by A few posts back I posted about my Granddaughter who I cleverly nicknamed “Kevin” after Kevin Mitnick. After her little hacking escapade on her Aunt’s laptop I had a discussion with her about privacy and why we use passwords. But who would think you would have to deal with that at her age. Especially when she is stuck in a special Ed class due to her , well lets say discipline issues.
So the other day she is home, again for a discipline issue, how undisciplined can a nine year old get? So she is home and her father has her doing lessons on line. Since her last instance she had a run of good times being “Citizen of the Day, Week and Month” at school so I reward her with an email address. I monitor the email as it is on my server so I can see what goes on. All looked good. That night I see an email come from her online lesson with a report. I forward it to my son because he told me she can’t go any further on that program. I think okay she is doing fine.
Nope I was wrong. Yesterday I get a report from this site and it has other kids reports (and not hers) and on the second page there are two other names of students but these names are a bit racey, something a 9yr old shouldn’t be saying. So I forward this report to my son and have him ask the school.
If you haven’t guessed it she actually made herself a teacher and attached other students to her class she created and then added two bogus students. I went onto the site and you can easily make yourself a teacher but you need pin numbers of a student to attach yourself to the student as well as that student’s teacher’s email. She does have her teacher’s email (first mistake of the teacher as there are other sites to use for electronic communication between teachers and students). So all she needed was a pin number.
I am still investigating but it makes me wonder how the school teaches the students about acceptable usage. My son did have to sign an AUP when she was enrolled in the district but what does a 9 year old know about acceptable usage?
So now we have to sit her down and have a long talk about this. I have mixed emotions on this as she is bright enough to learn things quickly but I am now scrambling on ways to get her to understand the ramifications of these actions. But it also makes me wonder how the school is handling security and teaching these kids. I guess soon there will be classes for parents on how to do a forensic investigation of your home pc to stay ahead of your kid.