Microsoft Education Lead for North, West, East & Southern Africa, Levant & Pakistan countries, Angela Nganga, shares on what learners and facilitators can do to ensure a safe digital learning environment as they learn.
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world, quoted South African activist and former president Nelson Mandela. Investment in education is one of the biggest investments any country can make for its current and future generation. Currently, around 420 million people across the world would be lifted out of poverty with secondary education consequently improving the quality of life globally by more than half.
Today, as more and more people across the African continent are required to stay home due to government lockdown interventions, we are seeing a massive shift towards remote learning. This has meant the growth in the usage of collaborative tools such as Microsoft’s Teams to create virtual classrooms wherein educators can communicate with their students in real-time.
In the Middle East and Africa Emerging markets alone, over 1.5 Million students and teachers are leveraging Microsoft Teams as the remote learning platform during this period.
Through such platforms, educators can connect with and support students in much the same way they could in person with live meetings wherein they are able to show video, share presentations, and even invite external speakers for virtual field trips.
But, as students and educators move online, naturally there is an increase in the risks to security and safety.
As we adjust to the new normal and governments take the much needed next steps towards safely re-opening the economies and adopting possible return to school strategies, blended learning will play a key role in ensuring that some of the non – essential aspects of learning that do not require face to face interaction are enabled while ensuring the online safety and security of students.
Educational institutions, therefore, need to take steps to ensure that digital learning environments are safe by setting up concrete policies and restrictions when using these tools to guard students’ safety, while also ensuring that online classrooms remain engaging and giving educators the tools they need to create a focused learning environment.
Restricting access to meetings can safeguard students
There have already been multiple occurrences around the world wherein unauthorised users have gained access to virtual classrooms.
Just this month alone we’ve seen an online graduation ceremony interrupted with racial slurs by hackers, last month a man gained access to an online class and exposed himself and another online lecture was interrupted by playing audio of inappropriate content.
When educators set up meetings to teach students a link is created which participants can use to enter these meetings. Sharing these links online to reach students can seem like a quick and easy way to communicate with students when and how to enter live meetings but this also opens meetings up to anyone who sees the link.
To ensure the safe digital learning environment of educators and students, administrators should instead create identities (or profiles) for each student and teacher which requires them to log into the tool to join the meeting. Within Teams, administrators can thereafter choose to turn off the ability for anonymous users to join the meeting by changing it within the meeting policies.
Within meetings, educators can also make sure that all students are present in the classroom and there are no unexpected attendees by selecting “show participants” in the meeting controls giving them greater control over who is admitted into the lesson.
Managing the virtual classroom keeps students safely engaged
Educators are often required to manage students in physical classrooms to ensure good behaviour and keep students focused on learning the coursework being taught. This is required when teaching online as well.
Online classrooms introduce a new dynamic for both teachers and students alike making managing disruptions and curbing inappropriate messaging, a task which educators need to perform in new ways. Now, these disturbances can also appear in the form of unauthorised users with disruption often being their main goal.
To manage disruptions while ensuring the safety of students, administrators should limit students’ ability to schedule meetings, initiate private calls, and monitor chat sessions to remove inappropriate messaged in channel meetings. This can be done by restricting meeting roles for students within a meeting.
Educators can control the learning environment further in Teams by creating meetings for classes within specific channels which allows them to disable student-to-student chat if necessary and allows them to track class discussions in context.
Other functionalities such as being able to blur video backgrounds, mute participants, and control who can present during the meeting are key for ensuring safe learning for students with Teams.
A new world of learning
We have entered an unexpected and often challenging time where in just over a month the education landscape has completely transformed. But as we have also seen, technology is a powerful tool that can be used to overcome these challenges and sometimes even improve on functions such as learning. With technology, education can be interactive, engaging, and controlled as long as we ensure digital security to protect students and staff online.
As a way to support educational institutions as they work to ensure a safe digital learning environment, Microsoft has created a more in-depth guide to serve as a foundation to their safety plans, and thus help to give teachers, students, and parents’ peace of mind while also making learning more productive.
Microsoft is partnering with SheHacks Kenya to co-host this years HackFest event. A move that showcases Microsoft’s commitment to supporting and advocating for Kenyan women and minorities with interest in cybersecurity engineering. The two day festival is taking place at the Strathmore University Business school in Nairobi.
