Challenger Learning Centers provide students, teachers, and adult learners with simulations that emphasize teamwork, problem-solving, decision-making, and communication skills. Learning Centers were established by the Challenger Center for Space Science in memory of the space shuttle Challenger crew. Check out the centers’ other e-Missions and e-simulations at the Challenger Learning Center website. http://www.e-missions.net/MMAB/main.html

The news is all around us concerning user accounts being hacked and people’s private information being shared and/or their account is used for unintended purposes. This occasionally happens to staff or student accounts in our area too. Although I’m not aware of any criminal activity resulting from this locally, it can cause other problems including relaying SPAM messages and triggering email servers to be blacklisted. [So far I haven’t heard of any compromised student account having their assignment turned in for them.] So what can you do to protect your account from being a target or less likely to be compromised? I’d suggest two things: choose a strong password and change it regularly.

First, a strong password is the best way to impede a hacker’s attempts to gain access to your account. If you’re a prominent person with valuable or potentially damaging information, hackers might try social engineering and using information about you to guess passwords you might use (birthdate, family member or pet’s name). Another method is using a brute force attack with automated tools to cycle through a list of well-known passwords dictionaries or popular character sequences hoping to gain access before being detected.

Second, changing your password regularly restarts the clock on how long it might take for an automated system to guess your password (assuming it’s as least as strong as the previous one). One password theory is that with enough time, any password can be discovered or “cracked.” Thus, changing your password more frequently than the time it takes to “theoretically” crack, keeps you ahead in this game. However as processing power increases, the time to crack shortens and our password expiration policies might also need to shorten.

Thankfully, there are other methods in place to help reduce hacking attempts on user’s accounts. System administrators are constantly exploring new features and are tuning existing ones to quickly identify compromised accounts and better secure systems. A few examples include using secure protocols, intrusion detection systems, and limiting failedlogin attempts.

Ideas to Create Strong Passwords

If I’ve been successful and convinced you to upgrade to a stronger password, how are you going to create a strong one that you can remember? Again, I’ll make few suggestions that may help you in this area and give you a few cautions and things to avoid.

First, where passwords are concerned, longer is better but complicated is best. This means that a long password of all lowercase letters is simpler to crack than a slightly shorter password using multiple character sets. There’s some very specific math here that you can encourage your students to do if you want details. However, a chaacter set includes lowercase, UPPERCASE, special characters like {*&^%$#@}, and numbers (0-9). Sometimes we’re required to use several character sets to increase the complexity of the password, although it takes more effort to create one with these requirements.

Another suggestion to make a good, but memorable, password is to use a phrase, sentence or other unforgettable saying and pick out some letters as your password. Here’s an example using the first letters of the syllables in the song “Old McDonald had a farm, EIEIO” which could look like OMDhafEIEIO as the password. Now that’s a very familiar phrase around the Midwest, so humming the tune while typing might not be a good way to keep it secret, but adding or substituting special characters or numbers to it would make it more complicated. Maybe Mr. McDonald had nine farms and he sold them all to you! That might look like OMDh9f,Hstatm! Adding or exchanging letters for numbers and adding special characters makes this password very strong because of its length and use of four character sets. And I’m sure you can remember it now that you know how it was constructed and modified.

Because we often have numerous accounts, I’d recommend not making any of them the same, since one exploit could compromise them all with the proper knowledge. Another idea is to add a bit of customization to every password from the standard password created above. However, this borders on being predictable, so additional variation would be better. Thus, if I’m using this new password for eBay, I might add the letters EB, 3B, yaBe, or something unique to this password to associate it with eBay. EOMDh9f,Hstatm!B

Long, complex and different passwords are the best choice, subsequently, I use a password manager to handle this task of creating and remembering them for me. There are several types of password manager choices including using your browser’s password manager feature, a local desktop application, or a web-based password manager. I don’t recommend using the browser’s password features as anyone with access to your computer or browser can get to all your passwords. I prefer the desktop app or web-based types and have used both LastPass and KeePass as password managers, but there are other good choices also. Both of these have their pros and cons, and both require you to have a strong “master” password to secure all the other passwords that are stored behind this main password. One thing I enjoy about LastPass is having it available on all my devices and any browser I feel I can login with. It can also create a password for me and save it into its password vault. I may never know the actual password to a site, but I can get in if I know the super-secret master password.

Be cautious when using websites that can rate the strength of your password, such as www.howsecureismypassword.net and www.passwordmeter.com. Although these sites can be helpful in selecting stronger passwords, once you’ve typed it in, you’ve now shared  this password with  this web site and it is no longer secret! I’d strongly recommend not using a site to test or rate your real password nor sharing your password with anyone or any site that is not the actual account holder. Rather use sites like these to create strong passwords.

