Happy Friday and I look forward to hopefully seeing many of you when we convene in person in Orlando in four weeks.
This year, I have been asked to contribute weekly in our all school newsletter which gets published on Fridays to the entire school community. In past posts, I have spoken about cybersecurity, our vision of teaching and learning with technology through the celebration of our various student projects, and the joys of return to in-person robotics competitions this year. Since today's issue is being published on April Fools Day, I decided to use this time to bring some levity, since I really do not know how many of our parents actually read what I post. With the blessing of our new Director of Strategic Communications and my Head of School, who when giving feedback replied, "
This article is awesome, hilarious, and witty," I thought I would share it with each of you. So enjoy! TGIF! (Names redacted for privacy)
Innovative New Security Launches Monday
Ever since Kinkaid installed its first computer, a Bendix G-15 computer which was donated by the Hudson Engineering Company in 1968, Kinkaid students have been trying to find ways in to use these systems to play the hot new game of that era on these systems. Whether it was the Yatzhee "plague" in 1995, addictinggames.com, miniclip.com, Bomb Jack, Runesscape, Pokemon Go or Roblox, Kinkaid students have always tried to push the limits in using our computing resources for entertainment purposes. As former Director of Computer Studies wrote in 1999 in a Kinkaid Falcon article:
"Game playing at Kinkaid has gotten out of hand. Students and teachers have complained that they were unable to work effectively due to the noise. Because of the complaints, we have banned games on Kinkaid computers."
Ever since then, teachers and administrators have been in a continuous game of Whack-a-Mole with students trying to rein them in and get them focused on academic uses of these systems.
New Partnership Announced
We are pleased to announce a historically unique partnership with the New York Times, Beginning Monday, Kinkaid will be implementing a new security system which forgos the use of passwords and instead will require users of all Kinkaid devices (student, staff, and faculty laptops and iPads) to successfully complete that day's Wordle puzzle in order to log into their school issued device for that day.
In an press release announcing this landmark partnership, Assistant Head of School and Middle School Head shared:
"Now having been at Kinkaid for two years, we decided to give up trying to enforce only academic use of devices since it was a losing effort. When Director of Technology Vinnie Vrotny approached me with this potential partnership, I thought to myself, "yes, instead of trying to fight this menace, we should embrace it and leverage the students' desire to play games, especially this new Wordle craze.
In selecting Wordle to serve as our new password system into our devices, we allow students a chance to indulge their desire to play an academically sound game which will allow all students, from our Pre Kindergarteners to our seniors, an opportunity to expand their vocabularies in the process. Additionally, since this is also a logic puzzle, this will provide opportunities for exercising mathematical and scientific thinking as well. This is truly a win-win for all Kinkaid."
The New York Times has been looking at ways at recouping their investment in Wordle earlier this year and if this is a successful implementation, will be offering this layer of security to other schools and organizations.
Additionally, Kinkaid is currently in the process of finalizing agreements with Nerdle, Worldle, and Heardle to provide alternative options to meet the diverse needs of all of our learners.
When students, faculty, and staff turn on their computers or iPads on Monday, they will be faced with this new login challenge. Users will have the opportunity to work collaboratively to solve the day's puzzle so that they can have the opportunity to use their device for academics or school related purposes for the day, especially in a case like this past Wednesday, when Wordle actually had two correct answers. Another unique feature of this new security system is that it is difficult to hack and will reset daily. We're also looking forward to implementing a new feature that the New York Times has added to this new security system which will allow schools to set themed solutions throughout the year. For instance, we will be able to have a "TALON" day, be able to use "TRICK" and "TREAT" in October, "BRISK" and "EXAMS" in December, and "CWLWM" in February for Welsh Language Music Day in order for Kinkaid's users to access their devices.
While some constituents may express concern about their devices being locked for the day after failing to get the correct word, we have considered this eventuality – if this happens, the New York Times has developed yet another way for Kinkaid for students, faculty and staff to earn a second attempt by completing a recaptcha that requires them to click on all the cells in an image that contain Waldo in them.
But in all Seriousness
If you didn't read last week's Falcon Flyer technology post with reminders on how you can best protect yourself from cybersecurity threats, I encourage all of you to spend the 5 - 15 minutes to review these posts at your earliest convenience:
Be CyberSmart (October 7)
Fight the Phish! (October 15)
Cybersecurity First (October 22)
Special thanks to Kinkaid's archivist and Upper School Technology Coordinator and Computer Science Teacher, for their contributions to this April Fool's Day article
#General------------------------------
Vinnie Vrotny
Director of Technology
The Kinkaid School
vinnie.vrotny@kinkaid.org------------------------------