categories:
The student/worker. This person
has responsibilities to attend to, and
uses a VPN provided by their school
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Weve shown you how to build your own VPN for remote
gaming and browsing that also protects your security,
shown you how to make a VPN even more secure, and
shown you dozens of services that operate free and paid
VPNs you can sign up for and use. Weve even put the
question to you several times to tell us which VPN service
providers you think are the best. So how do you pick a
solid VPN service?
What Makes for a Good VPN?
The best VPNs offer a solid balance of features, server
location, connectivity protocols, and price. Some are
great for occasional use, others are geared towards getting
around the location restrictions companies put on their
apps and services, and others are targeted at people who
do heavy downloading and want a little privacy while they
do it. Heres what you should look for.
Protocol: When youre researching a VPN, youll see terms
like SSL/TLS (sometimes referred to as
OpenVPN support,) PPTP, IPSec, L2TP,
and other VPN types. We asked Samara
Lynn, Lead Analyst for Networking and
Small Business at PCMag, whether or
not a user shopping for a VPN should
shop for one over another. SSL is what is commonly used
these days. All of these protocols will provide a secure
connection, she explained, and pointed out that most
solutions are invisible to the end-user anyway. Strictly,
each protocol has its benefits and drawbacks, and if youre
concerned about this (specifically, PPTP vulnerabilities,)
youre probably already aware of them. Most users dont
need to be concerned about thiscorporate users on the
other hand, are probably all using IPSec or SSL clients
anyway.
Corporate and Exit Locations: Depending on what
youre using a VPN for, your services locationand the
exit locations you can chooseare important to consider.
If you want to get around a location restriction and watch
live TV in the UK, for example, you want to make sure
your VPN service provider has servers in the UK. If youre
concerned about privacy or state-sponsored snooping, you
may want to pick a service operated outside of your home
country. Similarly, if the service is based on the US, theyre
subject to US laws, and may be forced to turn over usage
data to the authorities upon request. Many people make
more of this than they should (weve seen overseas services
turn over their data to friendly governments without any
hesitation repeatedly), but its important to make sure a
VPN has servers in multiple locationsor at least the
location youre interested inwhen shopping.
GABer
The
January 2017
Internet SIG
Continued from page 3.
The
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January 2017
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