Changing passwords can be a real pain temporarily, but so can exercise, memorizing states and capitals, and getting your regular dental cleaning. Nevertheless each of these might have their place in preventing other more severe problems and ignoring some can lead to many undesirable results. So as you make that annual or biannual dental appointment, consider also updating your password or visiting with your local IT support staff about it. I’m sure they’ll appreciate both your clean pearly white smile and your interest in IT security and they probably won’t send you a bill.

Their response was “No, let’s do something you can do, too.”

I’m really going to miss that person!

Seriously, this is the time of year that often feels overwhelming as deadlines loom. We have our share of challenges here at ESU 10 as we identify our resources to “partner with our customers to meet changing needs through professional expertise, training, and support.”

I’ve taken a quick look at the initial data gained from the current ESU 10 Customer Satisfaction Survey. It’s good to see that there is still a great majority of support for ESU 10 programs, but there are also some challenges out there that need to be addressed. Thank you to everyone who completed the survey. I understand a few folks had some trouble navigating their way through the questions. We’ll fine tune things to make responding even easier next year. One should never need to struggle to enter an opinion. This is especially true now that I saw a recent poll that said that 78 percent of those polled said they disliked being polled. Isn’t data a wonderful thing?

The survey responses centered on questions provided by ESU 10 Priority Area Committees will prove to be very helpful as we make plans for future changes in our operation as well as our delivery of a program of services. Responses will be discussed May 17th when the troops gather for an All Staff Meeting opportunity. I see some good action plans being developed in the near future that will help us move forward as an organization.

The ESU 10 staff is also working on statewide projects in conjunction with the Nebraska Department of Education. Three priority areas have been targeted for mutual consideration and action: principal/teacher evaluation system, blended learning, and a statewide data collection system. More information will be shared as progress is being made in these areas.

Summer months at an Educational Service Unit can be hectic, but it is our hope we will find the time to better focus on your needs. Thank you for the quality of service that you provide for the communities that you serve.

We’ve all heard of ADHD (attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder). Most of us have seen it in the classroom at one time or another. ADHD impacts 3-7% of children and 2-5% of adults. If left untreated the disease results in serious, life-changing consequences. Between 25% and 50% of students repeat a grade and 37% of students don’t finish high school. Only 5% of individuals with ADHD complete college compared with 35% of the normal population. Other important life skills that are impacted include money management, maintaining stable employment, and operating a car safely (those with ADHD are 4 times more likely to be in an accident). The table at the end of this article summarizes some common areas of difficulty and provides suggestions for dealing with them.

So what do we do?

How we perceive the problem is usually the best place to start. It is important that we maintain a perspective of disability. It can be hard to remember that an individual with ADHD is an individual with a disability, because oftentimes these are individuals who can “do it one day, but not the next”. This makes it easy to label the problem as one of motivation. They are able to focus on materials that capture their interest (video games for example), but not the important materials they are expected to learn in school. When we attribute the problems we see to laziness we are more likely to believe the child has the skills necessary to succeed without modifications or supports in the environment. This leads to reliance on natu ral consequences, which in some cases leads to increased oppositional behaviors and more of what we’ve been getting. So it is important that we maintain a disability perspective when working with youth who have ADHD.

The 30% Rule

Remember the 30% rule. The 30% rule says that an individual under the age of 24 who has ADHD will often perform like an individual 30% younger than their chronological age. So, a 16 year old behind the wheel of a car might demonstrate the maturity of an 11 year old (one reason why some countries require individuals with ADHD to be taking medication before they are issued a driver’s license). A 6 year old with ADHD will often react to situations more like a4 year old (emotional responses will be faster than typical for a 6 year old and more intense). This perception is one of the most helpful things for parents to understand, but it is important for educators as well! When giving an assignment, ask yourself whether you would expect someone 30% younger to be able to successfully complete the work. If not, consider making some adjustments or providing other supports so the student is more likely to complete the work and acquire the important skills/knowledge you are teaching them.

Other ideas and strategies:

• If following directions is a problem, then think Clint Eastwood! Keep statements and instructions short, get eye contact, touch their shoulder, and have them repeat what was said.
• Use color coded binders and organization systems.  
• Find a coach or mentor the student is familiar with and schedule several 5 minute checkups across each day.

For additional resources see:

russellbarkley.org
www.chadd.org/
interventioncentral.org

 by Chris Denton, School Psychologist

Intent of Policies
The intent of this Acceptable Use Policy is to clarify the responsibility and accountability of individuals using any of these services. The Password Policy will require regu lar password changes and password-strength standards. The AUP will be made active on April 22nd which will also trigger password expiration warnings. All account passwords will be set to expire by May 13th and all account holders must change their passwords by this date. We believe that by adopting these policies wewill improve the security of all the systems and applications, while also identifying abandoned accounts that create security threats to these systems.