Day 1 at HackFest 2019 ?: SheHacks
Microsoft General Manager Cybersecurity Engineering, Hayden Hainsworth was the keynote speaker at the event. She expressed the company’s delight to partner with SheHacks for this year’s Hackathon.
“We want to inspire the next generation of cybersecurity engineers. With a focus to prepare women to thrive in the technology industry.
We also want to make it easy for anyone to take their next step forward in technology, Hayden says. Highlighting the importance of the partnership and event in developing competency in tackling cyber threats in a rapidly evolving tech ecosystem.
Pratik Roy, Microsoft Modern Workplace and Security Business Group Lead speaks on the principles of kill-chain at HackFest 2019
We have seen tremendous growth in the number of young women who want to participate since we founded this initiative. SheHacks founders Evelyn Kilel and Laura Tich shares. Emphasizing the need for increased support towards the youth in Kenya. To support this, they share that this years Hackfest will host close to 300 young ladies from across Kenya.
Hackfest 2019 will firstly bring together learners and experts to share knowledge and experience. Secondly it will try to inspire and nurture others to join the cybersecurity industry. Thirdly it will equip and empower them with the required technical know-how to combat cyber-crime.
David Weston, Microsoft Partner Director of Enterprise and Operating System Security shares cybersecurity tips for small businesses.
He shares three security fundamentals and best practice business should follow to stay safe. We note down the points. Watch video below for full details.
Multi-Factor authentication
Regular Update of your Operating System
Opt for a system with preconfigured security features
David is also principal security group manager of Microsoft’s Windows offensive security research team also known as the Red Team.
Several Kenyan government and public service websites were hacked early this year rendering services unavailable. According to the Communications Authority of Kenya, cyber-attacks in Kenya increased by 167% from October to December 2018. This cybersecurity firm Serianu Ltd says cost the Kenyan economy about 29.5B KSH [286M USD]. The firm also shared from their report that African businesses lost US$3.5bn in 2018 from cybercrime. With Kenya being one of the hardest hit countries in the region per the report.
Cybersecurity is a central challenge of our digital age says Microsoft East and Southern Africa Manager Sebuh Haileleul.
At Microsoft, we are committed to educating, empowering and enabling individuals and organisations. To digitally transform in a secure online environment. As organisations continue to pursue a fully digitally transformed future, threats within the cyberspace will continue to become more advanced. This will leave individuals and organisations alike with no choice but to turn to the ever-improving capabilities that advanced technologies and solutions bring with it.
Cybersecurity trends in Kenya
Speaking about the cybersecurity trends in Kenya, Sebuh shares that ransomware attacks had declined.
“We found that in the past year ransomware attacks as a vector declined. Software supply chains became a risk, cryptocurrency mining prevalent and that phishing still remains the preferred attack method. While this may indicate progress in blocking ransomware attacks against organisations, it also draws our attention to new avenues now being identified for attacks.”
Microsoft Business Group Director, Pratik Roy, chipped in that the global cost of online crime is expected to reach $6 trillion by 2021. He says organisations now, more than ever, need to continue building organizational resilience and meaningful risk reduction.
For the Microsoft Kenya country manager, Sebuh Haileleul companies need to take immediate action to address security concerns. This he says improves their security postures.
“It is critical for companies to strengthen their core security hygiene. (Across things like monitoring, antivirus, patch and operating systems), adopt modern platforms and comprehensive identity, security and management solutions“.
Organizations can improve their security by moving to the cloud, adopting modern platforms and embracing comprehensive identity, security and management solutions. – Kellington Kituku, Enterprise Business
Using AI and Quantum Computing
The Microsoft manager shares on how emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing help tackle cybersecurity.
“The use of AI to combat cybersecurity to fill crucial gaps by analyzing a vast ocean of threat data to prevent attacks before they occur is a factor that organisations, through partnering with the correct solutions provider, remains pivotal. Furthermore, the cloud is and still will be imperative to securing the modern workplace. Lastly, quantum computing, although still in its infancy will require threat analysts to keep an eye on what advances in quantum computing would mean for security in 2019 and beyond.”