Accepting the Policies
Users who login through the Central Authentication Service (CAS) for web-based applications (SoGO, Moodle and others) will be redirected to a page to accept the AUP and/or change their password if it has expired. If the user does not accept the AUP, the login will not complete successfully. However, a password change warning can be ignored temporarily.

These two checks (AUP acceptance and password expiration verification) will happen each time the user logs in and will only redirect the user when a new AUP or password expiration needs to be addressed. Users will be notified of these new policies through various forms of communication to ensure they are aware of these requirements.

Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites:  20 Instructional Strategies That Engage the Brain

On February 6^thover 100 teachers and administrators involved in ESU 10’s Adolescent Literacy Project participated in Dr. Marcia Tate’s workshop based on her best-selling book, Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites: 20 Instructional Strategies That Engage the Brain.  The workshop was highly engaging as Dr. Tate modeled nearly all 20 strategies throughout the day.  Participants experienced numerous activities that can be used with students to ensure that ALL learners are engaged, learning, and achieving.

This workshop was planned to further Adolescent Literacy Project participants’ understanding of how to plan engaging lessons that enhance the literacy strategies promoted through the project.  Although the 20 instructional strategies promoted by Dr. Tate were not new to the world of teaching, she highlighted the brain research supporting the strategies and provided numerous concrete examples of how they could be incorporated across the content areas in order to take advantage of how the brain learns best.

The entire day was a positive, energizing training opportunity which left participants motivated to begin using the strategies.  Comments such as “…excellent modeling for me to implement back in my classroom.”, “…reinforced prior learning and gave us more strategies to use that encourage engagement.”, “This was the most valuable and engaging workshop I’ve ever been to.”, and “I can’t wait until I get to use these strategies tomorrow!” were heard and noted on the workshop evaluations as teachers and administrators left at the end of the day. 

Dr. Tate’s Strategies That Take Advantage of How the Brain Learns Best:

1.  Writing                                               11.  Graphic Organizers
2.  Storytelling                                         12.  Drawing                                              
3.  Mnemonic Devices                              13.  Humor
4.  Visuals                                               14.  Discussion
5.  Movement                                           15. Games
6.  Role Play                                            16.  Project-Based Instruction
7.  Visualization                                        17.  Field Trips
8.  Metaphor/Analogy/Simile                      18.  Manipulatives
9.  Reciprocal Teaching                             19.  Technology
10.  Music                                                20.  Work-Study

 This year, three institutes will be open to ESU 10 teachers:

• K-5 Elementary Institute – ESU 10 ; June 17-20 and June 24-27
• 6-8 Middle School Institute – Cedar Point Biological Station, Ogallala; June 18-21 and June 24-27
• 6-12 Physics Institute – Millard West High School, Omaha; June 10-13 and June 17-20

Teacher benefits of participation include building science knowledge and the opportunity to think critically about your own instructional practice. Participants also receive a $140 per day stipend (before payroll deductions), lodging (for those traveling over 75 miles one way), attendance at the NATS Fall Conference, and membership in Science Matters State and National networks. There is also the option of earning 3 or 6 hours of college graduate credi

 Applications are currently being accepted.

 For more information, contact Emily Jameson, ejameson@esu10.org, or see the KICKS2 website, http://kicks2.org.

Target audience: Middle and High School teachers

 Building Understanding of Fractions for Young Mathematicians – July 17

Target audience: Elem. and Middle School teachers

 During these interactive workshops, participants will develop a deeper understanding of the mathematical content so that students can learn and enjoy learning mathematics.  Teachers will learn strategies and participate in activities to develop understanding, flexibility and adaptability in their students’ mathematical skills.  Strategies to reinforce and strengthen students’ vocabulary will be shared.  In addition a variety of alternative homework strategies will be shared to engage students and keep them interested in learning.

Both workshops will be facilitated by Lenny VerMaas. Lenny has twenty-eight years of classroom teaching experience at the middle and secondary level.  For the last ten years, he has been a professional development consultant with ESU #6 in Milford.  In addition to mathematics content, he has trained teachers in a wide range of instructional strategies, brain compatible learning, effective use of homework, vocabulary acquisition, and student engagement.  Lenny has worked on the development of the Nebraska Mathematics Standards as well as the NeSA-M, Nebraska Sate Assessment of Mathematics. 

 Registration is currently open on ODIE!

Building Understanding of Algebra in the Middle and High School

 Building Understanding of Fractions for Young Mathematicians

 For more information, contact Emily Jameson - ejameson@esu10.org.